.webp)
There are many reasons why product discovery is a critical step before writing any code. By mapping out your product, you can save yourself a lot of time and money in the long run.
Here are ten advantages of road mapping before starting development:
1. Brainstorm with profesionals that have already done this before.
You get to brainstorm your idea with professionals that have created hundreds of digital products before yours, this allows you to get a sense of what is possible and what isn't, what features are must-haves, and which ones can be left for later versions.
2. Grow your idea beyond your initial concept.
Doing several brainstorming sessions (or discovery sessions as we like to call them) allows your original idea to grow beyond your initial concept. This is possible because the team will ask you challenging questions and give ideas and feedback that will likely result in new or improved features.
3. Understand what technology is needed.
You will also understand what technology is needed to bring your product to life and if any show-stoppers might make development extremely difficult. Knowing this early on could save you months of development time and money.
4. Get to a well defiend project scope.
Additionally, you will get a clear picture of the project's scope and what needs to happen to complete your goal. This will help prevent scope creep, which is when the product's scope starts to grow uncontrollably and becomes too large for the original budget or timeline.
5. Avoid rework.
Rework is one of the most expensive activities in software development. By doing proper road-mapping, you reduce the risk of rework by 90%!
6. Removes the need of having endless meetings to explain your project over and over.
You will have a detailed document that explains what your product does and how it does it. With this information, the UI/UX designer will create high-fidelity images to show you exactly what your product will look like.
7. Emulate how your app will look before writting any line of code.
In the design phase, you can have a clickable prototype that will mimic the look and feel of the real thing. Imagine you could try out your digital product before actually writing any line of code!
8. Show it to your investors before creating it.
Are you looking for investors? With the clickable prototype, you can better convey your idea and show them how the actual thing will work.
9. Detailed statement of work.
If you have created a digital product before, you probably know all about estimation errors, imprecise timelines, huge cost differences between the estimated cost and the actual cost. The reality is that some agencies will try to give you generic proposals, leaving many details open to interpretation. They do this to win you business, they know it will take more time and cost more, but when it happens, they go, "Hey, what you are asking was not detailed in the statement of work, we need to estimate it as a change, and it will cost more." Engaging in product discovery can avoid that by simply adding the requirements document and the final design to the contract as part of the statement of work.
.jpg)
10. Apps that had a discovery process, are built faster then the rest.
Faster development times, believe it or not, management, rework, and much back and forth between you and the team are among the leading causes for development to take longer and cost more. With a proper requirement document and design specification, the development team will have all of their answers already responded to. There is no time wasted between the team asking something and you taking time to think about the right way of doing it. It is all already sorted out. And yes, of course, there will be questions, and of course, there will be things left behind. Still, it will be nothing compared to what it could be if you rushed into development without a product discovery.
11. Bonus
This one is extra! If you create the product discovery with us and decide to continue into the development phase, the price of the discovery package will count as a credit to your total cost.