WHY WOULD YOU NEED A DISCOVERY WORKSHOP?
Do you have a great idea for a digital product but are not sure where to get started? Or are you not sure if the idea is feasible? Would you like to gain more insight into that idea but without breaking the bank and investing too much money during these uncertain times?
You can get answers (and much more) to all of these questions by simply doing a discovery workshop.
A discovery workshop is the first step in the process of developing any new digital product. The purpose of the discovery workshop is to understand your business idea, define the goals, functionalities, and target audience, and to identify the possible obstacles that might occur.
It is also recommended to conduct a discovery workshop even for ongoing projects, especially if a new vendor is about to take over the project.
The discovery process is a must because a shared understanding of all the aspects of the project is needed for you to get the desired solution.
Learn more about the benefits of the discovery workshops here and keep reading to find out how we organize the discovery process at UHP.
WHAT DOES THE PROCESS LOOKS LIKE AT UHP?
We divide the discovery process into 3 phases:
1. PRE-WORKSHOP: Preparation is everything
Before we start the actual workshop, preparation is needed, both from our side and from your side.
We usually ask you to prepare a presentation with some relevant info about your company, your product, and the goals you would like to achieve. That way, we will understand you better and make sure everyone is on the same page.
As from our side, we undertake a thorough investigation of the aspects that will help us understand your idea and prepare the agenda.
After we collect all the information, we create an agenda with all the relevant documents, steps, and topicsto be discussed during the workshop. We send you the agenda prior to the workshop so that we all come prepared.
2. THE WORKSHOP PHASE: Together towards the goal
First, let us go over the set up of the discovery workshop:
- The actual discovery workshop is done either online or on-site. We have experience in both but recently conducting the workshops online has become the standard.
Rest assured that this online approach is equally effective as the on-site one.
- As for the number of people involved, all stakeholders should take part in the workshop, as well as the person who will be in charge of the product.
Ideally, around 2-4 people from your side is an optimal number in order to not have too many conflicting perspectives.
As from our side, the project manager, the designer, and the tech lead in charge of the feasibility of the product will always take part in the workshop.
- How long do the workshops last? It depends on the project. All of the workshops are tailor-made to fit your specific needs.
If it is a smaller project that does not require a lot of planning, the discovery process can be done in 2 days.
However, if you have a large, more complex project in mind, we customize the workshop in order to cover all the important aspects.
This means that we can have breaks after each day of the workshop so that every participant can reflect on what we have covered the previous day and think about what else should be covered.
As for the duration of the daily workshops, they usually last for around 6 hours which is just enough to cover everything planned on the agenda without it being too exhausting.
- What tools do we use? We use Teams for videoconferencing and Miro for collaboration.
Miro is a collaborative whiteboard that serves as a great substitute for the on-site whiteboards. Each participant gets access to it and can sketch, draw their ideas, or vote. Here's what it looks like:
Let us move to the actual flow of the workshop.
- We start the workshop by letting everyone express their expectations so we can make sure that nothing will be neglected by the end of the discovery process.
- After you give us a short presentation about your project, we all have a better understanding of the project and are able to visualize and outline your product requirements.
- We then continue by talking about the potential users who would be interested in your product and mapping user personas. Creating an overview of the characteristics of the user types and defining their behaviour, environment, and their thoughts is important for discussing user scenarios.
- We discuss the situations in which the potential users would use certain features of your product by drawing the situations in a form of a comic. Mapping the user journey is helpful for creating the architecture proposal that follows later on.
- The next step is to review all the ideas and choose the most necessary features that will be included in the MVP scope.
- We then define what needs to be implemented for the first phase of each feature. We do that by sketching feature flows, giving feedback to each other, voting, and making the final decision on the proposed flows.
3. POST-WORKSHOP: Deliverables and next steps
By the end of the workshop, you will get:
- Clearly defined goals and business expectations
- Overview of the target users and their preferences
- The customer journey overview and user behaviour
- The clearly defined design process, MVP scope, roadmap, and the architecture proposal
We make each workshop tailor-made because no two projects are the same. All of the activities are adjusted to fit your needs and your expectations.
FAQ’s ABOUT THE DISCOVERY WORKSHOPS
To make sure you have all the necessary info about our discovery process, take a look at some of the FAQ’s we usually get from our clients before they decide on the discovery workshop:
1. Is the workshop really necessary? Can we skip it?
We definitely don’t advise skipping this phase. The workshop is an instrument ensuring we start the project with all the right information and directives, not just assumptions.
Without all the right information, project estimates can increase from 30% to 50%!
The workshop helps us define the scope of the project, provides a good starting point for the development and points out the most needed functionalities.
Overall, the effort spent on the discovery workshop will save you money and time in the long run.
2. Do we have to develop the product with you if we did the discovery workshop with you?
No, you can decide on doing only the workshop with us and you are not obliged to anything else. However, we are proud to say this is really seldom the case and we continue the journey from the workshop to a successful project together with our clients.
3. How does the agenda looks like?
The agenda for each workshop is custom-made because every project is unique. When creating the agenda, we consider your expectations and needs and include all the pre-documentation, steps, and topics that will be touched upon during the workshop.
Still unsure how the discovery workshop looks like for your project and what to do next? In that case, we suggest hopping on a free team call with our experts where we talk about your vision and advise you how to proceed with making it come to life as a successful digital product.
19 Nov 2020