Key Elements of Impactful Project Discovery Proposals

By Reena Tripathi, Senior Director, Account Management at Material

After investing time and effort on a discovery proposal, the last thing you want to hear is a “no.” To convert your prospects into clients, your proposal needs to demonstrate a high-level understanding of their business, eliminate the need for guesswork on their part and, most important, focus on the problems they are facing or may face soon.

Let’s explore the essentials of an effective project discovery proposal and the basic concepts of the software project discovery phase.

What Is Software Project Discovery?

In this context, discovery entails involving key stakeholders to gather and analyze the information about a new product or software to help understand its goals, vision, scope, limitations and usage. Software project discovery defines the needs of the business, the challenges associated with the project and budgeting.

Why Discovery Matters

The discovery phase is generally a key milestone to complete before proceeding with the next steps of a project’s development. Discovery is important because it:

• Helps align stakeholders on scope, goals and vision.

• Ensures a better strategy, faster time-to-market and higher ROI by determining the MVP (minimum viable product) features and nonfunctional requirements.

• Saves money by eliminating costly and low-priority features from the initial development.

• It helps identify blockers, risks, dependencies and limitations well in advance so that team members can take corrective action at a very early stage.

• Enables decision-making based on evidence rather than assumptions.

Consequences of Improper Discovery

Failing to conduct the discovery phase properly can lead to increased costs and missed deadlines. If you’re preparing for the discovery phase of your project, here are few tips to make it successful:

• Choose people with the right skills to participate in the discovery.

• Prepare a list of questions for stakeholders and end users.

• Determine the duration of discovery — for example, two, four or six weeks — based on the project’s complexity and size.

• Follow a defined process for the discovery phase.

• Involve all relevant stakeholders throughout the entire process.

• Identify person to record meeting minutes and track all activities, agreements and sign-offs from the stakeholders.

What to Include in Your Discovery Proposal

A winning project discovery proposal should include the following sections:

1. Challenges

Outline the key challenges and business problems the client aims to resolve. For instance, a client might be unhappy with the limitations of the current CMS and the technical debt it has accumulated in terms of scalability and maintenance. Perhaps they are dissatisfied with the front-end or back-end user experience, are on a platform no longer supported by the community (e.g. older Drupal versions) or want a complete UI/UX upgrade — or all of the above.

2. Discovery Process Workflow

The discovery process workflow can be broken down into the following components:

• Define Prerequisites. Identify key prerequisites and kick-start with pre-discovery to capture business problems and challenges.

• Discovery Scope and Agenda Calendar. Define discovery scope, and set a calendar agenda – in collaboration with stakeholders – for the full duration of the initiative.

• Designate Team. Assign a team with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Designate a client product owner/point of contact with defined roles and responsibilities.

• Define Outcomes and Designate Owners. Certain artifacts of the discovery process will be considered discovery deliverables.

3. Discovery Prerequisites

Before discovery starts, list key prerequisites to make the discovery period more effective. Here are a few examples:

4. Discovery Outcomes

It is vital to define discovery outcomes upfront to align stakeholder expectations. Below are examples of suggested deliverables and outcomes:

5. Team Structure and Individual Roles and Responsibilities

Identify the people proficient in performing the various tasks necessary for the discovery phase. Assign defined roles and responsibilities for each team member to provide clarity and alignment, and establish expectations up front. Consider the following examples of roles and responsibilities:

6. Roles and Responsibilities of Client Product Owner 

Below is an example of the product owner’s roles and responsibilities from the client’s end:

• Co-owner of backlog along with vendor product owner

• Provides sign-off on product backlog

• Helps define calendar for the duration of the discovery and ensures all client stakeholders adhere to calendar

• Secures sign-offs from all internal stakeholders

• Negotiates expectations among internal stakeholders

7. Define Cost, Duration, Terms and Conditions

The discovery scope, team composition and duration determine the discovery budget. When presenting a budget, it is important to include terms and conditions to clarify details such as payment timelines. This will ensure the client is fully informed from the outset and there are no surprises later.

Unlock the Value of Project Discovery

The discovery phase is crucial for the success of your project. Though it may seem like an unnecessary step, it is an investment that pays off. Once the discovery phase is completed and the results look promising, you can move on to designing your product and building and testing your MVP – confident that you’ve built a strong foundation for success.

Our clients have experienced firsthand the benefits of a thorough, expertly-planned discovery phase. If you’re ready to implement your ideas or scale your business, reach out to team Material for an impactful consultation, meaningful discovery and a successful project.