Discovery

A Discovery Phase consists of two steps. Step one is creating tangible work from an idea, with a focus on building mutual understanding and trust. Step two follows by turning that tangible work into working software.

Such a phase starts with a business problem. In this phase, trust must be built with the client that the development company is capable of identifying this important business problem in relation to the technical perspective. After this, the development company must prove that they are capable of providing an appropriate solution. This business problem is used to drive the four steps of the Discovery Phase:

Step 1 Business vision
Step 2 Product vision
Step 3 Story Mapping
Step 4 Product Backlog

The four steps in the Discovery Phase in which we adress the business problem:

Step 1

Business vision

A business vision should articulate the message that explains where the company wants to be in x years. It is used as a formal and straightforward way to communicate business goals with others. An example of a business vision from Amazon is: "Our vision is to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online."

Step 2

Product vision

The product vision can also be seen as the mission statement for a product. It answers the following question: What do you want your product to be in x years? When creating the product statement, it is advised to take an ambitious stance but not lose touch with reality. The product vision describes a future state of the product and the problems it seeks to solve or the ambitions it seeks to fulfill.

Step 3

Story Mapping

The story map provides a high-level perspective of what the product needs to do primarily. It is then broken down into the priority axis and the user story axis. The priority axis is defined by prioritizing business problems/opportunities written in functionality groups based on added business value. In short, user story mapping is a visualization of the journey a customer goes through with a product, from beginning to end. It includes all the tasks they typically complete as part of that journey. To dig deeper, user story mapping takes all your user stories (across all persona types) and assigns them to epics in the order that delivers the most value to the customer. From there, stories are prioritized and assigned to releases.

Step 4

Product Backlog

The product vision combined with the output of story mapping provides input for the first iteration of the product backlog. The backlog contains all epics with their corresponding user stories. The initial version [for sprint 1] looks more like backlog items instead of fully developed user stories. However, this is still input for a first sprint design. Later in the process, the backlog will mature through refinement and grow in size.