The Importance of Discovery Process & Workshops
A discovery session is a great way to get everyone on the same page and understand what needs to be done, what the project goals are, and what everyone's expectations are.
These sessions are essential because they help inform the rest of the process and help everyone involved feel invested and excited about what's happening. It might seem like a lot of time to spend on something when you could start on the project immediately, but trust me, it's worth it.
Our Discovery Workshops help us:
- Gain a deeper understanding of the user problems to help create the best possible solution.
- Align our teams with a common goal and shared understanding of the problems.
- Innovate together to create better solutions.
- Validate the proposed solution.
Depending on our customer needs depends on the process of the discovery workshop. Some of our customers want a quick reference to start a project, while others need more information about the customer environment to help them better understand user needs.
We are fully customer-centric and want to challenge our customers to understand their goals and the journey to get there fully. To do that, we challenge our customers on what is essential for them and why they want to achieve specific goals. We sit with our customers and team and spend time defining the road map and process to reach the final destination. Many of Spark's team will help you in these sessions, depending on your end goals. It could be teams from commercial, UX, data scientists or engineers. Coming together from different technical backgrounds and mindsets allows us to cover all aspects of the project before continuing.
Another reason the discovery stage is vital is that we need to ensure that your product can be built in a security-first way, allowing for us to make minimal changes during the process because, in the long run, that can cost more money. So we set up every step and plan so pesky surprises don't catch us out.
When you work with Spark on one of your projects, one of your first contact points will be our Commercial Manager, Blanca Arboli. She is deeply passionate about not diving head first into projects without finding out the suitable needs first:
"We believe in using data, not assumptions, to move our projects forward. When developing a new product, the discovery phase is a critical part of designing winning products. We work collaboratively with you and your team to identify the proper requirements and ensure that the right design decisions are based on data (not assumptions). This helps you keep your project on time and within budget. This is where Spark differs from other consultancies, as the design is at the forefront of our mindset and not an afterthought. So many built products go wrong when people don't consider the discovery phase, and then there's a need for retrofitting, which never ends well!"
Some consultancies say yes to everything and give a proposal without knowing what the customer needs. We do the opposite. Another vital person you will deal with on your project is our CTO, Tom Trolez. He explains why the discovery stage is an essential aspect of your journey.
“Contrary to the common approach which fosters technology, at Spark, we look first at what will bring value to our customer, understand the users and the why it is important to do them. Then we design a product-oriented solution that fulfils the business needs, blending data and knowledge and using the relevant technology.
Technology is a means to an end. The discovery session is all about thinking before building and focusing on understanding what is important and why. This helps to make the right choice to drive our customers business forward while mitigating risks and managing costs.”
