Do I have to build with you afterwards?

No. Discovery produces a scope you own. You can take it to any development team, or use it to decide not to build anything at all — which is sometimes the right answer.

How long does discovery take?

It depends on how many people touch the process and how much of it is undocumented. We tell you the shape of it after the first conversation, once we know how wide the process actually runs.

Is this the same as writing requirements?

A requirements document lists what someone asked for. Discovery works out whether those requests solve the problem, what they cost, and which of them can wait. The document is the output, not the job.

We already know what we want built. Do we still need this?

If your scope is settled and priced, no. It is worth doing when different people in the business would describe the system differently, because that difference surfaces during the build otherwise, and it is far more expensive there.

Who needs to be involved from our side?

The people who do the work daily, not only the people who manage it. The gap between those two accounts of a process is usually where the real problem is.

Product strategy and discovery in Malaysia

Most of a software budget is decided before anyone writes code. Discovery is the part where you work out what the system has to do, what it deliberately will not do, and what that is worth — while changing your mind is still free.

Tell us your problem

You might need this if

You know something is wrong but not what should be built
Quotes vary wildly because nobody has agreed the scope
Every department wants something different from the same system
A previous build stalled because the requirements kept moving
You need a plan and a number before you can ask for a budget

What discovery usually covers

Every business is different, but the questions that decide whether a build succeeds are usually the same ones.

How the work runs today, step by step, including the workarounds
Who does what, and where information gets re-entered by hand
What the software must change, and what is fine as it is
The scope of a first phase, and what waits for a later one
The shape of the system — the main screens and how they connect
A plan detailed enough to price and to argue with

Why the workarounds are the requirements

When we ask how a process works, we usually get the official version first. The real one comes out later: the spreadsheet someone keeps on the side, the message thread where approvals actually happen, the person everyone asks when the system will not do the thing.

Those workarounds are not noise. They are the requirements, written by the people who do the work, in the only language available to them. A system that replaces the official process but not the workarounds simply adds a seventh thing to keep updated.

So discovery goes looking for them deliberately, and the scope that comes out of it is shaped around what the business actually does rather than what the org chart says it does.

Deciding what is not in phase one

The hardest part of a scope is not listing what the system should do. It is agreeing what it will not do yet.

We sort every request into what the business cannot operate without, what would help once people are using it, and what turned out to be an assumption nobody had tested. The third group is usually the largest, and setting it aside is what makes a first phase affordable.

Nothing is thrown away. The list stays, and real usage decides what comes next.

How it works

01
We sit with the work
We go through the process as it actually runs, with the people who run it, including the parts held together by hand.
02
We agree what changes
What the software has to fix, what it should leave alone, and what a first phase has to cover to be worth building.
03
You get a scope you can price
The shape of the system, the phase one list, and what was deliberately left out — enough to commission the build, from us or from anyone.

Read the full process, step by step

01
Do I have to build with you afterwards?
No. Discovery produces a scope you own. You can take it to any development team, or use it to decide not to build anything at all — which is sometimes the right answer.
02
How long does discovery take?
It depends on how many people touch the process and how much of it is undocumented. We tell you the shape of it after the first conversation, once we know how wide the process actually runs.
03
Is this the same as writing requirements?
A requirements document lists what someone asked for. Discovery works out whether those requests solve the problem, what they cost, and which of them can wait. The document is the output, not the job.
04
We already know what we want built. Do we still need this?
If your scope is settled and priced, no. It is worth doing when different people in the business would describe the system differently, because that difference surfaces during the build otherwise, and it is far more expensive there.
05
Who needs to be involved from our side?
The people who do the work daily, not only the people who manage it. The gap between those two accounts of a process is usually where the real problem is.

How we work
The steps between the first conversation and software people use every day.
Read our process
Custom software development
What happens after the scope is agreed and the build begins.
See custom software development

Most often built for

Not sure what should be built yet?

Tell us what is going wrong in the business. We will help you work out whether software is the answer, and what it would have to do.

Tell us your problem

Product strategy and discovery in Malaysia

You might need this if

What discovery usually covers

Why the workarounds are the requirements

Deciding what is not in phase one

How it works

We sit with the work

We agree what changes

You get a scope you can price

Questions we get asked