We have a digital product idea: what should we check before development starts?

“Ready to develop” does not mean “we have a feature list”

A topic can look ready simply because:

• an idea was validated in a meeting;
• mock-ups exist;
• a development quote is available;
• the main features have been listed.

Yet it sometimes takes a single question to discover that the people involved do not yet agree on the problem to solve. The cost of a wrong call at this stage is not only what you are going to build. It is also everything the team will not do in the meantime.

A typical situation

A topic looks ready: the main features are listed, a development team is available and first mock-ups exist. Then a simple question comes up: which user problem exactly are we trying to solve?

If the answers differ depending on who is around the table, the project is not yet ready from a product perspective, even if it is technically ready to build. Scoping exists precisely to surface this kind of disagreement before it turns into code.

Seven things to check before launching

1. The need

What problem are you trying to solve? Is it really the root cause, rather than a more visible symptom? Is it important enough for the user to change something in their current behaviour?

2. The users

Who are you building for first? “All our customers” is rarely a segment you can use to make decisions.

3. The risks

What could make the project useless or impossible? Market, regulation, technology, data, adoption, business model: not all risks are tested in the same way.

4. The journey

What happens for the user before, during and after their interaction with the product? Starting directly with screens often means overlooking what happens between them or outside the product.

5. The dependencies

Does the product depend on an API, a business tool, data, a partner, an internal process or a regulatory decision? These dependencies sometimes determine the order of the project.

6. The data

What will you need to measure once the product is live? If that question only comes up after launch, it may already be too late to instrument certain decisions properly.

7. The order of learning

You do not need to know everything. You need to know which assumption could invalidate the most work if it turned out to be wrong. That is the one to test first.

What about mock-ups?

They can be part of scoping, but they do not replace it. Before designing a screen in detail, you need to know:

• when it comes into play;
• what the user is trying to accomplish there;
• what they already know;
• what they are being asked for;
• what happens next.

A mock-up can create an impression of progress while the key decisions remain open.

What 5LEGS offers

Several formats exist depending on what is missing:

• Pre-development Product Diagnosis: €3,500 excl. VAT;
• Customer Journey Workshop: €3,500 excl. VAT;
• Product Vision Scoping: €2,800 excl. VAT;
• Roadmap Scoping: €2,800 excl. VAT.

The start date is agreed together after purchase. Each service takes on average between 4 and 8 working days once started.

For a more complete project, La Bonne Direction, at €12,000 excl. VAT over around 90 days, brings together diagnosis, vision, positioning, roadmap, user journeys and the other elements needed for a launch.

In short

Scoping is not about predicting everything that will happen. It is about making the key decisions before the first line of code, while they are still easier and cheaper to change.