The Importance of eCommerce Project Planning and Discovery

A thorough and well-documented discovery process is critical for a project’s success.

In the early stages of working with an eCommerce agency, you’ll be part of an in-depth project discovery and planning phase.

This is no simple strategizing.

Rather, it’s a deep-dive into your business.

What does this mean?

For one, a successful project discovery means that both teams feel confident about the goals of the project, the project’s stakeholders, the scope of work involved, and the success criteria.

After all, tech projects like website builds or migrations are investments that can carry significant risk as well as opportunity for a business—successfully addressing business goals can increase revenue, reduce costs, and save time.

It’s the responsibility of your eCommerce agency to ensure that a client’s projects are successful. At Shero, we know from more than a decade of experience that the best way to ensure success is to analyze the business goals and technical needs prior to beginning an implementation. Here are some of our reccommendations.

What Happens During a Discovery Phase?

A discovery phase (also referred to as strategic discovery or digital discovery) is an early-stage consultation that eventually leads to a larger project scope.

The purpose of a discovery phase is to reduce or eliminate risk during the project, saving both time and money by avoiding costly mistakes.

Discovery occurs through a series of conversations between our teams that results in written documentation of the findings. A well-executed discovery phase will focus on documenting both business requirements and technical requirements, with the final goal of establishing a professional recommendation for your business’s needs.

Business Requirements Documentation

Technology is ephemeral—just look at how quickly it changes, or how many solutions can be applied to solve a problem.

Sometimes technology is not needed at all, and a change in processes will achieve a better result. For these reasons, the ability to understand, diagnose, and solve new business problems will always be more important than the application of a specific technology.

You don’t pay technologists for the creation and application of technology, you pay only to solve your business problems.

As an eCommerce agency, our responsibility is to recognize and understand business problems before we attempt to solve them.

During discovery, together we’ll define the goals of the project and uncover pain points by meeting with stakeholders from your team, such as the eCommerce manager, customer support, fulfillment, marketing, and business development, and others.

By conducting these interviews, we secure a better understanding of your business and become better equipped to address your needs, while you are challenged to think more deeply about the obstacles you face.

The result of this process is clear, concise, formal documentation of the success criteria for the project, based on business needs.

Because success is defined by a positive customer experience leading to growth of your store, this process may also include user research, the creation of user personas, and user testing. 

By doing so, it allows both our team and your brand to narrow down who exactly your target user is and how you can serve them best. In the same vein, it also allows you to do a competitive analysis and an analytics audit.

Technical Requirements

If your needs are complex, technical architects can help to define any complex needs in your strategy.

We apply our technical expertise to your goals as we create recommendations for platform selection, systems architecture, apps and extensions, custom features, systems integrations, and data migration.

As we explore these options, we discuss them with you and formalize our recommendations within written documentation. These specs form the basis of our proposed project plan, serving as blueprints of our recommended approach.

Here’s an example of an actual planning sheet we use, that you can use to plan your next eCommerce project.

Benefits of Formal Discovery

Design is not the solution—it is the process. 

Solutions are found through the combined efforts of an organization in need, and a subject matter expert who can offer solutions that may not have occurred to your team. Often clients will come to us self-diagnosed and self-prescribed, seeking specific solutions. In these instances, it is our obligation as professionals to validate these assumptions.

Effectiveness and Efficiency

The process of defining and documenting goals, objectives, requirements, and feature specifications give both our team and yours a better understanding of the project. That is the true value of this discovery and planning process. This prior planning sets expectations with both teams before implementation begins. Knowing what to expect leads to better outcomes and increased efficiency.

Focus on Goals

There is no right way to do the wrong thing. A project that fails to address business needs will not be considered a success, even if it is completed on time, within budget, and to specifications. 

Sure, there may be constraints on time and budget. But success is truly achieved when the outcomes directly address your business needs. An expert advisor should give insight.

By establishing a focused strategy and clearly defining the underlying objectives for a project, through a discovery and planning phase, we protect the project from distraction and misguided or uneducated decision making during implementation.

Considers User Needs

One of my favorite interview questions is: What role of a project is most vital in determining the project’s success? There are many good answers to that question, but I believe the only correct answer is: the user.

You know your business and we bring the expert perspective on industry best practices. However, even with our guidance, if you have not conducted user research, assumptions about your users may be wrong.

Performing user research during the discovery phase can help avoid the expensive mistake of defining specifications without an understanding of the user’s wants and needs, and investing in designs or functionality that users do not respond to.

Better Solutions

Discovery leads to better solutions because it allows us to provide recommendations based on an understanding of underlying business goals. These may be solutions that you would be unaware of and may not even realize are possible. Often, these solutions will be cheaper and produce better results than a self-prescribed solution.

The Cost of Discovery

A typical discovery and planning phase costs between 5–10% of the overall project. This process protects the investment.

In the long run, better planning leads to less expensive projects for a variety of reasons.

First, the recommended solutions are more thoughtful and accurate, leading to fewer mistakes.

Second, having a plan to follow makes implementation more efficient and less chaotic.

Third, a detailed list of specifications and requirements allows us to offer a fixed price, which gives you cost certainty and reduces your risk.

Surely, there will be agencies peddling “cheaper” products which omit a formal discovery process. You must ask yourself:

• If we’re not doing an in-depth discovery and planning process, can we trust the accuracy of the quote?
• Are we confident that this agency truly understands our needs?
• Can we trust that the proposed solutions address our goals?
• If not, do we believe a project, without discovery, will truly be “cheaper” long-term?

Interested in a Planning Project?

If you think you could benefit from an eCommerce Planning project, we are here for you! Contact us.

Is a Discovery Phase Necessary?

You may need discovery if any of the following statements describe you:

• I am not sure which technology is best for my project.
• My team has not defined my technical and business requirements.
• We have not established a budget for my project.
• I have not performed user research or defined user personas.
• We know there’s a problem, but don’t know what the source of the problem is.
• I need the outside perspective of an expert to help me accomplish my business goals.
• Our internal stakeholders cannot come to a consensus.
• I’ve written an RFP without first engaging an expert consultant.
• I want cost certainty, via a fixed price, and an accurate timeline estimation for my project.
• I want to reduce risk to ensure a successful project.

If you think any of these statements describe you, contact us to speak about Project Discovery and Planning. We are ready to guide you on your digital journey.