If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. This brilliant observation by Lewis Carroll strongly applies in software projects. Projects that don’t start out with a clear product vision will end up being less effective and sometimes useless. This eventually costs you more when you have to pay for rewriting large parts of the software or making adjustments that should have been first time right.

One of CodeByZ’s main strengths is our ability to provide extensive analysis of the product-wise aspects of the software project, not just the software aspects. We look at the product use-cases, its usability, and end/border conditions in an orderly and structured manner. This allows us to raise the right questions and red flags at the right time — before the software is written — so that we can provide cost-effective, alternative approaches to resolve any concerns and implement the right solutions.

In almost all cases our clients discover, as part of the process, that there are important aspects that were not thought of and addressed in the original requirements/request. Addressing all the right questions in advance results in a product design with higher business value, sometimes at a lower overall cost.

CodeByZ offers product management consultancy services to clients who have their own software development team, yet need assistance with professionally analyzing their required/planned product solution and properly formalizing the product working documentation (MRD, PRD).

Requirements Collection

We begin by collecting all known requirements from the client, both technical and product-related. All requirements are written down in their raw form.

The end delivery of this stage is a basic requirements document.

Requirements Analysis and Completion

At this stage we start analyzing all requirements, enhance them as needed, and make note of any additional aspects that might not have been thought of, as well as any product risks, concerns and assumptions we detect.

This is an iterative process in which we meet with the client and perform a few rounds of further questioning and raising of proposed approaches and solutions for addressing issues, concerns and risks we detect that must be handled.

At the end of this stage we have a thorough and prioritized list of product requirements that address the client’s business needs and deliver the most value.

Breakdown and Formalization

In this concluding step, we perform a final analysis and break down the requirements into workable delivery packages (or product phases / product milestones), producing the final working documents, namely a PRD document(s) and (if required) MRD document(s).

The first proposed milestone in most cases is the MVP (minimum viable product – the product with the highest return on investment versus risk for the client). Following milestones include additional features and/or modules that add further value to the overall product, and are prioritized according to their essentiality and client preferences (i.e. go to market plans of particular features).

The end product is a set of concise, detailed, clear product roadmap documents that can be immediately executed by any professional software team, with no loose ends or place for personal interpretation.