The importance of discovery

It’s been an especially crazy couple of weeks at Hiebing–and that’s a good thing. Last week we launched our new website, we’re in the midst of a steady mix of ongoing work and everyone in the office is busy kicking off new assignments.

In the beginning stages of any new project, it’s very natural to want to dive in and begin work as soon as possible, skipping over all the uncertainties and unanswered questions that might  be lingering. No other phase, however, is more crucial in determining the ultimate success of a project than this preliminary discovery phase. This is the step when we help clients define project goals that will be used to measure the project’s success post-launch.

For all of our Interactive projects, we go through an extensive discovery process designed to define and prioritize these goals.  This process includes questionnaires designed to gather key information from project stakeholders. Though perhaps not as blunt as the Seth Godin’s “Things to Ask before You Redo Your Website,” our questionnaires—and the entire discovery process—give all our client’s projects an auspicious start.