How to prepare a web application project before the first line of code
The most expensive mistakes in IT projects are made before development even starts. Here are the decisions worth making during discovery so your application ships faster, cheaper and without nasty surprises.
Most projects that blow their budget or deadline do not have a code problem. They have a problem with decisions nobody made at the start. Good discovery does not have to take months — a few workshops and well-documented agreements are usually enough. Below are the questions we ask our clients before we start building a web application.
1. Which business problem are we solving?
“We need a customer portal” is not a goal yet. A goal is, for example, cutting order handling time in half or reducing the number of calls asking about order status. A measurable goal lets you judge later whether the project succeeded, and it makes it easier to reject features that improve nothing.
2. Who will use the system?
A sales rep in the field, an accountant at a desk and a B2B customer have completely different needs. Describe the roles, their most frequent tasks and the devices they use. This drives the interface design, the permission model and whether the application must work well on a phone.
3. What goes into the first version?
The MVP scope should cover the shortest path to the first real value for users. Every other idea goes into the backlog with a clear priority. That way the first version reaches people in weeks rather than a year, and the next modules are shaped by real feedback.
4. Which systems do we need to integrate with?
ERP, accounting software, CRM, payment gateways, e-invoicing, couriers — integrations are often the largest part of the work and the biggest risk. We check API availability, rate limits and documentation quality early. A single broken integration can stall the entire schedule.
5. The requirements people forget
Performance, security, GDPR, backups, accessibility (WCAG) and the maintenance model are the so-called non-functional requirements. They rarely appear in the first brief, yet they have a huge impact on architecture and cost. It is far better to agree on them up front than to retrofit them after launch.
6. Who makes the decisions?
A project needs someone on the client side who knows the processes and can approve decisions quickly. The lack of a product owner is one of the most common causes of delays — the team waits for answers while costs keep growing.
Summary
Good discovery is not bureaucracy; it is how you avoid rewriting the application a year from now. The workshops should produce a description of goals, roles, MVP scope, integrations and technical requirements — together with an estimate and a phased schedule. If you are planning a new system, we will gladly guide you through the process.