Digital Product Strategy
What to Define Before Commissioning Custom Software
A practical framework for defining the problem, users, workflows, integrations and acceptance criteria before development starts.
Custom software creates value when it removes a real operational bottleneck. Start with the current job, actor, input and failure—not a long feature list.
Roles and permissions
Document who can view, edit and approve each record. A permission matrix reduces security risk and rework.
Workflows, data and integrations
Trace the most frequent scenarios, record states, exceptions, each system of record, external API constraints and outage behavior. Treat data migration as its own mapped and tested activity.
Acceptance and quality
Define observable outcomes, response targets, supported devices, accessibility, security events and recovery behavior. These belong in the definition of done.
A lower-risk roadmap
A short discovery, interactive prototype and small vertical slice expose ambiguity early. The first release should deliver one useful end-to-end workflow.