Discovery Workshop

What is a Discovery Workshop?

A Discovery Workshop is a collaborative, intensive engagement where we dive deep into your current technology landscape, business objectives, and challenges. The goal is to emerge with crystal-clear direction and a practical roadmap for improvement.

The Discovery Process

Phase 1: Assessment & Analysis

Stakeholder Interviews

• Engineering leadership discussions
• Developer team feedback sessions
• Product and business stakeholder input
• Customer pain point analysis

Technical Deep Dive

• Architecture review and documentation
• Code quality and technical debt assessment
• Infrastructure and deployment analysis
• Security and compliance evaluation
• Performance and scalability review

Data Gathering

• System metrics and analytics review
• Cost analysis (infrastructure, development, operations)
• Team velocity and efficiency metrics
• Customer feedback and support tickets
• Competitor and market analysis

Phase 2: Strategy & Planning

Solution Design

• Technology recommendations with rationale
• Architecture improvement proposals
• Process optimization suggestions
• Tool and platform evaluations

Roadmap Creation

• Phased implementation plan
• Quick wins vs long-term initiatives
• Resource requirements and team structure
• Prioritized milestone framework
• Budget estimates and ROI projections

Risk & Mitigation

• Technical risks identification
• Migration and transition planning
• Contingency strategies
• Success metrics definition

What You’ll Get

Detailed Documentation

Current State Report (20-30 pages)

• System architecture diagrams
• Technology stack inventory
• Integration mapping
• Data flow documentation
• Security and compliance status

Opportunity Analysis (15-20 pages)

• Identified pain points with impact assessment
• Immediate quick win opportunities
• Medium-term strategic initiatives
• Long-term strategic investments
• Technology modernization recommendations

Technical Roadmap (10-15 pages)

• Phase-by-phase implementation plan
• Dependency mapping and critical path
• Resource allocation recommendations
• Prioritized milestone framework
• Success criteria and KPIs

Financial Analysis

• Current total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Projected costs for recommended solutions
• ROI calculations and payback periods
• Cost-benefit analysis for each initiative
• Budget recommendations

Executive Presentation

We deliver a concise, executive-friendly presentation covering:

• Current state summary and key findings
• Top 3-5 critical opportunities
• Recommended approach and priorities
• Expected outcomes and business impact
• Investment requirements and resource planning

Real-World Applications

E-commerce Platform Scaling

Situation: Mid-sized retailer experiencing slowdowns during peak traffic.

Discovery Findings:

• Monolithic architecture causing deployment bottlenecks
• Database queries causing 2-3 second page loads
• No CDN for static assets
• Manual deployment process taking 2+ hours

Roadmap Created:

1. Immediate priority: Implement CDN and query optimization
2. Short-term priority: Automate deployments with CI/CD
3. Medium-term priority: Extract checkout as microservice
4. Long-term strategy: Full microservices migration

Business Impact: 10x faster page loads, 95% reduction in deployment time, 5x capacity increase.

SaaS Platform Modernization

Situation: 8-year-old B2B SaaS product built on legacy PHP framework.

Discovery Findings:

• Difficult to recruit developers for legacy stack
• Feature development taking 3-4x longer than competitors
• Infrastructure costs 40% higher than industry average
• Technical debt blocking mobile app development

Roadmap Created:

1. Immediate priority: API layer for mobile team to start
2. Short-term priority: Migrate authentication to modern stack
3. Medium-term strategy: Gradual feature migration
4. Long-term vision: Complete platform modernization

Business Impact: Mobile app launched ahead of schedule, 50% reduction in infrastructure costs, developer productivity increased 3x.

Fintech Compliance & Security

Situation: Payment processing startup preparing for Series A funding and compliance audit.

Discovery Findings:

• No formal security audit completed
• PCI DSS compliance gaps identified
• Manual processes for transaction monitoring
• Insufficient disaster recovery procedures

Roadmap Created:

1. Critical priority (pre-funding): Security audit and PCI compliance
2. High priority: Automated fraud detection system
3. Medium priority: Disaster recovery infrastructure
4. Ongoing initiative: Security training and compliance processes

Business Impact: Successfully passed Series A due diligence, reduced fraud by 85%, achieved PCI DSS Level 1 certification.

Who Should Engage?

Perfect For:

• Growing Canadian Businesses: Experiencing 50%+ annual growth and hitting scaling challenges
• Digital Transformation: Legacy systems requiring modernization for Canadian market
• New Technical Leadership: CTOs or VPs Engineering onboarding at Canadian companies
• Pre-Funding: Canadian startups preparing technical due diligence for investors
• Platform Migration: Canadian businesses considering cloud migration or technology stack changes

Signs You Need Discovery:

• “Our system can’t handle the traffic anymore”
• “Development is getting slower and slower”
• “We’re not sure what to prioritize first”
• “Infrastructure costs are spiraling out of control”
• “We can’t find developers for our tech stack”
• “Security and compliance are keeping us up at night”

Engagement Approach

Typical Engagement

• Scope: Tailored to your complexity and needs
• Team Involvement: Strategic input from your key stakeholders
• Deliverables: Comprehensive documentation and analysis
• Follow-up: Executive presentation and Q&A session

What Happens Next?

After the Discovery Workshop, you have complete flexibility:

• Implement recommendations with your internal team
• Engage us for specific high-priority initiatives
• Use the roadmap for hiring and budgeting decisions
• Share findings with investors or board members

No obligation, no pressure—just clear, actionable insights.

Why VantageCraft?

Battle-Tested Experience Our team has scaled platforms from 100K to 100M+ users, modernized decade-old systems, and built from scratch. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t.

Practical, Not Theoretical We provide recommendations we’d actually implement ourselves, not academic best practices that look good on paper but fail in reality.

Business-Focused Technology serves business goals, not the other way around. Our roadmaps prioritize impact, feasibility, and ROI—not tech trends.

Honest Assessment Sometimes the right answer is “don’t change anything yet” or “start smaller.” We tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

Ready to get clarity on your technical direction? Let’s schedule a Discovery Workshop.