When developing a new product, it’s tempting to dive right into the technical details. But, taking shortcuts in discovery will only lead to dead ends and require backtracking, which costs both time and money. The discovery phase allows the development team to understand why they are developing the product, which dramatically increases the quality and efficiency of the entire product design cycle. Your project plan should devote a minimum of 3 weeks to discovery, and possibly more, depending on the complexity of the project.