Resource Discovery questionnaire
Six areas, five questions each, the same questionnaire we use in paid discovery engagements. Currently shared on request, the annotated public version is in progress.
Most WordPress projects fail because the requirements were assumed instead of asked. The questionnaire below covers the 30 questions that, in our experience, surface the gaps before they become surprises. Use it yourself, share it with vendors, or let us run a discovery against it.
What is inside
Every question is open-ended. The questionnaire takes 60 to 90 minutes to fill out thoughtfully. The output is a discovery brief you can share with any vendor.
01
Five questions about why this project, why now, what business outcome you measure success by, what it would mean to fail, what it would mean to ship six months late. The "why" matters more than the "what."
Vendors quote against goals, not feature lists.
02
Five questions about who uses the product, what jobs they hire it for, how they get there today, what would make them switch from the current solution. Surface the user reality before the design reality.
Engineering decisions stay tied to user reality.
03
Five questions about your current WordPress install, hosting, integrations, traffic, peak load, recent issues. Surface the technical context that shapes everything downstream.
No surprise dependencies discovered in week three.
04
Five questions about must-have versus should-have versus nice-to-have. What is the smallest version that ships value. What can wait for phase two. Force-rank the feature list before the budget conversation.
Phase one ships, phase two stays optional.
05
Five questions about budget range, timeline, regulatory requirements, brand guidelines, accessibility commitments, security requirements. The constraints shape the solution as much as the requirements do.
Quotes match your reality, not vendor templates.
06
Five questions about who decides, who approves, who signs, when you decide, how you compare proposals. Vendors who know the decision process write better proposals.
Better proposals from vendors who know the timeline.
Fill out the questionnaire as a team. Engineering, product, marketing, operations all contribute to different sections. Take 60 to 90 minutes. Share the completed questionnaire with vendors when you send the RFP. Vendors who can quote against the questionnaire are vendors who can quote accurately.
The annotated public version is in progress. The current internal version is shared on request and goes out within four business hours. If you want us to facilitate the questionnaire as part of a paid discovery, that is part of every discovery engagement we run.
A real discovery engagement. The questionnaire surfaces the right questions. Discovery surfaces the right answers. Both are valuable. Customers who run the questionnaire and then engage discovery get the best outcomes.
Common questions
Five questions per area, six areas. We have tried longer questionnaires and shorter ones. Thirty is the count that surfaces the gaps without creating questionnaire fatigue. It usually takes 60 to 90 minutes to fill out thoughtfully.
Yes. The questionnaire is the same one we use in our paid discoveries. If you want to share it with multiple vendors and use the responses to compare, that is a fine use. We share the questionnaire on request.
We are still finalizing the public version with annotated examples for each question. The current version is shared on request and goes out within four business hours.
Then say so. The unanswered questions become the discovery agenda. Vendors will quote a discovery to surface the missing information before quoting the implementation.
Need the questionnaire now?
Current internal version goes out within four business hours of request.
