“Digital transformation” isn’t just a buzzword anymore.

Some companies treat it as a buzzword and nothing more. They talk about digital transformation without having any real digital transformation initiatives. These are likely the same companies that talk about their “disruptive technologies” that aren’t disrupting anything.

But an increasing number of businesses are recognizing the value proposition of digital transformation. They’re putting meaningful resources into actual digital transformation projects.

Modern product development in general, and software product development in particular, have adopted end-to-end development principles, in which the conceptualization, market analysis, requirements specification, design, building, testing, release, and post-release support and maintenance are managed as a single, well-documented, cross-functional project.

The first two stages—conceptualization and market analysis—are the most important, because together they define the scope of the solution and thus all of the subsequent steps. Perhaps even more important, they determine whether a project should be pursued at all.