When developing your enterprise mobile application, be sure to include these individuals for the best chance of success
Building a mobile app for business’ users is a task that requires a considerable amount of planning, preparation and execution. It’s quite the balancing act.
With so many different groups involved and so many different potential requirements, a great deal of strategic planning is in order if you want your application development project to be a success.
Chief among your early tasks is to engage the right players who can add beneficial input to your development team during pre-production. This input includes, among other things, thinking about the app’s user experience, cost, development, marketing and other important factors.
Like the first draft of a movie script, you’ll find problems are much more easily solved in the beginning phase than they will be six months into production. And just like a movie set, having the right cast members is important to the overall success of the final creation.
Users
It has been said end-users (consumers or your team) don’t really know what they want until they see it. While this can be true to a certain extent, many of your users likely know what works and what doesn’t. Involving customers, employees and your user base in the planning phases of your project early on will help give you greater opportunity to uncover bugs, spot issues and work out the kinks before you roll the app out publicy.
If you can find a way to adjust your information gathering to get their experience into the production cycle, you may find it gives you a considerable head start. Users aren’t designers, but they do know what works for them better than anyone else.
Finance
Some might say finance and management are the same thing. While that is true for many development projects, a more narrow focus on budgeting is usually in order when it comes to software development.
More than a few highly technical and potentially very successful software projects have been brought to a halt – not because of their design or the quality of the people involved in production, but by poor estimates of the time required to plan, develop, test and deploy the application.
Management can be helpful here, especially when it comes to putting together a workable schedule. At the same time, a secure budget is worth its weight in pink slips.
IT Professionals
Whether you find them inside your company or bring in mobile app development consultants from a third-party firm, you will want the enterprise IT staff on board as early as possible. Integration of your software with your company networks is of vital importance, and knowing how your software is going to fit into your overall IT policy should be one of your checklist items early in pre-production.
Maintenance is also key to building an enterprise application worth the effort. Your internal IT professionals will be tasked with keeping the application updated, bug-tested and documented. Make sure this process is as easy as possible for them.
Developers
Last but not least, another group of people who may be found inside or outside your organization are the developers. Your developers are going to want to see a properly written and properly vetted design document. If you can provide them with complete instructions and provide the necessary documentation to support them, you should find the quality of their work will increase. This will make things much easier for the other three groups of people involved in your project.
Of the four, developers are your primary constituency. If they are provided with the right tools and have the support of the other three groups, your project will very likely succeed.
Conclusion
Application development is often portrayed as something that is routine and trivial. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mobile app development presents you with all the stresses and logistical headaches as producing a Hollywood blockbuster. Fortunately, if you employ best practices and involve the right people, your chances of success are quite real. Lights, camera, action!
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