Right Strategic Plan for a Successful Software Development Initiative
The constant increase in technology use has made every business owner opt for a custom software development. Everyone wants to expand their business by reaching out to more customers through software. The software can grow your business if it is developed using the right strategic plan. Strategizing for software development initiative means a set of upfront decisions to come up with a practical set of dos and don’ts for the software’s future. The right strategy can get through the software development procedure quickly.
In this blog will go through various points that describe how one should strategize for a successful software development initiative.
First of all, you need to decide whether you can create software for your own company or product or need outside help.
Choose from In-house and Off-shore
1. Can Your Company Develop Software In-house?
Custom software development processes for mid to large-scale businesses need a broad range of domain experts like Project Manager, Business Analysts, Designer, Developers, Quality Analysts, and more. Besides this, you need to see if your application needs any specific skill sets in technologies like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, or Big Data. Therefore, enough resources are required to build software on time.
If your company has enough time and resources for software development, build your team and start the development process. If not, choose an offshore software development team.
2. Choose Offshore Software Development
If you are not familiar with the technical stuff or your company cannot create software because of fewer resources and time, building an offshore team is the best solution. By hiring an offshore software development team, you can access skilled custom software developers and reduce your operational cost by 60%.
After finalizing your software development team, the actual process starts. Now you have to decide the software development plan and strategies for your team’s entire development process.
Standard Approach for Software Development Planning
1. Practical Approach
The most important aspect of a software development initiative is to appoint the right project manager. The project manager plays an essential role in deciding the stages of the initiative. Therefore, the first step in strategizing your software development process is hiring the project manager who can practically formulate a plan to resolve a potential risk at any time.
More than selecting the right software development team, choosing the correct project manager is the most essential and practical approach. An experienced project manager will guide the team to progress with ease and confidence.
2. Strategic Planning
The most important things while strategizing a plan for your software development initiative are fundamental elements and a well-thought approach. The planning stage of a project determines the success or failure of the software. Therefore hiring an experienced custom software development company is advisable. The experience of any company states its approach towards software development project management and planning.
3. Execution of Plan & Delivery
Each software development team follows its own technique for creating unique and user-friendly software. They choose a standardized software development methodology as per the project requirement. The software development companies choose Agile methods as they help in managing projects and delivering unique functionalities. The top 5 Agile methodologies of software development are -
- Scrum
Scrum methodology enables the project manager to organize the project in sprints that can last for about four weeks. Before planning the sprints, a backlog refinement is performed by the project owner or project manager to add and remove user stories and prioritize backlog items. When the sprint starts, the participants set up a meeting to plan the sprint’s goal, the project’s scope, and the required timeframe & efforts.
- Extreme Programming
With the use of Extreme Programming (XP) methodology, the custom software development team can implement an extreme practice level. The planning process in this method has two phases — Iteration Planning and Release Planning.
In iteration planning, the aim is to specify tasks for the software developers and testers to perform in upcoming iterations. On the other hand, in release planning, the project participants specify the forthcoming project release requirements.
- Crystal
Crystal is the most versatile and lightweight software development methodology. It focuses on delivering the product as early as possible. The crystal method brings versatility amongst the development team and focuses on the high-client association. This is a method that comes with sub-methods like crystal orange, crystal clear, and more. Each sub-methods are driven with qualities by undertaking and fulfilling the project needs.
- Lean
Lean methodology is one of the most commonly used methods. It is an agile software development method that owes its processes and standards to Lean enterprise development. Some of the principles that the lean methodology follows are — team building, intensified learning, integrity building, ASAP delivery, elimination of waste, and inclusive perspective. The aim of lean methodology is to boost the speed and productivity of the software development process.
- Kanban
Kanban software development methodology is chosen when the project iterations are not precise. In this method, the activities are segmented into small parts that the developers need to perform in the pre-defined timeframe. This method helps the project manager to assign tasks to individual team members. The details about the task and the team member handling it are added to the Kanban board, which is maintained by the project manager. Besides this, communication is a continuous process with the Kanban method.
Key Considerations for Software Development Procedure
1. Requirement Analysis
The custom software development team must analyze the end user’s requirements and have an in-depth understanding of user documents, business rules, and processes. This can help software developers create the necessary features and functionalities of the initiative.
2. Design
Designing software is all about putting together detailed designing documentation that specifies the user’s requirements. The designers need to look after that the document should be open for suggestions or changes.
3. Development
The development phase transfers the design document into the software. If the development team executes the planning stage perfectly, then the software will be able to fulfill the product owner’s requirements.
4. Automation
Automation is a phase that is considered an integral component of the software development procedure. It doesn’t require human intervention. Some of the tasks that can be automated in development are — building codes, regression testing, collection of project-related measures, and more.
5. Software Testing
Testing is a very important phase of the software development process. In the testing phase, the quality analyst creates scripts for each task that the user might perform and then tests each feature accordingly.
6. Implementation
The final stage is implementation. After providing successful software to the client or after launching it in the market, the work doesn’t end. Software development demands constant change and up-gradation.
Important Questions an Effective Software Development Strategy Answers
1. How to Speed up the Software Development Procedure?
- Correct platform selection
Choosing the correct technology platform as per your project requirement is essential. It can affect the speed of development. Besides this, one thing that the development team should be aware of is that each platform has its own reliability. Therefore, one should use a 4- quadrant matrix. This can help in sorting relevant platforms and choosing the best one.
- Apply automation
If automation is applied in the development, testing, & deployment process, it can benefit the process and make work easier. Some of the essential techniques of automation are -
DevOps: It provides more reliable software releases by aligning the development and testing environment.
Test Automation: It means running a standardized test for planning, designing, and developing processes.
Containerization: Containers are light-weighted substitutes for virtual machines. They separate executable files and software libraries to streamline the project deployment process.
- Develop Feature-vise
The software development procedure should start with the basic version first. By following this approach, you won’t miss out on the must-have functions; instead, those will become the priority work. The same thing can be applied in testing activities. Important functionalities can be tested first.
2. How will your Software go Mobile?
Creating mobile-friendly software is the most practical thing to do in the modern world. To take your software to a mobile platform, there are multiple options available in the market. Some of them are — progressive web apps, mobile web apps, native mobile apps, and cross-platform mobile apps.
3. What will be the Advantage of Developing the Software?
Whenever any custom software development company is creating a product for its client, the essential thing that is considered is what the new product will offer. After competitor analysis and analyzing the market opportunities, the developers decide what will be the distinguishing feature of their product. For instance, the unique features can be the optimal value for money, innovative customer service, or any specific niche-targeted functionality.
Conclusion
As discussed in this blog, having a clearly defined and practically thought strategy for the software development initiative is very important if you want to have a successful software application. With the increasing competition in the market, the custom software development company needs to provide highly efficient, easy-to-use, robust, and value-driven software. The above-stated points will help the business owner choose the right strategic plan with their software development team’s help.
More Resources on Software Development
