Taking your vision for a custom desktop or mobile app for your business, organization, or institution and turning it into a reality is exciting! You’ll finally be able to offer your clients, patients, or employees the versatility and functionality that you’ve only dreamt. The software may also allow you to scale your business in a way that, up until now, was totally impossible!
With all of these pros of creating a custom app are cons, of course. Developing an app is expensive and time consuming, and it just isn’t for everyone. In this post, we’ll discuss the biggest problems that our innovative partners experience with developing their custom app, both during the development stage and after the software is launched.
This article is broken into a number of sections:
There are three main components of any software project: the scope (exactly what is needed to complete the project), the budget, and the timeline for completion. They form a triangle, and when one of those components change, they all must be adjusted. Scope creep occurs when the scope of a software development project changes in a way that the overall size of the project expands without the duration of the project or its cost being discussed; where the entire project has unexpectedly “crept” to a larger size.
Scope creep often occurs from a lack of communication between the project owner and the developer. The project owner may request changes to the scope that, to them, seems like a simple change but it is not. The change can actually be something that may take quite a bit of additional time. The article “How Much Does a Custom App Cost?” discusses the time involved in developing an app equates to money spent. Therefore, the price of developing the app in increased.
Whether scope creep is viewed as good or bad often depends on the time and budget allotted for the app development project. Scope creep can be beneficial under certain circumstances – if the increase of the scope benefits both the end user and the product owner and the product owner is able to afford the additional cost and can make allowances for the extra time the app will take to develop. But, of course, those ideal circumstances do not always exist. If the product owner cannot allow for the additional expenses and cannot afford for the project to get larger or has time constraints, scope creep can become a large problem.
Scope Creep can often be avoided by clear communication between the project owner and the developer. It is suggested that the project owner attempt to clearly communicate any changes they wish to make to their app to the developer while, at the same time, the developer be clear about the time and money involved with making those changes. If this type of communication is done on a regular basis, both the product owner and the developer should walk away with a clear understanding about how the proposed changes will affect the cost and duration of the project. From there, the app visionary and the developer can collaborate to determine whether to allow the scope creep to occur and to continue with the proposed changes to the project or not.
An unrealistic expectation occurs when the app visionary hopes to create a piece of software that cannot be realistically delivered by the programmer.
Most unrealistic expectations can fall under the following categories:
Unrealistic expectations can often be avoided through collaboration and communication of the product owner with the software development team. Together, the product owner and the app developer set expectations for the software that meet the needs of the product owner and end user within any time frame and budget constraints that may exist. This collaboration is not a one-time occurrence, either. As the project develops, we recommend that the innovator regularly checks with the app developer on the status of their project. In that manner, their expectations can be continuously reviewed and modified, as needed, to make certain that their needs continue to be met.
A “Perfect” app might also be described as “Polished”, and would occur when any of the following scenarios occur:
There are many possible benefits of launching an app early:
There are several reasons why waiting until an app is polished might be the best recourse in some cases:
A software project relies on the vision and valuable feedback of the visionary for the project’s success. As the developers create and implement the project owner’s vision, only the visionary can discern whether their needs have been met or if the project needs to be modified, altered, or change direction to fulfill that vision. Also, there is a change that the app developer may misunderstand or misinterpret part of the founder’s ideas. Therefore, the app founder needs to make the time commitment to make certain that the end product turns out to be what they were hoping for.
How much time is needed from the product owner to develop their app depends on the details of the individual project. In some cases, the visionary may need to make a daily or weekly commitment. In other cases, the commitment may only be once a month. To gauge the amount of time a project owner needs to commit to their software project, they might need to determine how much time they may need to talk to and collaborate with the developer that would allow the developer to proceed with the project without having to reverse direction and redo large portions of the work if a misunderstanding occurs in the app development.
In addition to specific meetings to be determined by the software developer and product owner, the developer may also need to ask occasional questions or need clarification from the visionary now and then to continue to move the project forward. Therefore, the product owner may need to be accessible and willing to answer questions in a timely manner. This would help to ensure that their project will not be delayed.
People are creative, and the end users of an app may find new uses for the app that were not initially intended or considered by the app founder. This can cause a bug to develop in the app, where the app doesn’t act exactly as it was intended due to the unexpected actions of the users. There’s also a chance that the newly launched app can crash and not function at all, or another problem could develop with the app that can’t be foreseen ahead of time. If the product owner and the program developer continue to communicate through the process of finding issues with a newly launched app, they can determine together the best ways to work through the problems while continuing to meet the product owner’s vision and end user’s needs.
Now that you know the most common problems that visionaries have when developing a custom desktop or mobile app, you can approach software companies with the right questions to ask so you can find the company that is the best fit for you. Matraex is a premier app development company located in southwest Idaho. If you live in the Boise, Idaho area, check out our article about the top software development companies in the area, and feel free to contact Matraex or call us at (208) 344-1115 with any other software questions you may have. You can even post a question on our Google Business Page. We want to help you hire the software company that is most suitable for you that can take your software vision and turn it into a reality.
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Matraex builds custom web and mobile applications. Our team of professionals can drive development of your app from vision to reality.
Boise, Idaho
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