Easy Steps to a Hassle-Free and Effective Software Development Project

Indeed, the process of software development isn’t as easy as it seems. There are plenty of services that provide clients with ready solutions or develop apps on demand. Still, only some software development services company is reliable and honest. .

But what if you’ve decided to develop a custom solution on your own? What steps to follow to get top-notch quality software that will meet all your needs? Check this article to find a thorough plan that will lead you to a successful development project.

Why Project Manager Is a Key To Success

One of the main elements of a successful project nowadays is an experienced project manager. It’s a magician who knows how to:

• evaluate the potential risks and reduce/avoid them
• check that each member of the team thoroughly follows the plan
• verify that all tasks are carried out on time
• solve issues and conflicts
• ensure that everything will be successfully completed before the deadline

A project manager is the core of all processes happening during the development project. A well-qualified specialist can easily organize the team and keep members involved and dedicated. Plus, he tests the quality of output at every stage to verify that it consistently hits the mark.

6 Steps That Will Lead You to Effective Software Development Project

So, you definitely need an experienced project manager to get top-notch quality software. However, there are some other steps that will lead you to a successful project:

Project Overview, Analysis and Plan

First and foremost, you need to evaluate your demands to verify that you need a custom solution. There is plenty of off-the-shelf software that meet the requirements of average users.

Hence, it’s possible to pick one of them and implement some minor changes. This option usually suits small businesses that have limited budgets and want to get software fast.

But, if you aren’t ready to close your eyes to limited scalability and unnecessary features – pick custom development. In this case, you need to analyze the exact needs and determine the requirements. It’s essential to create a thorough plan that will be divided into several stages.

First, you will hire a dedicated software development team (either an in-house team or an outsource company). Secondly, pick an approach that will be suitable for your particular use case. Then, think about the design and the development step (choose the technology stack). After that, pay attention to testing and, finally, release the product.

Select the Approach
There are various SDLC approaches used nowadays, and it’s important to pick the right one. The most popular is the Agile methodology, as it lets add new features easily and fast.

However, it won’t suit in case the project is too complex or novel. It’s also not a good idea to rely on the Agile principle if your team lacks professional developers.

Pay Attention to Design
Make sure that the design meets the requirements of your project. Discuss the details with architects, programmers, and designers. The best idea is to create a detailed design document that will describe how the software should ideally look like.

The Coding Step
The team translates the design document into a real piece of software. They build an app that follows the requirements, and usually this stage is divided into such steps as:

• the first version of the product with the required functionality
• internal testing
• usability testing
• release of the product

Project managers ensure that each step is finished before deadlines and the quality of the product is high. The team gets feedback from users and implement changes, fix bugs, solve issues before the final release.

Testing
This is one of the essential steps as it helps evaluate the quality of software. Internal and usability testing reveals shortcomings and defects.

Release and Maintainance
As soon as the product is thoroughly tested by the team and users, it’s time to launch it. It’s important to be prepared and provide customer support and fix the bugs and errors immediately. Plus, even after release, the product needs supervision.

First, you need to ensure that the data is secured and there aren’t any possibilities for leakages. The best idea is to use the best proxies that protect data from unauthorized collection.

Secondly, some bugs can appear a bit later. Therefore, it’s vital to pay attention to users’ feedback for quite a while after the release.

Conclusion

All in all, if you want to get an effective software development project, it’s important to have a thorough plan. Find an experienced project manager, hire a professional development team, and follow the steps mentioned above.