Completing projects successfully and within schedule and budget are often a really challenging endeavor. Design and development teams around the world struggle to deliver on the demands of their stakeholders, while still retaining their life and sanity. Throughout this blog we discuss the common reasons that software projects go over budget, and what you can do as a developer or stakeholder to successfully complete projects and deliver real value to your users and business.
Planning
Having defined what's required from the project, subsequent stages often rushed. There is often a bent for all parties to press on and progress the project as quickly as possible, however time spent at this stage will definitely be saved further down the road because the project proceeds and can benefit everyone involved. Correct project planning will make sure that everyone involved knows their role and responsibilities and there'll be a toolkit of systems and processes put in situ to make sure that the project runs smoothly which everyone has the potential to collaborate in ensuring a successful outcome.
Time and Budget
Timescales and budget are major factors in any project and both tend to urge squeezed to the purpose where they both impact on the successful outcome. For most customer’s projects of this nature are infrequent and thus it's often difficult to measure the time and price required. However, for the corporate delivering the answer this is often something they're doing on a day to day and intrinsically should be during a position to supply the requisite guidance and justification as to how long projects are likely to take to deliver and at what cost.
Quite often someone indirectly involved within the project will dictate the deadline for delivery and therefore the budget; this will put pressure on all aspects of the project and everybody involved. In this instance, effective planning becomes even more critical.
Focus on Your Design
During the design phase, the hire UX designers should create a detailed design document that specifies the techniques and tools that support your product goals. The software developers should then review the document to correct technical changes. The design is the blueprint for what is going to be built. It may take a few test runs to find the right design. This is why it’s important to have testing and improvement phases throughout the development process. You should have an excellent team of UX designers that prioritize the user experience. They’ll need to have some technical tools such as wireframing and prototyping tools for user flow mock-ups.
Wireframes and visual compositions are critical for your project’s objective. To create a software project such as a website or a mobile app, you’ll need to begin by creating wireframes which show picture representations of information and features. Wireframes are valuable as they help you visualize a general layout of your website or app. They are also used to define specifications and obtain approval from clients. Wireframes can supplement visual comps as these mockups go a step further to provide a visual representation of your product.
Clear Communication and Project Progress
Clear communication is critical at the onset of a project. As a client, you should clearly communicate your product requirements and vision for your product. Communicating your needs ensures that the development team builds exactly what you ask for. Document your scope of work to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Clear communication will increase your chances of making a successful software project.
Clear and consistent agreement is the backbone to a successful software project which helps to ultimately avoid confusion, delays, and mistakes. Regardless of the stage of the project, communication plays an integral part. Whether it’s understanding concerns, achievements, or ongoing project updates, there should be a dedicated communication channel
Effective Project Management
Effective project management is at the core of each successful project. The difficulty is that this must get on each side of the table; supplier and client. Again, this is often not the most task for a client and intrinsically they're not want to manage software development projects and, on top of this, they have their day jobs to do in managing the business. However, they have to make sure that they invest sufficient time within the ongoing management of the project which they fully understand the project in the least time.
At the outset everyone involved in the project needs to understand and agree on the deliverable and ensure that these are adhered to and that these are sponsored by the senior management teams within both businesses. Failure to specialise in this will cause scope creep and other people adding features and functions throughout the project, resulting in additional costs, delays and a confused outcome.
Ensure that the project progress is reviewed and performance managed on a daily basis. Make sure that the event is providing the functionality required by testing elements as they become available. When reviewing the project, confirm that key stakeholders and sponsors are maintained so far which the project documentation accurately reflects the progress.
Final Review and Post Release Review
Don’t leave your release planning until the very end. At the beginning of the project, you should test your system with the setup and data that are as close to production as possible.
Once you’ve done all this and completed your final acceptance tests, it’s onto the next step, deployment. The deployment process is customized based on your project’s specific requirements. Your operations team should review, confirm, and approve the deployment documentation. Then, when you release the product, you should analyze and reflect on what went well and what didn’t throughout the project cycle.
