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Strategies For Effective Project Management In Mobile App Development

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Project management is fundamental to the successful completion of any mobile app. But it’s a deeply involved process that requires careful planning, plenty of meetings with stakeholders, and constant collaboration. While there are several ways to approach project management, we’ve prepared this handy guide to help you focus on the most effective strategies. 

Why Project Management Is Crucial For Your Mobile App Projects?

Developing mobile apps consists of a series of laborious and complex tasks. To uninitiated developers, the opposite may seem true, considering the vast quantity of apps that hit the app stores daily. Yet, few of these apps make a dent in the marketplace due to a lack of project management planning. 

Successful mobile apps are seldom created on impulse or by solo hobbyists and freelance developers. Instead, they’re the products of visionary appreneurs who partner with talented app development studios like NS804. Quite often, other stakeholders like app publishers, businesses, and marketing teams will also contribute. Keeping all these entities on the same page is excruciatingly challenging — but necessary for the success of any app project.

That’s where project management planning comes in. It helps all stakeholders involved in your project understand its core concept, how much it will cost, and how long it will take until completion. Furthermore, the plan will detail all goals, expectations, resources, tools, and methodologies necessary for the project. 

Depending on the scope and needs of your project, the plan may include additional details. In all cases, it’s best to hash out a project management plan that is as detailed as possible. It’s also wise to detail a contingency plan or offer alternative solutions for project bottlenecks or missed milestones. Ultimately, the primary goals of project management are to deliver a completed project and reduce the risks associated with app development. 

 

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What Does Project Management Entail?

Project management includes all the details and specifications required to complete an app project. A common misunderstanding involves the ideation process of app development. Some team leaders will integrate this process into their planning, while others leave it out. So, which method is the correct one? Usually, it’s best to leave out the ideation process since this happens long before a development team will tackle the project. 

A good example is the appreneur who comes up with an app idea and commences with basic ideation on a handkerchief or piece of paper. Then, the appreneur approaches a development studio to discuss this idea, gain additional insight, and for further brainstorming. 

The studio will offer guidance and create a wireframe to flesh out the appreneur’s ideas. At this point, the appreneur and the studio’s development team have a basic understanding of what the app will look like. If necessary, the appreneur will greenlight the creation of a prototype for a better replication of the finished product. 

Once the appreneur is satisfied with the wireframe or prototype, it’s time to approve or abandon the project. If the appreneur decides to forge ahead, project management planning will take center stage. During this stage, the appreneur, the project lead, the designers, the development team, the marketing team, and any other stakeholders will commence a series of meetings.

Ideally, most initial meetings will occur face-to-face at the development studio’s physical premises. NS804 makes this easy as we have offices in Richmond, VA, Charlotte, NC, and Denver, CO. But we also make it easy for clients to stay in the loop via our Slack channels and to peruse the project management plan via Trello. 

Is Project Management Necessary For Mobile Game Development?

It’s essential to conduct project management planning before you start making your mobile game. Developing modern mobile games is hard, so it’s foolhardy to tackle such projects without a carefully conceived plan from day one. You must also prepare a game design document (GDD) that will contain the following:

  • A summary of your mobile game: This section includes details of the core concept, genre, target audience, and overall scope of your game. 
  • Gameplay details: In this section, you will describe all the objectives and challenges players will face. 
  • Core game mechanics: Describe all the physics, rules, and player interactions within your core game loop. 
  • Worldbuilding: This section will include information about your game’s characters, story elements, levels, and locales. 
  • Game assets: Describe the types of graphics, music, and sound effects that you will include in your game.  
  • Game development tooling: Include details about the game engine, graphic design software, and 3D modeling tools you will use during development. 

Set Realistic Milestones For All Stakeholders

One of the first and most essential steps of your project management plan is to set milestones. Ensure that all these milestones are realistic and that all stakeholders are on board. Conducting face-to-face meetings early on is a great way to confirm which tasks each stakeholder will handle during the development of your app. At times, it won’t be possible for everyone to meet physically, so you will have to rely on video conferencing. 

Verify that all stakeholders understand every phase of your plan and the timeframe of each milestone. You may use Trello, to-do lists, or spreadsheets to keep everyone on the same page. Regularly check to see that all stakeholders are meeting milestones, and message or email those that fall behind. If any team member isn’t meeting their obligations, remove them from the team and replace them with someone who will fulfill your plan.

Carefully Plan The Resources For Your Project

How you manage your resources will make or break your project. But what constitutes these resources, to begin with? These resources may include key team members, specific skills, hardware, software, and tooling. Additionally, include any cloud services, testing, and app deployment services you will use for your project. 

But be sure to assess only the resources you will use for this specific project and not for other projects you’re working on in tandem. You want to be as accurate and detailed as possible when you assess all the resources you will include in your plan. And that’s crucial because it will impact your project’s cost analysis. Many stakeholders, particularly investors, will eventually want a cost breakdown. 

Furthermore, conduct several meetings with the most experienced members of your team to pinpoint the most suitable resources for your project. Don’t assume that certain staff members or tools that proved effective in a previous project will also serve your upcoming project. Instead, be willing to switch things up based on deep and detailed analysis of similar projects, current development trends, and the current state of the app marketplace. 

Consult Your Team Lead To Set The Timeline

Ideally, you should have a team lead — but if you don’t — you must assume this role instead. But leading an app development project is challenging, so we recommend you work with a competent studio if you can fit this into your budget. 

Whether you decide to work with a team lead, hire a studio, or go solo, you must set a timeline. That’s because you don’t want your project to consume all your time and eventually burn through all your funding. 

But if you haven’t developed apps before, you may find it hard to determine an accurate timeline. More often than not, you’ll probably be way off in your timeline if you don’t consult a professional. Sure, you may watch several YouTube videos and read blog posts about app development, but nothing beats working with someone with hands-on experience. 

Your timeline must align with all your set milestones and be realistic and trackable. Also, consider all scenarios that will cause delays, such as staff members taking sick leave, holidays, internet outages, funding issues, API updates, backend integrations, troubleshooting, etc. 

Above all, hold all stakeholders accountable for meeting milestones on time. Stick to a weekly or bi-weekly routine to check everyone is committed to your project management plan.

Detail Usage Of All Communication Channels

Even the most rock-solid project management plan will fail without properly implemented communication channels. That’s because all stakeholders must communicate regularly during each stage of the development process. Any communication bottlenecks will delay or derail your app’s progress and even lead to a catastrophic outcome. 

To avoid all this, you must set up all the communication and feedback channels you’ll use during development and outline these in your plan. The good news is that there are many excellent paid and free communications services available, as follows: 

  • Chanty
  • ChatWork
  • Discord
  • Google Chat
  • Messenger
  • Microsoft Teams
  • NuovoTeam PTT
  • Trello
  • Troop Messenger
  • Slack
  • WhatsApp Business
  • Wrike

Some of these services also have integrated project management features. Take the time to assess the most suitable communications services for your app project. You may want to opt for an all-in-one solution to simplify your workflow. Alternatively, you may need more advanced or specific features, so you may need to rely on several disparate services.

Set And Follow Guidelines  

Project management relies heavily on team members following specific guidelines. You must decide on these early on and cover them in detail in your plan. These guidelines will cover multiple issues, like how your team will handle communications, app testing, and quality assurance (QA). 

Draw up guidelines that will facilitate a smooth app development process but also deliver a quality product. And ensure that you post these guidelines in all the places where team members will see them. Consider posting communications guidelines and etiquette rules in all your communications channels. 

Due to the complexity involved with testing, bug tracking, and app deployment, prepare documentation that covers all these aspects in detail. If there’s significant information that you need to cover, then consider creating several eBooks or PDFs. These will include guidelines and best practices that the relevant team members must follow. Most communications tools allow you to upload and distribute these files to reach the right people. 

You may decide to automate your testing process, especially if your team’s headcount is low. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set guidelines for such a use case. That’s because setting up automated tests is an involved process that requires troubleshooting. Once set up correctly, automated tests will run flawlessly and scale to meet project scope.

 

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Choose A Project Management Methodology For Your App

Eventually, you’ll decide on a project management methodology that best suits the developments of your app. There are five commonly used methodologies, so you must pick one listed below: 

Agile

Agile project management is one of the most common methodologies used by developers. It’s popular due to its flexibility since project tasks consist of shorter phases. Thus, teams focus on completing projects on time and within budget while allowing for bug fixes and changes at every stage of development.

Scrum

Scrum follows Agile’s principles with an emphasis on short team meetings held daily. There’s also a greater emphasis on assigning tasks to specific team members and completing tasks in order. Therefore, it’s a good choice for teams that require clearly defined roles and responsibilities.  

Extreme Programming (XP)

XP is yet another methodology firmly within the Agile camp. It’s aimed at experienced software developers who value simplicity and good communication pipelines. Do keep in mind that XP is unsuitable for new developers or teams that struggle with transparency. 

Kanban

Kanban relies on to-do lists, columns, and cards to visually present project tasks and completion. Popular platforms like Trello are based entirely on Kanban, so it’s easy to onboard and expose team members to this methodology. Kanban is a good choice for teams that must roll out bug fixes, patches, and updates regularly. 

Waterfall

Waterfall project management is the simplest but also the most inflexible method here. Teams complete tasks according to a pre-defined and ordered sequence that flows downwards, hence its name. Therefore, it’s only suitable for teams that will follow a rigid plan with no possibility of implementing changes at a later stage. 

In Conclusion

App development is often challenging, complex, and risky. But you can reduce all these factors significantly by implementing the right project management strategies for your app project. Contact NS804 today to learn how we’ll help you complete your app on time and budget! 

Key Features of Enterprise Productivity Apps

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The Key Features of Enterprise Apps Focused On Productivity

Competitive companies constantly search for new avenues through which to conduct business activities. Additionally, executives, business owners, and decision-makers are always looking for new ways to save time in their days and weeks. The age old adage that time is money is still very true today. One of the main ways to go about saving time is through implementing business tech. Countless corporations today rely on the assistance of enterprise productivity apps, and other sophisticated tech, to operate their organizations.

Before going much further, let’s look at what enterprise productivity apps are. Firstly, it’s crucial to recognize that there is a huge spectrum of enterprise productivity applications. On top of that, different organizations simply have different needs. Therefore, many enterprise productivity applications are unique to the organizations that build them.

Another reason the individuality of enterprise productivity apps is important to note is because it speaks to a truth across all industries and markets. The idea that every organization will face slightly unique struggles, roadblocks, and set-backs. As such, this leads to the development of unique solutions and company-specific workflows or operations.

Enterprise Productivity Apps

The marketplace for enterprise productivity applications is roaring right now. With the current state of the world as it is, and many organizations transitioning to a work-from-home environment, the application market has been booming. While organizations continue shifting into fully remote-operations, companies are facing issues that they never have before.

In fact, this trend extends well beyond the business-application-segment, and is indicative of the entire mobile and web application market. As the regional shut-downs rolled out domestically and globally, more and more people were spending the majority of their days inside, isolated with their families or by themselves, and suddenly separated from the rest of the world.

From supply-chains collapsing all around the world, to major companies shutting their doors, and skyrocketing unemployment rates, the world-economy is in a state of disarray unlike we’ve ever seen it. As such, the companies that managed to keep their doors open and have already successfully transitioned into a work-from-home model have, in most cases, made use of a enterprise productivity application.

Enterprise productivity applications fall into a wide variety of categories. One of the most popular types of enterprise productivity applications, however, is project management software such as Asana, Basecamp, or Monday.com. These applications help companies, and managers, gain a more comprehensive picture of any ongoing project within the organization. This includes information on the initial timeline, the actual timeline, missed deadlines, current tasks, upcoming meetings, and much more.

Additionally, these softwares allow managers to track and record their employee progress. This additional oversight that enterprise productivity applications brings to your organization enables your management team to lead more effectively and drive impactful business metrics.

Addressing Employee Needs

When assessing your company and its need for enterprise productivity applications there are a few questions to start with. One of the most influential determinants in creating your enterprise productivity solution are the daily struggles that challenge your staff. Understanding what obstacles your employees are facing on a daily basis provides invaluable insight. This insight helps lead the direction of the enterprise application solutions, and should inform decision makers within your organization.

The logic behind gaining insight into employee obstacles is rather simple. Without this understanding, managers and business leaders would essentially be completely guessing at what solutions will benefit the company. On top of conducting their due diligence in order to invest in creating comprehensive and successful solutions, the information garnered from employees will prevent managers from investing in poorly-thought-out solutions that don’t address employee needs.

In addition, a poor investment in the wrong type of enterprise productivity application can actually have the opposite impact that choosing wisely does. In other words, the wrong enterprise productivity application will add bulky and inefficient redundancy into your operations. Ultimately, this makes it more difficult for the employees to conduct their daily activities. On top of that, it also drives unnecessary costs upward, and dismantles cost-saving techniques. Avoid a poor investment in the wrong enterprise solution. Conduct employee interviews to get to the root of the obstacles your staff faces on a daily basis.

An enterprise productivity application should aim to ease the daily burden of every employee in the company.

Automation In Enterprise Applications

As was just mentioned, the purpose of an enterprise productivity application is to ease the collective burden of operations on the business. One of the core functionalities in many enterprise productivity applications is the ability to automate menial tasks. Delegating daily activities to the software that would normally fall to a member of the staff, frees up additional labor and time that can then be reallocated.

For example, there are many instances in which an employee will spend their first hour of work scheduling their day. They’ll make adjustments to their plan based on shifting priorities and any new information gathered. However, with a sophisticated enterprise solution, all of this information is instantly available to the user. Since the platform offers anyone with the proper credentials to make updates on the project, tasks, deadlines, or anything else, all of that data is streamlined directly to the user who needs it most. Not only is the data accessible by the employees that need it, but it’s also available when they need it.

This is just one of many examples of how enterprise productivity applications can facilitate a streamlined workflow through automation.

Integration

Arguably one of the most important aspects of the enterprise productivity application is it’s integration capability. Pairing your enterprise productivity application with your enterprise software solutions leads to a robust and comprehensive solution. However, in the instance that your software and your productivity applications are incompatible, then we run into the same issue as outlined above; higher costs, lower savings, and a lower rate of operational efficiency.

In successfully pairing an enterprise productivity application with your additional enterprise software, the entire organization is improved throughout the entirety of the vertical. In other words, everyone should see the benefit; from executive management to the c-suite employees, down to the frontline workers and even the manual laborers.

Communication

Communication is one of the keys to a successful relationship. No matter the context of that relationship. This is true when it comes to business partnerships, intimate relationships, friendships, and everything in between. As such, enterprise productivity applications emphasize streamlined and widely accessible communication channels. This ties back into automation, as some internal team communications can be automated by the enterprise solution.

Additionally, however, most enterprise productivity applications include some level of communication platform. Whether this is in the form of an instant messenger or an email-substitute; it keeps team members looped in, and offers a single platform for project work and team-communication.

A Final Word

In our new world, communication and team collaboration has become absolutely invaluable. With the majority of businesses and organizations transitioning into a work-from-home and remote-work environment, our ability to maintain open and clear channels of communication is more vital than ever before.

Keep your teams on track, measure project progress, and open up the lines of communication by investing in a enterprise productivity solution that meets the unique challenges of your business. Visit NS804 today for more information on where to start.

The Role of the Project Manager in App Development

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The Project Manager in App Development

There are many vital functions that need to be covered in developing an app. There is of course, the actual coding of the software. The UX design. Not to mention the marketing. Secondly the research. And finally data analytics. All-in-all, when it comes to a mobile app there’s a lot to keep track of. Enter the project manager. 

Particularly, a project manager covers many of the logistical and collaborative aspects in app development. From tracking timelines and production schedules. All the way to facilitating cross-department collaboration. The project manager plays a vital part in bringing together the various aspects of the puzzle. Finally, putting it all together. 

IDAP cites risk-management as another one of the main functions for which project managers are responsible. The risks mitigated are mainly project-based. This includes aspects like scheduling-risks. Technical risks. And monetary risks. Furthermore, as in every industry, the project manager has a strict obligation to the project budget as well. 

Vital Functions

The main goal of a project manager is to keep the project on track. On track with its original planning, and deadlines. Accomplished through a series of tactics, softwares and project management technology. 

Project managers keep projects on their track. Even through unforeseen hurdles that surface. In other words, it’s important to note that project managers are track live-projects. Therefore, they need to be informed of any shifts that occur. Importantly, these shifts can alter other aspects of the project. Ultimately affecting the deadline. 

Breaking Down the Role

    1. Scheduling – Firstly, scheduling is an essential function for a project manager. From team meetings, to project updates, and independent contractor interviews. Project managers are the originators of project schedules.

      Even timeline scheduling. Plus scheduling the various aspects of the project, and when they need to be ready to intersect. This includes everything from the user-experience design, to the back-end software. Not to mention everything in between. Logo design. Color and aesthetic design. Plus, marketing events. Not to mention, scheduling demos in addition. It all starts with the project manager.
    2. Communicating – Project-wide communication. This is where the project manager needs to really excel. Facilitating cross-departmental communication has to be one of the main priorities. Getting mobile app design teams to be on the same page can be difficult. However, if all teams reporting updates to the same project manager. They can ensure that all need-to-know parties are, in fact, in the know.
    3. Budgeting – Finally, time and money both need to be budgeted. Usually at the onset of the project. In mobile app development, this is no different. The time and money it takes to successfully develop a mobile app can vary. Project managers are the facilitator of the entire project. As such, they are in charge of keeping projects both on schedule, and on budget. 

NS804 is the everyman mobile app developer. Dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible than ever before. Visit NS804 today, and get in touch with a development professional ready to make your mobile app dream a reality.