The planning and delivery of a bespoke software project can be time-consuming and requires a lot of time and effort – the following tips are a good starting point for your consideration and will help when it comes to planning the elements of your bespoke software project.
Planning
This is, without doubt, the most important stage of your project – each stage of your idea needs to be thought through to understand all the different functions the software needs to be capable of.
Understand Your Users
Sounds obvious, but knowing your user is imperative – you need to think about how your software can help them and what will make the most difference to them. If you are developing a new system to launch a product you need to understand the market and the users who will be loyal to you – a great way to achieve this understanding is to launch small initially and then add features based on user feedback over time. Remember, a system that is simple and easy to navigate will help you to achieve your goals.
Is an off-the-shelf product an option?
Obviously, we would prefer for you to choose a bespoke software system, but it could be that you have a small budget. If you are working with an existing product an off the shelf solution may be more effective for you. Making sure you do the right research will again help you to make the right decisions and will help you to understand what is important and will inspire ideas of how a bespoke system could help you beat your competition.
Priorities
Spend some time working out what is most important for your business. To ensure the most important factors are delivered first consider breaking the project down into phases – adopting a phased approach will help you to confirm future direction. Knowing what are the least and most important factors will help to create a clear plan.
What are your project constraints?
By looking at your constraints your plan can be more effectively delivered, the fewer constraints there is the more flexibility there is to complete the project exactly to your requirements. When we talk about constraints we meantime, budget, technologies and your availability as well as other systems that may need to hook into your system.
Data and reporting
A bespoke software system can be designed to ensure you capture the data you need which can provide invaluable insights to the future benefit of your business. It also means you can select the relevant information you want to report on.
Servers and distribution
Think about where your system will be hosted or if you have an app you will need a distribution mechanism, either register for an enterprise program or in the app store. Server-based systems do require some special configuration and management so you will need to consider if you have the resources to handle this internally or if you need this to be part of your system management. A cloud-based server system is a good solution but still requires time and management for maintenance.
