Effective mobile app development project management results in timely delivery, optimum resource allocation, and scope-specific end product. It bridges the gap between buyers and development teams and keeps them on the same board. Almost every buyer today must know the best method to manage mobile app development to maximize the returns on investment.
In this cyber age, mobile apps make us forget old boring brick-and-mortar stores. These handy applications are readily available to almost everyone for everything – from product purchases to availing any services. While mobile apps offer immense benefits to users, customized mobile application development has become a common path for entrepreneurs of the new age to take their businesses to newer heights by acquiring new customers and retaining old ones.
This is because mobile app development can be customized to business goals and the company’s vision or mission. A mobile app can provide users and customers with unprecedented ease and convenience. Statista quotes some stunning figures about mobile applications and their popularity in businesses worldwide in 2023:
These figures are enticing enough for anyone to leverage the craze and habits of people being on handheld devices all the time and shopping from them. For this, having a customized business app is the answer.
Building a kickass app takes some serious roadmap, design magic, up-to-the-mark coding, and a whole lot of jobs. This is where remote outsourcing comes into the picture as most enterprises hire top-notch mobile app developers from offshore hubs all around the world. As a client or buyer, you must know how to gather and handle app wizards who are the backbone of your project to make your ideation into reality.
However, a billion-dollar question is – how to successfully manage mobile app development? Let’s make it simpler and foolproof so that you have fewer or no hiccups throughout the deal with your tech partner.
How to Successfully Manage App Development Projects?
Creating a mobile app involves many stages or phases and each one of them has its own importance and challenges to handle. Here are some of the crucial steps you certainly want to grasp so to ensure the smooth execution of your app development project and get the optimum final product.
Ideation and Feasibility
Sending an app idea without any clarity is like a one-way ticket to a stranger’s island. You need to solidify your concept and ideation before venturing offshore into mobile app development of any kind. Ask these simple questions to yourself:
- Who are your target customers, users, or audiences?
- What gray areas your mobile apps can solve for them?
- What features and functionalities can stun them?
A crystal-clear vision of your business app will help your offshore mobile app development provider with clarity and as a result, they will understand your project better.
Set Project Parameters
You need to map your project out for a smoother mobile app development management offshore. Simply saying ‘build me an app’ won’t work as you need a personalized roadmap to convey your remote developers. Defining the app’s features, functionalities, and milestones is essential. You need to decide on how many features you want and how complex they should be. Such levels of detail will make sure that your offshore mobile app development team will build the product that you envisioned. Don’t be afraid to be specific – detailed project parameters will turn your gloomy idea into a super clear picture and hence will avoid any misunderstanding.
Set the Right Tech Stack
You need to pick a perfect tool so that a mobile app development project will be easy to manage. The technologies and frameworks are the pillars of your mobile app’s foundation. You need to research and choose the best technologies such as programming language and platforms to make it all clear. Collaboration is key so you need to work with your offshore mobile app developers’ teams who can help you select the best tech stack, tools, and frameworks with their experience and expertise. The right tech stack ensures that your product will be feature-rich and future-ready.
Choose the Mobile App Development Methodology
Just like the mobile app development tech stack, you need to select the most suitable methodology. How will your product unfold depends on this phase. There are various mobile app development methods to choose.
- Agile
- Waterfall
- Prototype
- Spiral
- Feature-Driven Development (FDD)
- Lean Development
- Extreme Programming (XP)
- Scrum
Nevertheless, most tech experts believe that the best mobile app development project is observed in an agile methodology that ensures adaptability. It is easy to manage the app development process with Agile methodology because it builds the product in sprints – smaller and manageable chunks that allow regular and timely feedback and adjustments from both your offshore team and you. This method can help you identify potential roadblocks early so that you have early solutions.
Finalizing Finance and Ensuring the Budget
Before you sail on your offshore mobile app development adventure, you need to nail down your budget which includes app development costs and other potential tools you require for communication plus any project management licenses, and other miscellaneous expenses. The cost heavily depends on the number and complexity of the features and the size of the project.
Appropriate Management Tools
The best weapon you have to beat the mobile app management quagmire is the proper management tools available on the market. Communication and collaboration are two essential ways to ensure project success especially when you have remote mobile app development services. Choose the best management tools such as communication channels, project management platforms, and file-sharing services.
These tools serve as greasing to your machine to keep rolling it smoothly without any escalation in the form of miscommunication. The right tools in place will make sure that communiqué is streamlined, transparency is boosted, and everybody is on the same board.
Assign Responsibilities
One way to manage a mobile app development project is to assign responsibilities and accountability and keep checking the progress. Don’t leave your mobile app development team guessing their roles. You need to clarify and assign or approve the responsibilities. From designers to developers and maintenance and support staff, everybody takes their responsibilities and works toward a unified goal.
Ensuring Communication and Deliverables
Distance cannot be a barrier to your mobile app development management. Today, we have powerful communication tools and collaboration software to keep things on board and streamlined. By establishing fair communication through video conferences, messages, chats, and even telephone calls, you can keep the project on track all the time. Top mobile app development companies use cutting-edge technology tools to communicate and update their clients on the project’s whereabouts.
Likewise, deliverables are also something that plays a crucial role in management. You need to fix the timelines for deliverables as milestones. It is essential that your app is developed and delivered piece by piece to iterate the product and ensure that your development team is going on the right track.
Rewards and Encouragement
One of the most effective and emotional ways to manage mobile app development remotely is to celebrate wins whether big or small. Rewards and encouragement certainly work and this will encourage your remote teams. Mobile application development is a marathon and not a short run that requires sheer dedication and long-term commitment. Public praise and rewards to reach milestones work absolutely as a token of appreciation. Recognizing hard work will boost your team’s morale and enhance positive team spirit ultimately making management of mobile app development projects easy.
Encourage Constructive Feedback
Open communication is like an eight-lane highway where the traffic in the form of trust and response flows easily. You should encourage your team to provide constructive feedback on your product throughout the designing and development phase of your mobile app. This will serve as a fine-tuning opportunity to keep your product in line with your business goals and scopes. Such inputs from users, developers, and even stakeholders will be extremely useful to improve your app. You need to wholeheartedly approve and accept the healthy criticism by taking it positively as a chance to improve your app.
Effective Tools for Mobile App Development Management
There are many effective tools available to manage mobile app development remotely. You can use any one of them or combine more than one to have effective vigilance and updates on your app development team members.
Here is the list of popular mobile app development management tools. These tools are used by both developers and buyers/clients. They can, in fact, share these tools on the Internet with each other and see the progress or changes online, together.
| Category | Tools | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | Slack, Zoom | Real-time messaging, video conferencing |
| Project Management | Asana, Trello | Task management, progress tracking, file sharing |
| File Sharing | Google Drive, Dropbox | Secure cloud storage for collaboration |
| Code Repositories | Git | Version control for code management |
| Design & Prototyping | Figma, InVision | Design tools for creating mockups and prototypes |
| Bug Tracking & Testing | Jira, Bugzilla | Issue tracking and bug reporting |
| Time Tracking & Billing | Toggl, Harvest | Monitor work hours and manage project budgets |
| Password Management & Security | 1Password, LastPass | Securely store and share login credentials |
Ready to Venture Into Mobile App Development?
The world of mobile applications is huge and ever-evolving for businesses all over the world. Today, in this fast-paced world, businesses cannot thrive without having a mobile app solution. Find top mobile app development companies to outsource your project and stay worry-free about the management because they handle almost all your worries with ease and professionalism.
With the best mobile app development management practices and tactics, you can tap into the best global pool of talented mobile app developers without any hassle. Making key strategies to manage development and setting realistic goals according to project scope and budget will help you build a healthy environment that will result in a customized digital product with optimum features and functionalities in line with your business goal.
