10 KEY FACTORS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SOFTWARE PROJECT

Completing projects on time and within budget can be a real challenge. Project and development teams around the world are struggling to meet stakeholder requirements while staying sane and alive.

Whether you want to build an application or create a better website for your business, you will be investing in a software project. To ensure the success of a software project, you need to understand why most software projects fail.

According to a report by Standish, it will cancel approximately 31.1% of software projects, and about 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimates.

Here are 10 key factors that will ensure a successful software project:

1| CONSIDER END-USERS AND IMPLEMENT USER TESTING

One of the best ways to increase your chances of success is to ensure that you design and develop for your addressing users. That's why it's essential to understand your users' needs throughout the process. When you create a value statement, you can determine your product's solutions to your target audience. For example, at the beginning of a project, you can write a message that answers who your product is for and what problem it will solve for the intended users.

Decide at what stage of the project you want to carry out user testing. You can use different methodologies depending on where you want to get valuable feedback from users. Conducting user testing before design can help you determine if your user interface is suitable, while performing it after build can help you compare your product to your competitors'. Be sure to prepare your participants and the test area for accurate results.

2| HAVE CLEARLY DEFINED OBJECTIVES AND SPECIFICATIONS

It is helpful to create a product roadmap that sets out a strategic plan and highlights your objectives. Be detailed and specific about what your team needs to help you achieve the end goal. Before you dive into the software development life cycle, create a value statement to help set a precedent for your project, who it is for, and what problems it will solve.

3| HIRING EXPERIENCED DEVELOPERS

Hiring experienced developers helps the development process run smoothly. Investing inexperienced developers will undoubtedly cost more, but it will save you headaches, time, and money in the long run.

You need to ensure that each team member understands their role and responsibilities in the project. By assigning roles to the project, you can be sure that the team will complete the task effectively. Also, ensure that your team follows the protocols and workflows for software development. A project that doesn't follow design and development best practices is bound to break or fail in the future. Finally, work with a passionate team about your product and truly cares about the outcome of the project.

4| HAVE A PLAN

Good planning ensures that everyone knows exactly what they are responsible for during the project. Before you start work, you need to define a strategy and approach to the project that will enable you to achieve the end goal. Take the time to identify the development tools you will use throughout the process and determine the technical architecture that will support your software.

Make sure you have all of the following in place:

• Sprint plans with clear milestones
• An implementation framework
• Code reviews
• Automated testing
• Error and task tracking

5| PRACTICING EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

All project stakeholders need to agree on deliverables and acceptance criteria to avoid deviation and additional costs. A formal agreement between your company and the software development team is an excellent way to set clear expectations and eliminate confusion.

You should find a team that uses an agile project management methodology that develops software using an iterative approach. To ensure that your project is always progressing, the team should set clear milestones and deadlines.

A software design and development company should hold weekly internal meetings to discuss what has been achieved, what they want to achieve next, and what obstacles are holding back their progress.

Regular client meetings should be scheduled to keep your company informed of project progress. It is an opportunity for your team to provide feedback and clarifications to the development team.

6| HAVE CLEAR COMMUNICATION

Clear communication is essential right from the start of the project. As a customer, you need to communicate your requirements and vision for the product. Sharing your requirements allows the development team to build exactly what you ask for. Document the scope of your work so that everyone is on the same page. Clear communication increases your chances of doing a successful software project.

The clear and consistent agreement is the backbone of a successful software project, preventing confusion, delays, and errors. Regardless of the stage of the project, communication is an integral part of it. Whether it understands concerns, achievements, or ongoing project updates, there should be a dedicated communication channel (e.g., Slack, Skype, email, etc.).

7| FOCUS ON YOUR DESIGN

UX designers should create a detailed design document that identifies techniques and tools that support your product goals during the design phase. Software developers should then review the form to correct technical changes. A project is a blueprint of what will be built. It may take a few tries to find the right design. That's why it's important to have testing and refinement stages throughout the development process. It would be best to have a great team of UX designers who put the user experience first. They need to have technical tools, such as water markers and prototyping tools for user flow mock-ups.

Trajectories and visual compositions are crucial to your project's goal. To create a software project, such as a website or mobile app, you need to start by creating trajectories that show a pictorial representation of information and functionality. Circuits are valuable because they help you visualize the overall design of your website or app. They are also used to define specifications and gain customer acceptance. Trajectories can complement visual compositions as these mock-ups go beyond and provide a visual representation of your product. Other diagrams that add value to your project process are flowcharts, which help define workflows by providing explicit graphical models of the programmer is coding.

8| IMPLEMENT RISK MANAGEMENT

Let's be honest. Things always go wrong, so you should try to fail as gracefully as possible. To do this, create a risk diary with action plans to mitigate and manage risks early. The software development team should make a plan to address risks and inform customers of potential problems.

You should identify all potential risks and then analyze their potential impact on the project's overall budget, scope, and quality. Implement proper risk management to mitigate risks and avoid derailing the project.

9| FOLLOW BEST PRACTICES FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Your team must follow best practices for software development. The development team should follow coding standards guidelines. Source control is another essential component as it allows you to manage changes to your code and provide you with a centralized source for your code.

Some other modern development practices include continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD). CI is a preparation that aims to get regular updates as quickly as possible to get improvements out to users. There is a strong emphasis on automated testing to validate changes made during the process. CD extends the CI process by enabling changes to be delivered to customers.

The software development team should conduct a code review before moving to the application launch. Code review is a critical phase of your software project that helps you identify any bugs and flaws. Code review ensures that software developers follow best practices while ensuring that the entire team has reviewed the code.

10| CONDUCT A FINAL REVIEW AND A POST-RELEASE REVIEW.

Don't leave release planning until last. At the beginning of the project, test your system with settings and data as close to production as possible.

Once you have done all this and completed the final acceptance tests comes the next step: deployment. The commissioning process will be tailored to the specific requirements of your project. Commissioning documentation must be reviewed, approved, and accepted by your operations team. Then, when you release the product, analyze and reflect on what went well and what didn't during the project cycle. It will help your team adjust performance for the next project accordingly. Ready to get started on your software project?There are many dedicated software development companies which ensure your software project is a success and can turn your ideas into reality!