Lack of partnership dialogue is a serious obstacle that often arises between the customer and the outsourcing team. Since there are not always specialists on the client side who are familiar with the “inner kitchen” of development, the process of creating a product often turns out to be a blind spot for the customer. The company can only hope that the budget will not burn out, and the end result will be consistent with the idea. That is why it is important to choose developers who are ready for an open dialogue, who will talk in detail about all the intricacies of the upcoming project and will work in the framework familiar to the customer.
The development of a successful IT product is a complex multistage process with a number of mandatory stages, some of which can go in parallel. It is worth noting that software development firm define the stages of product development in different ways, and here it is important that the process is completely transparent to the customer.
So what does the IT product development life cycle consist of? Let’s look at the development path with observance of the prerequisites for obtaining a quality product:
Analytics
At this stage, the customer and the outsourcing team determine the goals to be achieved during development, fix business tasks, user requirements, etc. This process takes place in a dialogue format, the participation of both parties is important here. Sometimes the customer may not be aware of some of the nuances of product development and it turns out in the process of collecting information.
Project evaluation
The collected data is analyzed and on their basis a product model is created that is equally understandable to both the customer and the developer. Next, the preliminary time and labor costs required to create the product are calculated. The best option is a presentation that describes in detail the project assessment, possible risks, the team for working on the project, various options for implementing tasks, conditions, stages and other details.
Design
Many mistakenly believe that design is only about the visual part. In fact, design is responsible for shaping the user experience. Will the user feel comfortable? How quickly will he orient himself and find what he needs? Will he be able to quickly get an answer to the question and will he want to return again? In other words, the clearer the interface of the IT product, the easier it is for the user to get the result and perform the target action. All this depends on the quality of UX / UI.
Development
This stage involves the implementation of the customer’s ideas already formalized into practical steps. The ideal format is development in sprints. The outsourcing team, in accordance with the project map, carries out the work and shows the customer the result of each part. Development in the sprint format is convenient and efficient, because it allows you to quickly collect feedback, respond to changes and make changes. This approach is based on an agile methodology and is called iterative.
Testing
Testing a software product is one of the most important stages in the process of its development, because before the presentation of a new product to consumers, a company must be 100% sure that it will work. Therefore, it is so important to identify critical bugs in time, check the functionality of the product, conduct a full analysis and implement recommendations for improvement.
Conclusion
Working with an outsourced development team should be convenient and efficient, so the choice of an IT partner should be approached with all responsibility. Even at the presale stage, you can determine how suitable the developer is for you, whether he cares about the client, how competent the contractor’s specialists are, how quickly the contractor responds to your wishes and whose interests are priority for him – your business or his own.
