The acceleration of processes occurring in modern markets requires companies to find more dynamic ways to develop new products. This includes:
- rapid identification of unmet user needs;
- getting feedback from consumers at the earliest stages of product development;
- rapid introduction of new products to the market.
New product development methods are particularly well suited to the design of information and digital products. These methods incorporate the use of modern information technology and the Internet. For example, software development. Read about custom banking software development for more details.
To speed up the software development process, you should rely on the following solutions:
Ensuring that all new product development processes are flexible and making effective use of responsive customer feedback
Since digital products can be delivered over the Internet, the costs of multiple samples and minor variations are minimal. This approach allows you to provide customers with samples at an early stage and maintain feedback with consumers.
Another way to crank up speed in software development is to break the process itself into modules. Modularity allows you to perform many operations in parallel. Individual development teams can act independently in this case, without waiting for the results obtained by each of them.
The constant interaction between the client and developers
Problems in submitting the work only arise when the developer did not do what the customer needs (or the customer does not agree with what was done). Obviously, the mistake was made in defining the goals of the project, identifying and analyzing stakeholders, collecting requirements.
If you pay more attention to requirements gathering, the problems will disappear. As a consequence, you can avoid time losses and labor costs for submitting the work. Sometimes it even happens that during the development process, the client understands that he needs other functionality. For example, the application still requires multilanguage. And the sooner it becomes clear, the less time it will take to redo.
As a consequence, there is a need to make radical changes to the software solution when additional requirements arise. This takes much more time than doing it right away. Thus, regular demonstrations are also an effective way to speed up the project. It is very important to coordinate development between the contractor and the client at least once a week. By spending 1-2 hours on demonstrations, you can avoid mistakes and misunderstandings.
The contractor draws up the terms of reference, and the customer approves it. If you want to get the product you have in mind, take the time to study the technical documentation: make sure that all the points from the discussions are spelled out. Then the programmers will not have to redo the work several times, and you will get the finished project faster.
Testing at the earliest stages of product development
Many software companies use a system of releasing alpha and beta versions of products. Their distribution channel is often the Internet. This method allows them to receive the necessary information from customers and test the proposed options.
The first step in this process is the release of an alpha version to the market. Most often it is offered only to experienced users. Often they are the company’s employees, who are asked to participate in the testing. The goal of this release is to get feedback from consumers at the earliest stages of implementing new ideas. And in the future, an understanding of how new ideas and methods will function in real-world conditions.
Launching an MVP or pilot project helps you get started with the app in the shortest possible time. This is very convenient if there is no precise understanding of what users want and what functionality should be implemented next. In practice, you can release an MVP in just 1-1.5 months.
The next step is beta testing. At this stage, the company offers a product or service to a more extensive market. Its purpose is different – to test and continue to improve a set of basic properties. At this stage, reliability and compatibility of the future product become the key objectives. Beta testing also serves as a good form of advertising a new product and testing it out to potential users.
Beta testing is a variant to replace the usual large-scale tests. The company relies on the consumer to find problems with the new product. In this way, developers can reduce the cost of testing this product, which they would otherwise have to do themselves. In addition to saving money, this approach also greatly speeds up the entire development cycle.
Rapid introduction of new products to the market
Another critical condition for the success of a product is the ability of the company to ensure its rapid entry into the market. Losing time at this stage can be even more dangerous than at the development stage. The introduction of alpha and beta versions is one of the most effective ways to speed up the process of bringing a product to market. Besides, setting the end date of their use in these versions is a good incentive to purchase a commercial version of the product after a certain time.
The right choice of the framework can crank up speed in software development
Cross-platform frameworks help reduce project implementation time by about half. The development itself takes much less time if an application is created for two platforms at once.
For example, the first version of the app on Android is tested first. If everything is OK, then the same app for iOS is created in a couple of days. Yes, it can have its own errors and bugs that are caught during tests. But still, this process takes just a few days, and not an additional 3 months for separate native development.
However, in the pursuit of speed and tight deadlines for project completion, you may lose in quality. So keep a balance.
