Blog > Why Your Custom Software Project Needs Professional Planning
Planning is a crucial stage in the software development life cycle. It is during the planning stage that you can determine the scope and how you want your software to work. Hence, the first stage for any successful software development is meticulous planning and professional insight.
Yes, you can decide to work with your in-house team to create your custom software projects with professional planning. However, it is either their primary responsibilities at work that suffer a setback or the time for the project completion is overstretched. You need outsider professionals. Although professional project planning managers know what to plan for, you need to know why they are spending such an amount of time, money, and energy on the planning stage for your custom software project.
How to determine whether this custom software project needs professional planning?
To Determine the Project Timeline
It is in the planning stage that you propose the time frame for software development. Your software development partner knows how long each stage of the project should take. You also have a specific time in mind for the completion of the software. You can set the deadline for each stage of the project and measure your team’s performance against set goals.
To achieve your goal, ensure you set a realistic timeline. You do not want to rush through the process or overstretch the time. A professional custom software manager will guide you on the length of your unique project since in most cases they have done so many similar projects.
To Prevent Scope Creep
From the end-user to the authorities making decisions on the project, there are many stakeholders in the software development process. Each stakeholder wants a particular feature added to the custom software. A professional software manager will enlighten your organization about the technicalities of the project.
Lack of a clear definition of project objective can lead to scope creep. This is the continuous rise in the scope of a project. To avoid scope creep, properly define and document the scope of your project and communicate the same with your professional software manager. You must be able to differentiate between what the project requires and what it can do without at the planning stage.
Cost Control
Poor budgeting and resourcing is the cause of the failure of 71% of software projects. It is during the planning phase that you allocate resources to the right places. You would want to avoid spending beyond your budget and being hindered by a lack of funds. The budget can be fixed or within a set range.
When you put your heads together with your software developer, you can decide on the realistic amount to spend on the project. You do not want your project to stop mid-way or money-draining software. The planning phase will allow you to know what it will cost your organization to develop and test working software. During the planning process, you can develop software requirements documentation that is cost-effective.
To Detect the Risks and How to mitigate them
The planning stage is a fact-finding stage. If you have a detailed plan in place, you can identify different milestones and the way to address them. Remember your bespoke software is unique to your organization. So, it is essential to visualize the problems before they occur. Do you want your software to employ many quality attributes such as scalability, maintainability, accessibility, and so forth? What are the metrics you want to use to measure the effectiveness of your software project?
The planning phase in custom software development involves a step-by-step analysis of the stages of your project and what is required at each stage. You need a professional developer to map out the stages and the likely risks.
To sum up
Visualize what you want from your custom software for your business and hire field professionals with a broad vision to deliver it. The planning stage gives you the overall vision of what your custom software will be like when developed or even during development.
Author: SVCIT Editorial
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