Knowing how to prepare for your custom software project will help both you and your custom software developer stay on schedule, within budget, and, ultimately, get you the solution you need to achieve your business performance goals. The right preparation will also help you get your project approved internally, as well as create genuine buy-in from your team. The result will be a solution that your users will welcome and use.

So, how can you prepare for your custom software project?

8 Ways To Prepare For Your Project

Here are the eight ways you can prepare for your custom software project. The clients who come into the project having worked on these areas experience a much better flow through the project and a real buy-in from their own stakeholders.

Our 8 tips:

• Know Your Goals and Desired Outcomes: The purpose of this software is to help you make improvements in your business’s performance. Understanding those goals as well as your expectations for the timeline, budget, and functionality of the software will help you be prepared.
• Get To Know Your Development Team: You may have a single point of contact -- your project manager -- or you might interact with all areas of development, from user interface, graphic design, project management, etc. Get to know your team, their expectations, and how they’ll be communicating with you throughout the project.
• Assemble your Own Team: In addition to the development team, gather your own stakeholders. Include anyone who will use the software and/or its features. This team might include external users such as vendors, suppliers, and customers.
• Inventory Your Technology: The development and rollout of your software will depend on your existing technology. Take a complete inventory of your software stack (databases, PHP versions, hosting, operating systems, etc.), the 3rd-party software packages you need to integrate, and any user interfaces, including hardware. This is a highly technical task, so your development team should help you with this.
• Define Milestones: How will you and your developer identify when the project is actually finished? In addition to that, think of milestones that you need them to meet along the way.
• Remove Obstacles: Do your best to predict any challenges that could delay your project, from internal approvals, testing, billing/payments, etc. Do you have stakeholders you know that can be bottlenecks in the process? Prepare them for the project and set their expectations. Plan to schedule time on calendars for reviews, testing, meetings, and approvals.
• Set Your Own Expectations: Be prepared for changes -- adds, deletes, changes -- and bugs. Your project plan is likely to change. Make sure both you and your development team have a clear method to communicate and budget any and all changes. Then, be prepared to report and track any bugs during testing.
• Ownership and Locations: Clearly define who owns code and other assets. Agree on where data will be stored.

Now That You Know How To Prepare For Your Software Project

Schedule a time to review your project with our team. The sooner the better, as we can help you prepare your team, define what “success” means, and get you a full proposal with a timeline and budget numbers.

Imagine how your team will perform with the right software!

Schedule a call (Calendly link) with a member of our team today to talk about your next project.