How to Build Your Own Project Management Software from Scratch
With due attention to the development process, project management software (PMS) can become the cornerstone of your company’s market success. Have you ever wondered if there is a chance to achieve a more productive way of assigning and tracking employees’ responsibilities on the project than a bunch of Excel files? There is! This article will consider how to build project management apps to automate processes at such a level that it will seem to you as if everything is done by itself.
First Things First, Let’s Talk About the Money
Here’s the major factors that influence the cost of a PM app development:
- Set of features that your project management software app will provide usually determines the lion’s share of cost. The more features you want, the more hours it will take for the software development team to implement them;
- App design complexity is another thing to consider. The creation of a good-looking UI that does not harm the eyes due to long work at the computer and adherence to UX principles are essential parts of top-notch software development;
- Target platforms on which you plan to run your PM also influence the cost. For many businesses, mobile app support can be a significant software feature. Some employees may work out of the office, and timely notifications on schedule changes can improve the overall efficiency. The good news is that there are alternatives to native app development. For example, a Progressive Web App can become a more affordable solution, and in this case, you won’t have to sacrifice the user experience.
If your budget is tight and cutting costs on software development is one of your priorities, you can consider the adoption of a minimalist web app. A cloud solution that provides access to an online Gantt chart, for example, will do the trick. Project managers will have the ability to track the employees’ productivity, and everybody will know what tasks should be completed by what time.
Additionally, you may want to decrease the amount of manual work as much as possible and invest in automation. In this scenario, a software development company can provide access to a bunch of out-of-the-box templates that will automatically generate a chain of activities required for completing specific complex tasks.
If specifics of your work include the involvement of large teams, it’s necessary to ensure that everybody’s on the same page. Automated notifications via email or smartphone apps can become a huge helper. In addition, interactive reports that reflect the critical KPIs over a given period will help make data-driven decisions if you decide to make improvements. For example, suppose you timely understand that it takes too much time to achieve specific milestones or customer satisfaction is too low. In that case, you have all the chances to minimise the costs of fixing the problems your company faces.
If we talk about the overall cost of a PM software development, creating something simple won’t cause significant investments. For example, a development company may ask you to pay something between $40,000-$60,000. An enterprise-wide PM app with a number of functionalities has a significantly increased overall complexity. As a result, time on development and testing is much higher. Building such a software system will cost you $300,000 or even more.
PM App Development from Idea to Implementation
When you cooperate with a company providing web application development services for building a PM app, the process usually takes the following steps:
- A business analyst (BA) performs an accurate analysis of the customer’s company to understand how a software solution can help solve business problems. Also, the potential growth points must be found;
- BA determines what activities will help to achieve the goal and decides what specific development team members’ primary responsibilities will be;
- Clarifying business rules is the next step. If a customer’s company works in manufacturing, for example, it’s essential to notify employees about the new task in advance to ensure that there’s enough time for providing the availability of the required amount of materials;
- To show customers that the PM app will fit their needs, creating a graphical representation of business rules determined in the previous step is sometimes necessary. There’s a plethora of tools allowing the software development team to make it, for example, the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN);
- Another option to help a customer better understand that the final app is worth the cost is to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP);
- The software development team creates the database for the future app. In some cases, spent efforts can increase. For example, if the customer uses a legacy database management system and it’s too harmful to the business to abandon the business info it contains. This circumstance can potentially increase the overall cost;
- The QA team can perform the app tests. Also, the software development company can check how real users interact with the app and receive pretty helpful feedback;
- Developers add features that are not required for providing core functionality but can help to make the user experience better;
- The app is demonstrated to the customer, and received feedback is used to implement the new features or change existing functionality.
Discover more:
