Creating your own customised software can be incredibly beneficial to a business, saving a great deal of both time and money.  However it can also be an expensive process, and if mismanaged can end up costing many fold more than the initial expected costs.  There are many things you do both in preparation and during a software development project that will greatly enhance the chance of success. 

Planning

Many people see planning as boring and seeing as they know what they want to do in their head, jump straight into implementation.  Proper planning is the most important part of your development project and will save you a huge amount time in the long run.  Your project needs to be fully scoped.  What does the software have to do? What are the features?  What should it look like?  These things all need to be clearly delineated so there is no confusion for your developers.  What often happens is that your developers will interpret your ideas differently to you, and this does not get realised until in final development stages.  So make sure you can be as detailed as possible in your planning, covering every last feature and how it should work.  This will also enable your developers to much more accurately quote on the job, and provide realistic time frames to completion. 

Usability & Design

Usability is of paramount importance to software design.  You can have all the latest and greatest features, but if the user does not know what to do then the system is adding little value to the user.  This means you need to focus on an intuitive design at all times.  Users need to be able to figure out where to go and what to do before they go to the help menu.  You need to place icons and calls to action where people would expect to see then.  By wire framing your designs you will get a good feel for how things are going to look and how intuitive the design will be.  This will cut down a great deal of development time however there is no substitute for proper testing.  Once your software if ready to be tested, make sure at least 5 independent users test the software.  Make sure they are given specific tasks and observe them as they undertake these tasks.  This is a very effective way to see how users navigate through your system and how intuitive the design is. 

Also make sure that you test the software as thoroughly as possible.  Test a variety of different options on different computers and browsers.  Issues are always much cheaper to fix before they are released so there is no substitute for a thorough testing regime. 

Bugs

Bugs are a part of any software development.  It is important to document each of the bugs that arise and also the exact steps that cause them.  You can save a great deal on development costs by quickly and efficiently reporting bugs, in a manner your developers will easily be able to reproduce.  You also need to have a clear agreement with your developers as to what constitutes a bug and who will be paying for it.  Often there is a fine line between a bug and new functionality.  You will think it’s a bug, and your developers will tell you its new functionality.  This is why it becomes so important to clearly outline the features of the product before the project starts. 

Funding

Software development often creeps out in terms of electronics cost.  When you start developing you will invariably come up with new features that will add value or save time.  There may also be other areas of the project that were not scoped out properly and during development it becomes evident it will be much more costly than first expected.  As a general rule, price out your software project, then double it.  It may seem unlikely at the time, but time and time again projects blow out by this amount. 

Project Management

There is a lot of correspondence that goes on with software development that is by phone and email.  Often messages can be misinterpreted this way and some things can be very difficult to describe.  As such it becomes instrumental to have regular catch ups with your development team to make sure things are on track and any issues can be clearly communicated. 

Testing

One of the biggest problems with web development is that the designers and project owners think they always know the best solution.  It is important to not become attached with the solution and continually test it based on feedback given.  Developers and those close to the project are often unable to see obvious design or functionality faults as they are too close to it.  So you should always take new suggestions on board and if budget permits test it to see the impact. 

The biggest keys around software development are planning and testing.  The more people you can get feedback from, the better your design and functionality will be.  Make sure you clearly define the project scope at the start of the project and document everything clearly.  When software development is done properly it can be hugely beneficial for a business and by following the advice in this article you will be better equipped for a successful project.