Question To Ask Your Client Before You Build Their Mobile App
Clients generally don’t have much idea about mobile app development. All they have is an idea. It is important to know how to address their queries, extract information and ultimately build a spectacular app.
#What will be the risks during a mobile app build?
Creating a risk register as a part of the project kick-off and being disciplined to keep this up to date is a good idea, even for those apps which seems simple. There should be an owner for all the risks and managing those risks.
#What is the budget?
Mobile projects are really difficult to estimate a budget, but for the scope of the project, there should be a range within which the project should be completed. The app development company and the client have to agree on the ongoing budget once the app is live. There will probably be hosting costs, ongoing optimization of the app on-boarding and in-app use, discovery optimization, push notification services. Knowing how much ongoing work the app will require could also influence how much the app development company will ask in the initial phase.
#Who are the key stakeholders?
Here the app development company has to clear, who is the budget holder? Who is the project owner? What will be the decision making stages? With whom the client has to work with post app launch?
#What does success look like at each stage of the process?
Building this into a number of smaller phases, with approval phases the app development company need to go through many bureaucratic. This saves time, money as well as enhance the anxiety of the development company to build the app.
#What are the business objectives for the mobile app?
What the core features and functions of the app, what platforms it needs to run on and what analytics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you need to track once the app goes live.
#Who will the app compete with?
There may be a no direct competitor doing exactly the same thing, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ways that people are solving the problem that they have.
#What are underlying assumptions?
Does the app run on both mobile and tablet? How back compatible does it have to be when moved from android 8.0 to Android 9.0 or from iOS 8 to iOS 9.? Does the app work offline? What languages does the app will support? Will the app connects with wearable devices?
#HOW IS IT GOING TO BE HOSTED?
Is there an existing infrastructure it needs to plug into?
What are the security protocols?
Are there any upstream micro-services that need to plug into the app?
Is there going to be a website that will sit along-side the app and have to share user profile information?
Are there any other vendors that the app needs to integrate with (SalesForce, SharePoint etc).
How are you going to manage user generated content and what’s the expected upload/download shape of that content?
Each application is different and the techniques are always advancing, but this is kind of a standard process while developing mobile applications. A mobile application development process mainly includes Scoping, Project Kick-off, Development, and Deployment.
- Are you planning to develop an application in multiple phases?
- Is server back end ready or do you expect us to implement it?
- Do you want us to build the web services (APIs) that connect your app to your cloud database or will your team build the web services (APIs)?
- Will some of your features require research and development (R&D)?
- Do you want to store data on your customer’s device and then automatically sync that data to your cloud database when internet connectivity is available?
- Do you expect us to consider administrative web application?
- Do you expect us to consider the integration of any enterprise software?