This blog has no topic – mainly because this is not written to get a keyword ranked or to repeat content written in numerous other blogs posted on our website. This is a piece to talk about how to develop technology solutions, be it in house or in an outsourced manner, be it for the web or mobile platforms.
This blog does not conform to any formal methodology of development, it does not cover agile or waterfall model and is in no way supposed to highlight the advantages or disadvantages of any – this is about getting software development done in a manner, which works and is acceptable to the available team structure and their skills and the ever-greedy team lead/manager who would always want more than what is achievable 😉
So, starting off with the basics: –
- Documentation – we all know we need it and we all know we don’t always have it – so don’t fret over it, write down the business logic in a piece of paper, hand-draw the wireframes and hand over to the respective team member. If this needs to be submitted to a client for your milestone delivery, then we all know you need to have a dedicated project manager (also something we know we do not always have in our team or the project) – but we can all proceed and deliver projects without any formal documentation stack (we will come to scope creep and challenges later, but then what is life without a little drama and challenge)
- Wireframes – although I have briefly covered them in the above point, I would like to dedicate an entire point to it – after all it is very important and stressed on, but rarely done for small to mid size projects. Just draw them – yes, use the traditional paper and a pen and draw the interfaces – why do you need to spend hours doing them on Figma or adobe products? We all have experience and have probably worked on hundreds of interfaces if not more – use your experience, think of what the page is supposed to accomplish and get the job done – you say UX eh? I say common sense, past experience and achieving the objective – you do look both sides when you cross the road right – just look both sides and draw a kick-ass wireframe to hand over to your lazy front end developer who is pestering you for it and move on to your next round of beer or “okay…” other parts of the work assignment for the day.
- Business Logic – now this is important and very important to get right before we start programming else the foundation will not be strong and there will be a lot changes and errors etc. etc. etc. – but whom are we kidding – even if we have a written approval on the business logic submitted to the client, there will still be changes, there will still be edits and the so called foundation will still stay rock solid since we have now learnt to not get bogged down by these things and accept change – after all change is the only constant in life is it not.
- Testing – he he – need I write anything here – so we have a dedicated tester but post production rollout things still break – don’t they – don’t lie, your last project also got rolled out with bugs – we all know it :D. I will not elaborate on reality here, but just say that testing is very important and should be done thoroughly, but are you only looking at functional testing – what about speed, penetration, cross browser and cross platforms – please make sure you have everything covered.
Now that I have shared how it really works, should I say that we at MAG do not do anything like I mentioned above, but follow all the written rules and principles of Software Development Lifecycle – would you even believe me if I wrote that? But on a serious note, we deliver on time (Well mostly) and deliver kick-ass products, which meet the required objectives, be it saving time, saving money or increasing sales – we get it done for you!
