How to take the risk out of Software Development

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At some point in a business’s growth, many enterprises develop custom software for their employees or customers. Custom software makes it easier for your employees to work efficiently, it helps your business grow faster, and it gives you more control over your infrastructure.

But, building your own software can have a downside as well. For starters, there’s quite of bit of risk involved. New software applications can be expensive, error-prone, or hard to use.  We’ve been around the block a few times when it comes to building custom software, so here are some key ways we’ve learned to take the risk out of software development:

Be Agile

Agility is a buzzword in tech lately. Everyone wants to be agile and be able to “move fast and break things.” The problem for many companies is corporate processes that are necessary and important but tend to slow down projects.

When it comes to building software, however, the importance of agility can’t be understated. No matter how much time is spent planning for the development process, as you go, you’ll run into problems you didn’t anticipate, and it’s important to be able to adapt your project to overcome those challenges.

One solution that will help you embrace agility is to work with an outsourced development team. Outside teams tend to be more nimble and can move more quickly than an in-house team.

Communicate

Starting from early on in the development process, good communication is a vital factor. Communicating the goals of your software platform to the development team at the beginning and responding quickly to their need for resources or questions they have will help ensure that your project meets your expectations and goals. Withholding information or not communicating clearly will only slow your project down and may even mean you end up with an end product you’re not happy with.

Test, Test, Test

We’ve all used buggy software, and it’s no fun. Testing early and testing often will help make sure you get rid of bugs before rolling it out to users. Performing beta tests with limited users before a large-scale rollout will also help you find errors that may not have appeared in earlier tests.

At PoaTek, we’re committed to developing great software. That means when you put your tech in our hands, we test and test some more to make sure that you end up with a quality product.

Maintain

Just like an unattended house tends to break down, software that’s left alone will eventually develop problems. Your software development team should be proactive and catch issues before they happen or soon after they happen. Maintaining proper documentation about your software as well as up-to-date user guides and how-tos is also a key factor in your software’s success.

Hire the Right Developers

Your software developers are your most important resource. While experienced tech talent is hard to come by, be careful to be picky about who you hire. You don’t want to hire someone who will compromise on quality to save a few minutes or a few dollars.

Here at PoaTek, our developers have graduated from some of the best tech schools and worked at the world’s best tech companies. Outsourcing to an experienced team means you’ve got the experience and knowledge you need right at your fingertips.

Are you ready to start a new software project? Contact us today to see how we can help remove risk from your development process!