What is the Process of Custom Software Development?

The process for custom software development is more involved than most people think. Sure, all the steps look simple but it’s the strategists and development team behinds it that will determine whether you’ll achieve the functionality you need.  

Working with an experienced team of marketers and developers is essential because they will know what questions to ask you and what you might be missing in your planned user experience (UX).

Having the “Technical Chops” to complete the project efficiently and cleanly – from a code development point of view is critical in the longevity and ongoing maintenance of your custom software development project.

With that being said a typical software development process follows these steps:

1. Requirement Gathering – Your development team needs to understand what the requirements are for the specific custom software development project.

2. Problem Definition – Once the team understands the requirements, they will need to define the problems. They may need to do market research to learn how they can better solve the problem in the marketplace or for your unique internal challenges.

3. Devising A Plan or Design for the Software – Once potential problems have been identified, then you and your development team can start laying it out step-by-step getting you as clear as possible on how it should function and focusing on the user UX (user-experience).

One thing we run into a lot is clients typically have an abstract idea of what they want as an end-result but do not know what software should do so they miss very important pieces of the functionality for whoever the user will be.

That is why it is so important to have a marketing strategist help plan this out. Our clients rely heavily on our experience building out software projects at this stage for clarity of their project.

4. Implementation System Design – Software engineers start the coding process for the project. Building out the software with milestones in place as targets for time efficiency and accountability. In addition, often including milestones for certain levels of functionality.

At this point in the process, you will be asked to test and provide feedback before developers move onto the next phase.

5. Testing – Once the coding has been completed, testing for errors and further functionality is completed. Bugs will be fixed, and code may need to be re-written to meet the project specifications.

6. Documentation – After testing is completed, developers typically document the process of the whole software, flow charts used, and the algorithmic processes etc.

7. Training and Support – Sometimes you will receive training included in your project costs, but you will need to inquire to see if this is included. For example, we take the time to make sure our clients understand how the software works so they maximize the benefits. Software that is not understood is not used. Software is only a tool and only as good as the user.

8. Maintenance – Once the system has be launched and implemented you must maintain the software to maximize the functionality and continue to make improvements. This is something that is often overlooked by novice developers or marketers.

It’s vital that you understand an investment in custom software development requires a dedication to ongoing budget support not only to update and maintain the software but so that it continues to grow with you.  

• The first two steps assist the team in understanding the problem, in our best estimation and experience, this is the most crucial first step towards getting a solution.

• The person responsible for gathering requirements, defining the problem, and designing the system is called the system analyst.

• The next most important piece to the software development puzzle is the software strategy planning.

• We call them a marketing strategist. Their job is to layout the project in order and place time frames to the milestones to be accomplished for accountability and better turnaround times.

We’re a team of experienced marketing strategists who understand the critical role of planning. Custom software development cannot be thrown together with a vague notion of what you want – being willy-nilly with something like software development will guarantee your project will cost you three times as much time and money than it needs to. Work with those who can walk you through the process and help get you the exact user experience you desire out of your custom software development project – call us at 1.888.723.7194 or email at Info@visionforcemarketing.com