Who will be designing the look and feel of the app?
The app’s UI defines the user’s interaction with the app. The UX defines how the application is used, the user’s journey and outcomes. An effective app UI/UX requires a different approach to print or web design. As such it is advisable to provide brand guidelines, etc., and allow the app’s UI/UX to be designed a specialist mobile app designer.
Who will be the app project manager?
It’s crucial to have a customer advocate who is empowered to make or obtain decisions quickly. The customer project manager should be available to answer questions, provide information and assets as required and normally also co-ordinates testing, review and sign-off from the customer side.
What project management methodology - Waterfall or Agile?
There are two methodologies commonly adopted during the app development process.
Waterfall:Waterfall takes a linear approach to the project with the stages being completed one by one. This approach works well if the requirements are fully defined up front and do not change throughout the project.
Agile:Agile utilises ‘Sprints’ which aim to complete small pieces of functionality that meet a particular user need. Agile works very well when requirements are not fixed or there are shifting priorities at play in a project. Agile does not fit well with a fixed price commercial model.
For fixed price projects Exploding Phone uses a variation of Waterfall which includes some iteration around testing.
