A project roadmap is one of the essential elements that serve to guide the strategic direction of the project development process. And when it comes to mobile app development, a roadmap is vital.
You have to predict each phase of the development once you decide to create an app for your business. You have to know the best way, whether you’ll use code, the amount of time that you need to build it, the costs, goals, technical specs, and so on.
And to know all of this, you need a roadmap to steer you in the right direction every step of the way.
Defining a project roadmap
A project roadmap can be described as a plan which maps out each step and each goal with a set of specific tech solutions.
A proper project roadmap always has these objectives:
- Becomes a blueprint for the execution of your plan.
- Defines your vision and strategy.
- Shows you the overall progress.
- Clarifies strategy to external stakeholders.
- Helps you realize what you have to invest in to get the project done 100%.
Clearly, every professional app development company should create a project roadmap along with a proposal that lists all the important details of the project. They can create their own proposal or use a free proposal template to cover all the aspects of app development. Now let’s move on to the actual steps of your next successful roadmap creation.
1. Product discovery and planning.
This should be the first step. The discovery phase will help you create and define your app’s mission, its target users, and unique selling proposition.
Strategic planning will help you place focus on the right vision and path that will help you understand why, what, and who factors regarding your mobile app. Determining a strategic plan with targets as a whole needs to be at your sights.
Once you are done with these, you need to establish app goals. This will transform your vision into actionable pieces of information. Keep the goals in mind and link them to KPIs to get a smoother path towards the end product.
For instance, your product goals can be improved customer satisfaction, reduced churn, and better mobile adoption.
2. Rely on data.
The second most important bit regarding a roadmap is that it needs to rely on data. Everything you add to it should be backed up by data.
Establishing success metrics early on and defining crucial KPIs means that you get to enjoy a good understanding of what areas to focus on for your initial release.
But you will also know what you need to improve with each version of your app. However, if you are launching a minimum viable product, you need to focus on a limited amount of metrics.
Now, it all depends on the kind of app you want to create. You may decide to focus on customer satisfaction metrics or take a business-oriented attitude instead.
Keep in mind that if you want to focus on customer success, you want to see metrics such as adoption rates, retention, product quality, and so on. On the other hand, if you want business-oriented metrics, you should focus on acquisition costs, revenue, and similar metrics.
3. App features.
Launching an MVP is essential if it aligns with your business goals and needs. An MVP can help you collect important insights from users before spending too much time and/or money on app development.
Keep in mind that MVPs are only the basics of your final product. This means that you should only include the key goals and features. Start with the core features as you may need essential customer feedback that could change the prioritization of your functionalities.
This is one of the most important parts of every good roadmap. So, do your best to create a list of all the functionalities the final product needs to offer.
4. Lay down the timeline.
It is absolutely necessary to establish the timeline and timescales of your project. Keeping everything within the timeframe you have created allows you to transform your strategic vision into actionable deliverables.
Create clear timeframes for each part of your development project and you will keep yourself and your team on the same page, which helps ensure that your mobile app is finished in good time.
5. Collecting feedback.
Last but not least, you need to hear what others have to say along the way to get the best possible product in the end. Insights about where your product is good and what areas need to be worked on can only be achieved through customer feedback.
The feedback you receive from your users will be one of the important factors that will keep you going or make you turn around and fix some areas before you carry on. Do your best and make sure that your team members do their best to analyze every feedback piece properly.
This is the only way to know how to include your customer’s wants in order to make a great mobile business app.
Final words.
Are you ready to create your next mobile app?
Go through this article piece one more time and see if there are some areas you need to think about again. Good luck.
