My Developer Left me
5 Ways to Avoid App Disasters as you Work on your App
“Wow” I thought to myself — feeling a bit guilty as I eavesdropped on the call.
I couldn’t help overhearing the tale of woe, as the woman entrepreneur bemoaned her situation loudly over the phone. She was talking as she sat in the hot-desk area of our co-work space.
“Where’s everything we paid for!” she cried, her hands waving in the air as she howled in to her phone.
She’s been abandoned by someone she trusted to build her app? As an app developer myself I instantly felt bad for her — what a stain on my profession. I offered her my help, a free chat.
Carol (not her real name) had a great business plan, and good ideas but was sailing in uncharted waters when it came to getting an app developed. She was great at working with people like print shops and social media influencers; but did not understand code, or how apps got shipped into the app stores.
This is the list of things I gave her as advice — and wound up using as advice for a couple of other appreneurs I met at the co-work space.
Way #1: Understand and anticipate the risks
Getting an app built is a project. What’s more its a Software Project — and I hate to say it but just statistically software projects fail at an alarming rate. It’s about half of projects that fail. That means its a coin-toss whether you even get the app you want delivered!
So much has been written on this but no-one thinks their project will be a failure:
The rates are 1/3 to 2/3 of projects late, way over budget or not working as expected.
I have some good news though. Technical projects fail for people-related reasons: those are reasons you can do something about. Plan ahead and you be sure you’re doing everything to make sure your app is one of the successes.
Way #2: Get the Code
Unpack that tip in as many layers of meaning as you can. “Get the code” as in make sure you get your hands on it; but also “get it” as in understand what it means for your project. It’s the goose that lays the Golden Eggs.
What role does code play? It’s needed to create new builds of your app.
I’ve written several extensive guides on this subject, so you can start there to build understanding. The takeaway is that you need what I call “the keys to the kingdom” — the repository access. If you’ve ever heard of GitHub or BitBucket that’s what I’m talking about.
You need your own account on Github (or whatever) with admin access to your repo, so that if things sour with your developer you can set up shop with a new developer and provide them access to pick up where the previous developer left off.
Try this analogy: like the way a Photoshop PSD file can produce a JPG or PNG image; your code files can produce an app, but the process cannot be reversed! You can’t take an app and get back the code!
Way #3: Move Ahead in Small Steps
Software is typically developed via iterations. What does that mean?
It means your idea of what the app is will change. Drastically. You will need to work cyclically with your app developer team or costs will blow out very quickly as changing software once its coded is very expensive.
The developers are managed by the technical Project Manager. They produce builds of the app and demonstrates them to the business-focussed Product Owner and UX designers for acceptance. Product owners select and choose the priority of features for the next iteration.
The Product Owner is thus the one who ensures the app fits with its intended market— and its a role which can be filled by you yourself - check out my guide for app-entrepreneurs on how to be a Product Owner.
The great benefit of working with the app development team like this is not only do you get to shape the app, instead of relying on a big design up-front; but also you’ll know very well when the features you need for launch are ready.
If working closely with the app developer team is just not possible, your other option is to decouple your apps development progress from your big splash “go live” dates by using a soft launch.
App development is not a thing where you “wait months & months” for a big handover, like when you take ownership of a house or office building and have a ribbon-cutting ceremony to get the front door key.
Be an active Product Owner, and demand working software through the life-cycle of app development.
In my experience the most certain way to join “Carol” and be among the software projects and app developer horror stories is to ask for estimated delivery dates and then be absent from the developer process until then but expect everything to be wonderful on launch day.
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