By Nick Butler
Tags: Development
Over the last 10 years, I’ve seen the differences between software projects that start from a good place and those that don’t. After analysing the patterns, I’ve distilled it down to three critical things that will reduce your risk and give your software project the best chance of success.
There is a traditional mindset that creates a supplier and vendor relationship which feels a bit ‘us versus them’. Your project will only thrive on a WE relationship. At Boost, we prefer to partner with clients on a project from the get-go, forming a strong, collaborative team that works together towards the same goal throughout the duration of the project.
Having found your partner, you need to go on the whole journey with them and not just dip in and out.
We often get clients coming to us after they’ve made strategic decisions and already have a project fully mapped out, which doesn’t necessarily set it up for success. We aren’t just about the delivery of a project; we specialise in helping clients to learn about what the customer really needs, validate ideas early, and develop and refine the right product that will lift your digital relationships to another level. We get great results that look very different than if we’d just built something directly from a requirements document.
Project inception is an exciting time when there are seemingly limitless possibilities. It is also a daunting time for the same reasons. You need to listen to your customer and build something that will deliver the outcomes they want.
How do you get that focus? We have been running workshops with clients for years to achieve just that. We use processes and tools that will make sure you build the right product – and nothing more. You won’t spend money on unnecessary software that has been developed because we made too many incorrect assumptions. They say that 80% of users only use 20% of features, so we start by identifying – and more importantly, delivering – that first 20%.
Check out our project kick-off kit for tips and tools on setting up and running great projects!
Software project success checklist: Ensure your project succeeds
The ideal Boost project: Our recipe for success
