Mobile applications has some very unique characteristics that shouldn’t be overlooked when planing your mobile strategy. In this post, I’ll cover some decisions you need to make before starting the project. In Part 2, I’ll give tips to help you avoid common pitfalls when managing the actual development.
Mobile is the hot trend right now, and you are contemplating to add Mobile to your Product offering. How difficult can it be, right? Software is software… Well, not so fast. Before diving too deep into planning and adding backlog items, consider the suggestions below. Some of them sound obvious, but believe me, what might seem obvious is often the cause of the biggest failures.
First of all, do you really need a Mobile App?
Mobile is such a buzzword. Everybody and their dog are driving towards Mobile, but in reality, is Mobile the right move for you? If you are thinking about launching a Mobile App just because everybody is doing it, then your chances of failure are very high, not to mention the huge amount of money you’ll throw away in the process.
Building a Mobile App should be part of an overall business strategy on how to provide more value to your customers. Make sure you have a solid business plan and an overall ecosystem strategy before you even start planning the development details. You should have a clear understanding on the benefits you’ll bring to your users by providing a Mobile App and you should have a clear idea of the level of investment and ROI.
For example, I once interacted with a company that provided accounting software, and they wanted to provide access to their system via a tablet. After some research, we discovered that their users don’t have a use for Mobility since they do all of their work at their desk anyway. Therefore, going “Mobile” was a waste of time, money and didn’t add any value to their users. Their development dollars would be better spent enhancing their existing web platform to provide some additional features that the current users have been asking for. That’s the kind of trade-offs that Product Managers need to do everyday.
Make sure you understand your users
Mobile devices provide a very unique use-case for software. It’s like nothing we’ve had in the past. The biggest mistake I see companies make is to just “port” their current web or desktop functionality into a Mobile platform. The Mobile use-case is different, therefore you must design an experience that adds value to your users when they are on the go.
But don’t take my word for it. Find out for yourself by performing UX Research. Create personas, perform contextual inquiries, interview your users, do rapid prototyping, etc. If you don’t have the expertise in house, I strongly recommend hiring an external Vendor to help you out. Companies like Frog or projekt202 are experts in the field and can produce amazing results that will save you time and money in the long run. Check out my post on selecting Vendors if you plan to evaluate potential Vendors to work with.
Plan which platforms to target
Once you have a strategy and understand your users, you can start diving deeper by discussing which platform to target. Platform selection needs to be closely tied to your overall strategy. Basically it’s important to know who your users are and the market you are targeting. If you ask an Executive, probably they’ll say: “we need to run on all platforms”. As enticing as that might be, it can get very expensive very quickly, and it will be difficult to manage. According to Gartner, Android has the biggest market share of Mobile users today. But numbers alone might not be the best strategy. It is possible that your target audience is more on the iOS camp and by going only with Android, you might miss the target market outlined by your strategy.
They key here is research from a strategic perspective. It might be alluring to go with the platform that you currently have expertise in, and that is a very reasonable thing to do. But keep in mind that you should follow the strategy and avoid these shortcuts. If your strategy calls for building new internal capabilities, make sure you understand the ROI and the ramp-up time it will take to create a new development team. It’s also important to consider that as the date of writing, Mobile developers are still a rare commodity. They are not only hard to find, but they are also one of the most expensive type of developers out there.
As always, if building an internal team is not an option, you can always outsource that development to an external Vendor. It might cost you more out-of-pocket, but it might help you meet some tight deadlines and specific constraints you might have. As Product Manager, the choice is yours.
Native or Web App?
This is the million-dollar question, and it is closely related to your strategy, the platform you chose and your target user. Native means building an app using the tools provided by the OS and having the app run directly by the OS. WebApp refers to an app created as a web page that will be run through a web browser on the mobile device.
Native will always provide the best possible experience, no question. The problem is that the code you develop will only be able to run on that specific OS. If you decide you want to target multiple platforms, then going Native means you’ll need to develop and maintain code in various platforms. It can be very complicated, but if that’s consistent with your strategy, then that’s what you should do. Keep in mind that for Native development, you’ll not only need skilled programmers in that environment, but you’ll also need the supporting IT infrastructure to develop on. For example, if you are a Windows shop and would like to develop Native iOS apps, then you’ll need to buy Mac computers to support your development. Make sure your IT department can support this change in infrastructure before committing to this approach.
Web Apps provide an option for automatic cross-platform deployment since all you are creating is a web page that will be loaded in the Mobile device’s browser. By using HTML5 and JavaScript, you can create amazing experiences, but keep in mind they won’t feel as natural or be as responsive as if they were developed in the Native environment. Even Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook’s biggest mistake was to rely too heavily on HTML5 and leave Native aside. Fortunately for Facebook, they have money to burn, so they have the luxury of assigning an army of developers to build anything they want to correct mistakes in direction. Your company might not be that lucky, so this initial decision is a very important one.
As technology moves forward, tools for cross-platform development are getting better and better. Exploring platforms like PhoneGap or Titanium might be worth your time for creating Native applications that can be deployed in multiple platforms. Through these tools, you can create hybrid applications that take advantage of some of the Native features and yet allow reusing some of the source code across multiple platforms.
The lessons learned in this post will help you determine the initial roadmap for tackling your Mobile App. In Part 2, I’ll share some additional lessons learned to avoid common pitfalls when overseeing your development.
While many of the bigger companies have already started or even completed creating their business app, the smaller business owners are the ones who are faced with the dilemma of investing in an app.
Manager
http://www.valuecoders.com