How to Successfully Manage Mobile App Development Projects

Mobile presence is an integral part of branding. You must maintain your presence on the mobile. The total revenue generated by mobile app businesses reached $318 billion in 2022 (Statista). Over 100 billion gaming apps and 19 billion photo-sharing apps were downloaded in a year.

People are constantly looking at mobile apps to offer solutions to increase productivity and heighten operational efficiency. It is a great time to invest in your app idea and build it into a business.

You need a strong and reliable partner who can help convert the idea, improve the processes, and accelerate the app launch. Apart from that, it would help if you worked on planning a software development project for a reliable outcome.

This guide mainly focuses on how to manage mobile app development projects. This will help businesses ensure smooth outcomes and 100% transparency throughout the development.

Tips to Manage Mobile App Development Projects

There are some non-negotiable things that you should do to ensure that the project is planned, can be delivered on time, and is designed for quality. These tips will help you watch out for issues in the early stages and stay at the project’s helm.

#1 Complete the Planning Stage

A project is complete with a solid plan. You must wait to enter the development, leading to unorganized deliveries. As the project manager, the first step is to build a solid plan to help you allocate the resources, plan the investments, and determine the project's time.

When you have a plan, you can manage mobile app development projects and all the issues you will likely face during development. If you encounter some bumps or delays, you can always return to your planning blueprint and determine what to do.

During this project planning phase, you can define the objectives, determine the purpose and identify the goals for the mobile application. This will help you build a solid roadmap to accelerate app development outcomes.

Make sure you mention the deadlines, budget, and delivery phases for the entire project.

#2 Determine the Potential Risks

When you are planning the project, you should also identify the threats to your project. Risks are integral to application development projects. If you don’t look out for the risks, you will risk lowering the productivity and efficiency within the team.

Risks include poor resource allocation, poor timelines planning, or unskilled hires. The tech stack choice, the development process, and other factors can also be risky.

Identifying all the possible risks and knowing how to pave the way to overcome them is important. By identifying and mitigating the risks during the planning phase, you can manage the project well and lower the app development cost. It will also help you define your mobile app project’s perfect strategies and solutions.

Make sure to prioritize your risks according to their severity, so you don’t miss any of them.

#3 Freeze the Work Scope

This is a crucial factor in mobile app development. You might notice that it keeps changing when you create a scope and fail to freeze it. Over some time, your scope changes can cause delays in project development.

It can lower the progress of the mobile app project. New features, wondering about the functionality, or other reasons can lead to continuous scope change. You will also notice that not documenting your scope can lead to constant changes.

To avoid scope creep, ensure all the stakeholders are involved in the project planning phase. The kickoff is an important part of project management and can help you define the terms for the project. It can also enhance communication and project outcomes for mobile app development.

It would help if you said no to scope that can overshoot your budget and time planning.

#4 Estimate the Budget of the Project

When you are a project manager responsible for successful management, the budget plays a pivotal role. When you define the budget at the start, you know:

• The tech stack you can choose
• The resources you can hire
• The development timeline
• The skills you need

It can help you know if the project allows you to create a full-fledged application or an MVP for the mobile app.

While estimating the budget, you should consider the overall mobile app development project management cost. At the same time, plan for administrative expenses and marketing costs. It would help if you also planned for the promotional costs involved in a mobile app project.

The project manager needs to stay vigilant about the budget. Make sure you know when you are overshooting the estimates.

#5 Delegate the Tasks Effectively

As a manager responsible for managing the project, you should delegate responsibly. Getting everyone to do the same work can lead to inefficiencies and delays within the system. You can break down the entire work into different tasks. Allocate the tasks as per the resource’s skills and expertise. Once you have allocated to the strength, you will notice a greater efficiency in the outcome.

You can also work with the development team to decide the allocation. This will ensure people get the work they are most comfortable with. Make sure the responsibilities are transparent and the goals defined. This will offer great accessibility and enhance the ability of the employees. You can get work done faster and in half the original time specified.

#6 Know the Needs of the Team

Most project managers need to be made aware of what the team wants. This can lower productivity and reduce the team’s efficiency. As the PM isn’t aware, the team stays stuck, and the process doesn’t move forward. It will eventually lead to a delayed outcome. You can avoid this by keeping a hawk’s eye on the developer team’s requirements. Hear them, understand their issues, and find solutions to reduce their pain.

Respond to them with an empathetic attitude. You might hear them talk about better time management with more people. Look for solutions in some tools. This can help you ensure faster work with the projects, eventually leading to client satisfaction. As a practice, make sure to hear them out instead of listening to them.

#7 Use the Suitable Project Management Tools

As a project manager, you should know the ease that tools offer. You can access the different teams, know the project’s status, and determine your resources’ availability. These tools can improve the allocation processes and workflow creation for the managers.

You can optimize the flows better and derive the best outcomes. For instance, the Gantt chart is an excellent tool for defining project flows. It can help you plan the project, know the resource allocation and define the timelines. It gives you a bird’s eye view into the resource availability and how soon they can take up another task.

Overall, these tools can help with operations, development, and collaboration. It can also enhance overall project management and translate requirements into a mobile application.

#8 Track the Progress Regularly

Project managers must track the progress of their projects. Reporting the status, knowing the delays, identifying the risks, and looking for solutions are core functions of the project manager.

However, status reports shouldn’t be timed once a month or randomly. You should have weekly scrums, daily stand-ups, and bi-weekly reports. This can help you monitor the progress and determine how to manage the projected slump.

You will notice ownership within the team when you track the update regularly. This can eventually enhance the project’s outcome and make your teams efficient.

You can also remove the possibility of a bottleneck and ensure smooth progress.

#9 Make Way for Constructive Feedback

Feedback isn’t necessarily what you give to your developers; sometimes, the developers may notice things that aren’t up to the mark and may share their feedback. As a project manager, you must take this feedback constructively and identify ways to resolve the issue.

Understanding your developers’ needs is important, as checking how you can be more resourceful and determining the best ways to work together.

There could be solutions that the team can give which are way better than what you presumed. If you are a non-technical person, the feedback can help you streamline the processes better. Keeping the team involved throughout the project can benefit your project outcomes substantially.

#10 Try to Avoid Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking may seem like an excellent term; however, it is an efficient technique for developing a mobile app project. It would help if you strayed away from it to keep up your efficiency requirements.

You should ensure that your developers focus on a single task at a time. Multi-tasking may hamper your operations and lead to not-so-successful outcomes.

If a single developer works on multiple projects or tasks, they cannot foster innovation. It’s possible they aren’t able to solve your issue. It would help if you tried to focus on one work at a time to ensure timely solutions and quality product outcomes.

Conclusion
Project managers are required to be vigilant in mobile app development. The single point-of-contact will ensure that the operational workflows are smoothly tackled and the outcomes are effective. You can easily attain the defined deadlines with the project manager.

Ensure you follow a stringent budget, estimate the timeline and plan well in advance. Identifying the risks and opportunities helps you manage mobile app development projects well. It is crucial to partner with your client instead of just developing the app. This way, you can offer better and more innovative solutions.

At IndianAppDevelopers, a top mobile app development company, we appoint a project manager to reduce your burden and enhance the workflow. It will also make outsourcing easy and efficient.