Do you know how a software product is built? Though you probably have an idea, the product development process can be more complicated than you think. Read this article to learn more.
We will reveal the seven stage model used by the most successful companies. In fact, the purpose of the product development process is to create a new sustainable product that can survive multiple market changes and bring tangible value to end clients. The right product doesn’t follow the trends blindly but rather leverages on them while still meeting essential customer needs. Let’s follow the product development process step by step.
1. Idea Generation
What do you usually do to generate an idea? Do you meditate or keep a journal?Actually, we don’t feel like talking about inspiration will review tried and proven methods of coming up with creative concepts and validating them.
SCAMPER
Basically, take whatever exists and build an even better product.
Mind Mapping
Just write out concepts and ideas that you like and figure out ways to combine those on visual Maps. It helps to find unexpected solutions.
Crowdsourcing
Ideation sometimes requires the experiences of multiple creators from different cultural contexts. Brands often use the help of crowdsourcing companies to help them reach award-winning creators and use their insights to develop a new product.
2. Ideas Screening
The purpose of idea screening is to cut off the concepts that don’t align with user needs, market trends or company values. This is a crucial stage for your product success. You don’t want to move to the next phase until you are sure that your idea is viable and well-thought-out. Wondering how to evaluate your idea? Let’s review the best methods.
Fail-Proof Testing
The team creates a list of criteria designed to cut off unprofitable ideas. Usually, these factors are:
- Feasibility
- Budget
- Company’s values
- User needs
- Competition
These are basic requirements that all potential products should respond to.
Visual Matrix
Take the previous method and assign the values from 0 to 10 for each criterion to make the evaluation more measurable. The idea that got the most points will have a competitive advantage over the rest. When you are done, move on to financial evaluation. Perform an independent budget analysis, focus solely on the cost and expected profits of the solution, then perform SWOT analysis to examine the product strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Costar Evaluation
This is a lesser known but a fundamental metric. You need to define the characteristics of your team, opportunities of the products, describe the functionality of the solution, also determine what team members and skills you need to work on competitive advantages and identify expectations for results.
3. Concept Testing
Now you need to describe the product the way a customer would see and use it and demonstrate this information to actual potential customers. During testing, you need to describe:
- Pricing: how much is a user willing to pay for the product?
- Usability: Is the functionality easy to use and understand?
- Convenience: Does the product appeal with its simplicity?
- Quality: Does a functionality meet the user’s expectations?
When you are ready you can proceed to stage 4.
4. Product Development
Before you start building the product code, you need to know:
- The expected price of the ready product
- Expected sales amount
- The potential lifespan of the product
When the business objectives and limitations are clear, it’s time to start technical execution. You need to hire qualified software developers, designers, testers and project managers. You can recruit these experts to your in-house team or hire outsourcing specialists.
- Product designers develop the interface of the product, determine the users personas, build design prototypes and create the final user interface.
- Front-end developers build the client side of the application.
- Back-end team ensures functionality performance, interactions with servers, databases APIs.
5. Testing and Execution
Quality Assurance specialists and software testers can join the project early on set standards of code quality and track mistakes.If a QA team worked on the product from the very beginning, they would also share responsibility for its quality which leads to a better final performance.
6. Post Development
After the product has been developed and tested, it’s time for alpha testing. Typically performed by in-house staff to identify bugs before releasing the product to real users or the public.
Beta testing: You present the product or its basic version to first users, collect feedback, improve the functionality and interface and prepare the solution for the actual launch.
The commercial release happens after you check:
- User readiness: You need to promote brand awareness with marketing plan, social media, advertising, email newsletters and offer promotional activities.
- Pricing: Make sure you attract customers with a balanced price quality offer.
- Timing: Take into account economic, technological and political trends before release.
7. Maintenance and Support
After your company has brought the product to the market, it’s time to work on its continuous improvement. Product development is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring, research improvement and creativity.
- Listen to your users
- Follow market trends
- Collect feedback
- Adapt and make improvements to the future releases of the product continuously.
This is more of a marathon than a sprint. In case you require developers’ help in this way, contact our team. EZtek software development company provides tech consulting UI/ UX design and software development services.
