In this article, we’ll explore the key capabilities of an LCMS and why it’s an essential tool for sales enablement leaders aiming to drive revenue growth through continuous skills development. 

The importance of LCMS

Effective training is essential for any business’s success, and sales training is particularly crucial. Investing in sales training translates directly to a more skilled and productive sales team. On average, sales training can boost sales representatives’ performance by up to 20%

However, traditional approaches to sales training, such as in-person workshops, often face challenges like time constraints, lack of consistency, and disengagement. However, a well-organized Learning content management system (LCMS) can help overcome these challenges and enhance sales training.

What is a learning content management system?

LCMS is a software application that helps organizations create, store, manage, and deliver training materials in a centralized location. Think of a learning content management system (LCMS) as a comprehensive library specifically designed for managing and delivering training materials. It goes beyond simply storing content and provides functionalities to organize, distribute, and track the learning process for your sales team.

LCMS vs LMS main differences

While both learning content management systems (LCMS) and learning management systems (LMS) play a role in eLearning, they have distinct strengths and target audiences. Here’s a breakdown of the main differences between LCMS and LMS:

Focus

LCMS: Primarily focused on creating and managing learning content. It provides tools for authoring, editing, storing, and organizing training materials.

LMS: Designed for delivering and managing the learning experience. A learning content management system tracks learner progress, administers assessments, and facilitates communication between instructors and learners.

Target users:

LCMS: Content creators, instructional designers, subject matter experts who develop and manage training materials.

LMS: Training managers, instructors, and learners who access and participate in training programs.

Core functionalities

LCMS:

• Content creation tools (e.g., video editing, SCORM authoring)
• Content version control
• Collaboration features for content development teams
• Integration with multimedia resources
• Reusability of content across different learning programs

LMS:

• User registration and enrollment management
• Course delivery and content management
• Learning paths and curriculum creation
• Learner performance tracking (e.g., completion rates, assessment scores)
• Reporting and analytics on learning outcomes
• Communication tools like discussion forums and messaging

Overlap and complementarity

While distinct, LCMS and LMS can work together seamlessly. LCMS-created content can be uploaded and delivered through an LMS. Some LMS platforms offer basic content creation tools, blurring the lines a bit.

Choosing between LCMS and LMS:

• If your primary need is to develop and manage high-quality training content, an LCMS is a better fit.
• If your focus is on delivering and administering training programs, an LMS is the preferred choice.

Many organizations benefit from implementing both an LCMS and LMS for a comprehensive eLearning solution.

The challenges of traditional sales training methods

Traditional sales training techniques like classroom lectures and role-playing often fail to achieve optimal results. These antiquated methods cannot keep up with the fast-paced changes in technology, sales processes, and customer expectations. Here are some key challenges associated with these methods:

Lack of scalability

Classroom training requires scheduling instructors and physical spaces, limiting the frequency and availability of courses. This makes it difficult to train large sales teams or frequently update materials. In contrast, a learning content management system offers on-demand, scalable digital content that can reach all reps whenever needed.

Inconsistent messaging

With various instructors and limited oversight, the information delivered in classroom training can be inconsistent or omit key points. A learning content management system centralizes content creation to ensure reps receive the same, comprehensive messaging about products, services, processes, and company values.

Difficulty measuring ROI

While classroom training may seem engaging, it often fails to provide concrete metrics proving its effectiveness. An LCMS tracks reps’ progress and performance to show how content impacts KPIs like sales productivity, product knowledge, and customer satisfaction.

Outdated content

Sales training content, especially about technology or processes, becomes outdated quickly. However, updating physical materials and retraining instructors requires significant resources and time. A learning content management system simplifies updating information, allowing sales enablement teams to keep content current and optimize reps’ performance.

An LCMS addresses all these challenges through on-demand digital content, centralized creation and management, data-driven insights, and streamlined updating. 

For today’s sales organizations, an LCMS is essential to the success and impact of sales training programs.

Benefits of using a LCMS for sales training

A LCMS provides numerous advantages for sales training programs. 

Improved accessibility and flexibility

With an LCMS, content can be accessed on any device at any time. This allows sales reps to review training materials whenever needed and accommodates different learning styles. 

The system’s flexibility also makes it easy to update content and push changes in real time.

Diverse and engaging content

An LCMS supports diverse content formats like videos, simulations, quizzes, and gamification to keep sales reps engaged. This multimedia approach is more impactful than traditional methods. The engaging content also leads to improved knowledge retention which is essential for sales roles.

Tracking and analytics

An LCMS provides detailed analytics on content usage, completion rates, and assessment scores. This data gives visibility into how sales reps are interacting with the training content. Managers can then make data-driven decisions to optimize the program and drive better business outcomes.

Reduced costs

With an LCMS, content can be re-used and re-purposed which reduces development costs over time. The system also minimizes the need for in-person training sessions and travel reducing associated expenses. Overall, an LCMS leads to a high return on investment for sales enablement and training programs.

How to use LCMS to enhance sales training

Centralize sales training content in one place

An LCMS gives you a single place to store all your sales training materials, from presentations and videos to workbooks and reference guides. No more hunting through file servers or email attachments to find the latest versions. Your reps always have access to up-to-date, approved content, and you have peace of mind knowing any outdated materials have been removed.

• Keep content organized and searchable

Within the LCMS, you can organize content by topic, role, region, or whatever structure makes sense for your needs. Intuitive search features make it easy for reps to find what they need when they need it. They can even save favorite materials or create personalized playlists for quick access.

• Streamline content creation and updates

A good LCMS simplifies content creation with templates, workflows, and versioning to standardize materials and enable collaboration. 

Subject matter experts can easily make updates, and you have full control and visibility over the content approval process. Any changes made are automatically updated across the system, so you never have to worry about inconsistent or outdated information.

Choose interactive and engaging content

Static presentations and wordy workbooks won’t hold the interest of experienced sales reps. An LCMS gives you options to incorporate interactive content like:

• Video examples of prospecting calls or product demos
• Simulations that allow reps to practice their skills in a virtual environment
• Quizzes and knowledge checks to reinforce learning

This interactive content leads to better engagement and retention, especially when combined with traditional materials. Reps can then immediately apply their new knowledge, and you gain insight into their progress and comprehension.

Create customized learning paths

A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for sales training. An LCMS lets you create customized learning paths based on an individual’s role, experience level, and learning needs.

• Map content to expertise

Group your sales team into levels like “new hire,” “seasoned rep,” and “account executive.” Then, map relevant content to each level. New hires may focus on product knowledge and soft skills, while account executives sharpen negotiation techniques and industry trends. This targeted approach ensures reps learn what they need to know at the right time.

• Enable self-selection

Within each learning path, allow reps to choose topics that interest them. Some may want to dive deep into a new product feature, while others prefer refining objection handling skills. 

Giving reps control over their learning boosts motivation and engagement. They can follow suggested paths or forge their own way.

Make content interactive to enhance engagement

Include interactive content like quizzes, simulations, and branching scenarios. 

For example, a quiz on compliance policies helps reinforce key points, while a simulation of a difficult client meeting allows reps to apply new skills in a risk-free environment. 

These engaging elements transform passive learning into an active experience, resulting in higher retention and job performance.

Quizzes

Including quizzes in your sales training content is an excellent way to reinforce key concepts and ensure your team retains the information. Quizzes provide opportunities for practical application of knowledge in a low-pressure environment. 

You can design quizzes focused on product details, objection handling, prospecting techniques, or any other area you want to emphasize. Offer quizzes at the end of modules or chapters to help salespeople gage their understanding before moving on.

Simulations

Nothing prepares salespeople for live interactions like simulations. Create hypothetical scenarios reflecting situations they may encounter, then have learners walk through how they would handle them. 

This allows them to apply new skills in a virtual environment and gain valuable experience before facing prospects. You might develop simulations focused on initial calls, presentations, dealing with objections, and closing deals. 

Embed simulations directly in your LCMS so they are easy to access and automatically saved as progress is made.

Gamification

Adding game elements to your sales training, like points, badges, and leaderboards, helps motivate learners and fuels their competitive spirit. 

For example, you can award points for completing quizzes, simulations, and other interactive content. Let salespeople earn badges as they achieve milestones. 

Display leaderboards showing top performers to inspire the whole team. Gamification taps into psychological rewards that stimulate engagement and give salespeople incentives to keep learning.

Mobile access

Today’s salespeople are often on the go, so enabling mobile access to your LCMS is essential. With a mobile-friendly system, they can log in and continue their training anytime using a smartphone or tablet. 

Mobile access makes learning more convenient and flexible, allowing salespeople to advance through the training at their own pace.

Track performance to identify improvement areas

Once your sales team starts going through the training, it’s important to monitor their progress. An LCMS allows managers to track completion rates for courses and assessments, evaluate scores and response times, and identify topics that may need review.

• Monitor course completion

You’ll want to ensure all sales reps complete required training materials. An LCMS tracks who has finished interactive courses, videos, readings, and other content. Managers can then follow up with anyone falling behind to offer additional support.

• Review assessment scores and response times

Quizzes, tests, and simulations embedded in the LCMS provide insight into how well the team is grasping key concepts. Look for scores that seem lower than expected and topics many reps are struggling with. Also, analyze average response times, as quicker responses could indicate uncertainty or guessing. Use this data to make improvements to the content or delivery methods.

• Identify knowledge gaps

Are there certain product features, services, or sales techniques many reps don’t fully understand? An LCMS makes it easy to spot these knowledge gaps so you can address them. You might need to revisit these topics in a live training session, provide additional resources, or make the existing content more engaging and interactive.

• Offer individualized guidance

While the LCMS provides a standardized curriculum, it also allows for customized learning paths based on a sales rep’s role, experience, strengths, and weaknesses. 

Managers can assign specific courses or learning activities to help reps improve in key areas or advance their skills. The performance tracking features then help determine if the customized guidance is effective.

Using the metrics and insights provided by your LCMS, you can continuously enhance your sales training program. 

Make improvements to content, delivery methods, and learning paths so your reps have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. An optimized training program will boost morale, increase productivity, and positively impact your bottom line.

Ensure access to up-to-date materials

Sales and marketing teams should regularly review and refresh materials to reflect changes in the product lineup, pricing, positioning, and more. 

An LCMS makes it easy to update documents, presentations, videos, and other assets, then automatically notifies users of the changes. No more chasing down reps to distribute updates or worrying they’re working off outdated content.

Integrate with CRM to align with business goals

Integrating an LCMS with your CRM system helps align sales training with key business objectives. As deals progress through the sales pipeline, the LCMS can push relevant training content to reps. 

For example, if a lead enters the proposal stage, the system may prompt reps to review pricing strategy and negotiation tactics. When a new product launches or features get updated, the LCMS can automatically assign training to ensure reps have the latest knowledge. 

While an LCMS enhances sales training on its own, integration with a CRM makes that training directly relevant to your organization’s needs and goals. Together, these technologies provide a self-reinforcing mechanism to educate sales representatives, evaluate their progress, and refine programs to optimize effectiveness. Integrating systems may require initial investment, but the long term benefits to productivity and revenue far outweigh the costs.

Key features to look for in an LCMS for sales training

Mobile-friendly design

An LCMS with a responsive, mobile-first design will allow your sales team to access training content anytime, anywhere. 

CRM integration

Integrating an LCMS with your customer relationship management (CRM) system provides a seamless learning experience for sales representatives. 

Gamification features

Gamification techniques like points, badges, levels, and leaderboards can motivate sales reps to engage with an LCMS by making learning feel more fun and rewarding. 

Assessment tools

An LCMS should offer tools to evaluate sales reps’ learning and competencies, such as quizzes, tests, simulations, and virtual role plays. 

Reporting and analytics

Analytics empower sales managers to identify opportunities, demonstrate the impact of learning initiatives, and make data-driven decisions to enhance the effectiveness of training.

Advantages of custom-built LCMS

An LCMS built specifically for your needs can have features that perfectly match your unique training content and delivery methods. Off-the-shelf solutions might require workarounds or lack functionalities you require.

Scalability: a custom LCMS can be designed to scale with your organization’s growing training needs. You won’t be limited by the capabilities of a pre-built system.

Security: with a custom LCMS, you have complete control over user access and data security. This can be crucial for companies dealing with sensitive information in their training materials.

Integration: a custom LCMS can be seamlessly integrated with your existing Learning Management System (LMS) or other enterprise applications. This can streamline workflows and improve data sharing.

Ready to unlock the full potential of your training programs?

At Geniusee, we specialize in custom development of LCMS solutions. Our experienced team of developers will work closely with you to understand your unique training needs and design a custom LCMS that perfectly aligns with your goals.

Check out our LCMS development services today.

LCMS for your sales team — best practices

Identify training needs

To implement an effective learning and content management system for your sales team, first analyze sales performance data and conduct needs assessments to determine specific skill gaps and areas for improvement. Tailor learning content to address trends in your industry and company objectives. Develop a curriculum that builds competencies in a logical progression.

Develop engaging learning modules

Break down complex sales concepts and processes into bite-sized, interactive modules. Each module should have clear learning objectives and take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete. Incorporate interactive elements like quizzes, simulations, and case studies to make the content engaging and impactful.

Incorporate real-world scenarios

Use real-world examples, case studies, customer testimonials, and role-playing scenarios to demonstrate how lessons apply in practice. This helps salespeople translate knowledge into action by exposing them to realistic situations they will encounter. Allow opportunities for discussion and feedback to strengthen understanding.

Facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing

An LCMS should encourage social and experiential learning. Discussion forums, online mentoring, and peer feedback allow salespeople to learn from each other. Consider gamifying elements of the platform to increase participation and make learning fun.

By enhancing your sales training strategy with an LCMS, you equip your team with the skills and knowledge to achieve exceptional results.

Conclusion

You have now seen the power of learning content management systems for sales training. By centralizing your content, tracking usage, and enabling personalization, learning content management systems elevate sales enablement. 

Rather than cobbling together disjointed resources, you can deliver unified, targeted training. This allows your reps to ramp up faster and retain knowledge better. The result is increased sales productivity, revenue growth, and happier customers. 

With the right LCMS solution, your sales training can be transformed. You owe it to your team and company to explore if an LCMS is right for you. The investment will pay dividends as your salesforce grows into an unstoppable revenue machine. Act now to get started on the path to sales training success.

Several cooperation models for software development outsourcing have evolved in recent years to facilitate such partnerships. However, choosing the right partnership model is important for the success of your project implementation and better ROI. 

So, how can you choose the ideal software development cooperation model for your company? This article will introduce you to several cooperation models, including their pros and cons, to help you decide. Let’s take a closer look!

What to Consider Before Choosing the Cooperation Model

The specific nature of your project is one of the key elements you should consider when choosing your optimal partnership model. What works great for short-term projects with a well-defined output may not be suitable for long-term projects with varying outputs. Thus, you will need to carefully consider the degree of certainty of the output. 

Additionally, the client’s involvement with the development team is another key determinant. When you want your involvement to be minimal, then certain collaboration models, such as a fixed-price arrangement, would be a perfect fit. On the other hand, if you prefer active involvement, collaboration models with dedicated teams would work best. 

Let’s consider what model you should choose for which project. 

1. What Projects Should Use the Fixed-Price Model?

A fixed price cooperative model is most suitable for short-term projects with well-defined requirements. For example, you can easily opt for a fixed price model if you need to develop a prototype for internal use or a minimum viable product (MVP) for research. 

To help you decide, we have prepared a list of questions.

• Can you clearly describe the product functionalities?
• Are you clear about the project tasks and scope? 
• Can you specifically describe the implementation stages? 
• Are you unlikely to make any major changes to the desired output? 
• Are you comfortable delegating key project management tasks to your cooperative members?

A fixed-price model is the right one for you if the answer is “yes” for most of them. However, if you’ve answered “no” to several questions, there are two more models to contemplate. 

2. What Projects Should Use the Dedicated Team Model?

The dedicated team model is a better fit for projects where requirements are not well defined. You may need to adjust the project goals over time based on customer feedback or application performance in certain projects. 

If you have a dedicated team, they will easily understand the complicated scope and task requirements. You can also ask your tech partner to do outstaffing, where they take full responsibility for assembling and managing a dedicated project team. For example, Geniusee has formed and enhanced over 100 project teams globally.

So how do you know if you should form a dedicated team? If the project has many of the characteristics listed below, then a dedicated team model would serve you best.

• The project requirements are not yet clearly specified. 
• The final cost is difficult to estimate. 
• The project is still at an elementary stage. 
• The project timeline is uncertain.
• The customer requires a lot of flexibility.
• The client will remain actively involved.
• The project involves new or untested technologies.
• The client has several tasks, but their exact timelines and scope are uncertain.

There are certain situations when neither a dedicated team nor a fixed price model will “fully” meet your project needs. If that’s the case, you should go with a time and material model. 

3. What Projects Should Use a Time and Material Model?

If your project has the following characteristics, you may find the time and material model well suited. 

• The end product is complex. For example, you are developing a large eCommerce website with a diverse range of products and multiple payment gateways. In addition, you are planning to scale it over time and incorporate user feedback. 
• You will personally coordinate the project and the cooperative members.  
• You have plans for future expansion. 
• You need a dedicated development team for the project. 

Now that we know the suitability of each cooperation model for different project types let’s explore the pros and cons further.

Model 1. Fixed Price

A fixed-price project always sets a clear project goal and the amount of money to be paid. Once you tell your service provider the desired outcome of the project, the provider can prepare a timeline with clear project goals. 

Let’s look at the pros and cons. 

Pros

• SMB suitability. It is advantageous for small and medium projects. 
• Clarity. The project plan, scope, requirements and timelines are clearly defined. So there is little room for any misunderstandings. 
• Low risk. As the customer will release the payment only after successful project completion, there is little risk for the customer. 
• Little engagement. The tech partner will manage the project. So you don’t have to spend time and effort on management. 
• No surprise. As both parties will agree on the final budget, there will be little or no surprises down the road.
• Motivation. The tech partner will remain motivated for successful completion. 

Cons

• Larger efforts. You will need to invest time and resources to clearly define the project requirement. Also, a good understanding of the implementation plan is a must. 
• Minimal control. As the tech partner will manage the project, you will have minimal control on the project’s operations, staffing needs, and implementation plans.
• Lack of communication. The development team will communicate less frequently with you. So, you might not be in the loop sometimes. 
• Quality. As you will be out of touch sometimes, you cannot take corrective measures early if there is a quality issue. 
• No flexibility. You cannot make major changes to the project requirement along the way without agreeing to pay separately. 

It is essential that you get familiar with the job that will be done to make a fixed-price project successful. Familiarity with the job will help you negotiate a good price with your tech partner.

Model 2. Dedicated Team

In a dedicated-team model, the client and tech support provider agree on the workload, time, and staffing requirements. That said, the project goals and requirements may evolve. In addition, it is expected that the cooperative members of the IT service provider dedicate themselves fully to the client’s task. 

The model has its pros and cons. 

Pros

• Management control. You will have full control over the selection and operations of the dedicated team. 
• Frequent communication. Everyone on the team will remain on the same page.
• Flexibility. You can modify the work requirements anytime based on the project needs. 
• Connection. The external team members will form a good working relationship with your internal core staff. 
• Team cohesion. As the team members will be dedicated to you, they will consider your success their own. 

Cons

• Expensive. Typically for shorter projects, the model is more expensive than the fixed-price model. 
• Longer kick-off period. It will take longer to get the project rolling because you will need to invest time and effort in selecting the team members. 
• Slow learning curve. As the project team members will only work on your project, they will find it difficult to gain broader knowledge and industry exposure. 
• Great effort. You must invest time and effort in project management and smooth operations. 

This model is highly suitable for long-term projects. For instance, Geniusee formed a 12-member dedicated team for Drum, a bio linking mobile app, and the partnership has been working for two years. 

Model 3. Time and Material (T&M)

The T&M cooperation model is comparatively simpler than the dedicated-team model. Here the customer pays for all working hours and provides all the cost of materials regardless of the project requirement or duration. 

There are certain pros and cons for this model as well. 

Pros

• Simpler calculation. As you will pay per hour regardless of the tasks, it will be easier to calculate and operate. 
• Workflow adjustment. You will fully control the workflow and can modify it to suit the project’s needs. 
• Flexibility. Your flexibility will be at the maximum among all the models. 
• High quality. As the contractors will be paid for the hours worked, they will ensure quality without cutting corners. 

Cons

• Time charges. The contractor may be tempted to log extra hours than the actual requirement. 
• Vague requirement. The requirement may not be apparent to all parties, and communication gaps may occur. 
• Cost variability. As it is difficult to predict the time requirement accurately, the cost may often be variable, causing discomfort. 

The T&M model is also suitable for longer-term projects. 

Model 4. Hybrid Model

The hybrid pricing model lets you combine the T&M and fixed-price model. Here’s an example. You will form two teams. One will take care of administration, business analytics, and customer relationship management. As the tasks vary, you may go with T&M for this team. Another team will take care of product development, a clearly-defined task. So you can opt for a fixed-price model for the second team. 

Pros

• Finances. The hybrid model lets you take advantage of both models. So, it is financially more profitable, and you can have flexibility with payments. 
• Risks. By combining both models, you can negate the risk factors of both. 

Cons

• Applicability. The hybrid model is not suitable for short- and medium-term projects. 
• Complications. Project management will be more complicated as you implement two separate teams.  

Comparing the Pros and Cons

The table below summarizes the pros and cons of each model. 

By now you can see that each model has its individual pros and cons. However, the applicability fully depends on your business, project, and requirement type. Thus, always carefully analyze the nature of the project before choosing one of the collaboration models. 

Consider Geniusee Your Trusted Partner

Geniusee supports cooperation with businesses from different industries and has completed over 100 IT projects for clients located in different parts of the world. Depending on the size of your organization and your business needs, the Geniusee team can assist you with project estimation, propose the optimal cooperation model, and form your remote team.

The vetted IT experts can perform every task, from conceptual modeling to providing technical support to your end-users. The cooperative members of the dedicated team will work consistently for your custom software development and product improvement while preparing updates for the next release. Silibrain, a digital healthcare app that partnered with Geniusee, was selected as the Best Patient Engagement Solutions Software Provider for 2021 by New World Report.

Let’s take a quick look at what Geniusee offers:

• discovery phase for detailed product overview in two weeks;
• MVP for startup and business in two-three months;
• cloud solutions implementation;
• user-centered product design;
• proof of concept (POC) based on analytics & modeling;
• web / mobile product development;
• client care, maintenance, and support; and
• legacy re-engineering services.

Check out Geniusee’s portfolio for further details on successful projects. 

Final Words

Choosing the right IT partnership model will help you achieve your IT product development and business goals. Your choice will depend on the project type and predictability of time and resources.  

A pricing system that has worked well for a particular business and a tech support provider may not always suit your project. Thus, always consider the specific nature of your project and business. Reach out to Geniusee if you need professional assistance.

If you search the Internet for texts on development trends, you will surely find an endless list of articles and information on rapidly developing technologies and how they will affect us all in 2020. But few write about why projects fail.

Poorly defined (or generally uncertain) result

“Mobile app? We are building a bridge, will they need it? ”
One of the biggest problems hindering software development is a poorly defined result. Without a proper definition of what the “final product” should be, the project is guaranteed to fail.
Determining the result is very important. The project can change direction and you have to say goodbye to all the work you did (that’s why it is # 1 on our list!). We highly recommend compiling a specification to better determine what the product will look like, what it will do and how it will do it.

The solution to the wrong problem

“We built a new wooden bridge that looks much better than the old one. Cars? No, cars cannot drive on it.”
Another common problem is the solution to the wrong task. This partly coincides with a poorly defined result, but, in general, is much broader. Although you can correctly determine the final product and correctly solve the other problems that we are discussing here, if your product does not solve the problem properly, you will not achieve anything. As a result, you’ll just get yet another unsuccessful project.
One way to deal with this issue is incremental implementation. Define your main task, what steps can be taken to solve it and possible approaches to it. Then, constantly update the product receiving feedback from your users. Regularly check your team’s tasks and your realisation. This will make sure that the project meets your customer’s needs properly and is the solution to the main problem.

Lack of communication

“We built half the bridge; they built half the tunnel.”
Almost all projects, industries and companies suffer from this problem. Communication is vital at every level of a software development project.
Internally, your developers must communicate effectively with each other. This ensures the creation of the right tools and conveyors that are consistent and compatible. A common solution here is to develop preliminary specifications for the design, API, and any other technical requirements needed for your project. This is vital to saving hundreds of hours that would otherwise be wasted on refactoring and restructuring.
At a higher level, it is also important to communicate with other teams correctly. For example, a marketing team needs to know what is technologically feasible before selling a concept.

Lack of plan or deadlines

“Yes … it will be … in a couple of weeks? Not sure what we will do after this … ”
Regardless of whether deadlines and plans are being followed, it is important to have them. They are the framework of your project. It will give you at least a rough estimate of when and how tasks will be completed.

Of course, a good plan is much more than that. A good plan or schedule for large teams can serve as a common boundary, which will allow them to work quickly and efficiently in sprints. If the implementation of the function fails or requires more time, then the plan/schedule can be quickly adjusted, and after that, the budget can be changed.

Lack of responsibility

“The ship doesn’t go any further!” – probably Harry Truman.
When a certain type of uncleanliness hits the fan, someone should be ready to clean it with a mop. If any function fails, it should be clear who is responsible and what steps should be taken to prevent this in the future.
It may sound childish, but in the development industry, the usual thing is to shift responsibilities. Backenders blame the front-runners who blame the sales department, which blames the marketing, which blames the lawyers, who blame the management … This process is not only time-consuming and destructive for the morale of the company, but also, it leaves the main question “what went wrong?” open and unanswered.

Changing goals too often

“Well, but now the bridge should work as a runway, have 10 more runways. And what about the park in the middle?”
It is important to keep track of the projects goals and monitor their timely implementation, otherwise you will just go nowhere with your project. It is possible that the project will need to be expanded or the requirements will change. But frequent changes in the “ultimate goal” can not only destroy the morale of the team but also make it impossible to complete the project as such. Often changes are not planned and require a lot of refactoring. Over time, this leads to large losses of time and, ultimately, to the failure of the project.
What at first glance may seem like a small change can ultimately become a big project.

Inadequate documentation and tracking

“The instructions for defusing the bomb say you need to cut the red wire as soon as the power goes out, but all the wires are red, and the power should have been turned off 10 minutes ago!” – James Bond at the end of his career.

You can follow a flexible methodology and move forward quickly, but documentation is always important. An undocumented code can lead to years of technical debt and cause huge what-does-this-function-do-type of problems in the future. An unsuccessful project will be swarming with such difficulties.
It is very important to document the product. Every step of the process, from idea to design and development, needs to be well documented to ensure that the project is navigated and tracked easily. Good documentation makes keeping track of key milestones in a project really simple.

Poorly defined system requirements

“Damn it, you mean that for 5,000 people we only have 5 loaves and 2 fish?!”
Design specifications can be difficult to measure. But you must identify them. What may seem like a small addition may well turn into a big problem that needs additional infrastructure and redefining the entire system to implement support.

Poor preparation

“We still have half the ship.”
Often the project is fascinating, and it’s easy to “enter” it. However, proper training is vital for this. It is necessary to create specifications, develop a design system, coordinate deadlines and allocate resources.
A popular way to manage this technically is Test Driven Development. Before writing one line of code for a project, plan the architecture and what each part needs to do. Then write tests to understand that each piece does what was intended. Thus, you will have a ready-made structure with goals set, and you can quantify the progress in developing your product.

Unrealistic expectations

“Great, the application looks perfect. But why doesn’t the color scheme change automatically according to the user’s clothes?”
It is important to manage expectations. Often a client requests an unreasonable, impractical or impossible function. It is common practice to limit the number of changes that can be made to a specification. The presence of a programmer during discussions is also required. He will be able to determine if the function is technologically feasible. An unsuccessful project tries to realize all the Wishlist at once.

We hope that next time you will avoid these 10 traps, and your next project will be a resounding success! What problems did you encounter in your projects? Email us at info@geniusee.com

What is Software Project Estimation?  

All project managers will certainly have a task to plan a project at some point. It is at the planning stage that the future success of the entire project is laid, so the process of its evaluation takes an important place here. The manager is faced with a rather difficult task — to learn how to form the most competitive and accurate estimates of the team’s required time and efforts for all processes within the framework of the most reasonable labor costs. Moreover, so that later it is guaranteed to fall into them. What is software project estimation?

An estimate is a forecast or a rough idea that allows you to determine how much effort, resources, time, money will be required to complete a specific task or create a particular product. This is not an attempt to guess something, but an agreement between the customer and the contractor about the framework and, possibly, the way of completing the task, since both the business and the project managers need predictability and limiting risks.

Evaluation of tasks or a project as a whole does not have a single explicit algorithm or a simple plan since there are no similar projects. Each project is unique in its way: what works great in one case may not work at all in any other — even with the same data, team, and budget. In this case, one must not forget that unforeseen circumstances may arise at any time. Every manager needs to know that the better the assessment is done, the better the chances of completing the project and saving the budget.

There are many different effective methodologies for conducting quality software evaluations. However, the quality of the result is influenced by a suitable technique and many other factors that you must consider. A good forecast sometimes requires very detailed design and preparation: about the same duration as the task itself.

IT project estimation software

There are many programs for automatic time management and time scheduling. Their use will save you unnecessary work, reduce the time for maintenance and control, give more accurate calculations, reduce the likelihood that you will miss something overdue, and allow you to add and remove tasks without losing data. Each company may have its preferences. Here is a list of some of them:

• Gantt chart (Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, LibreOffice Calc, OnlyOffice, Smartsheet, GanttPRO, Comindware, “Google Sheets”)
• Trello
• Jira
• Asana
• ActiveCollab
• Wrike
• Basecamp
• Bitrix24
• Megaplan
• Open Plan
• Comindware
• Flowlu
• Advanta

Project Estimation Necessity

The customer often wants to know the considerable cost and timing of his project immediately. But in the case of IT development projects, the answer is often wildly inaccurate. IT products are not goods on supermarket shelves with precise price tags, and without understanding the specifics of a project, it is impossible to name the budget required to create it. And it can even take weeks to form an adequate detailed assessment.

So what is project appraisal? It is the starting stage of its implementation. The assessment of the project gives a reasonably accurate understanding of how long it will take to implement all the tasks and implement the project as a whole.

An important criterion is the reliability of the project estimates. Estimating the cost and labor costs “by eye,” the performer can create unnecessary problems for the customer and himself. In case of underestimating software projects, the contractor will have to sacrifice either the quality of his work or profit, squeezing the software development time and reducing the size of his team. And if, at the same time, the customer is unhappy, disappointed in his choice, it undermines confidence in the performer as a professional.

But overestimation of the project and excessive reinsurance are also undesirable. Such projects will be much more expensive. It can lead to you not taking the project into software development because another company could evaluate it better and provide the customer with a more reasonable cost. It is important to note that overly extended deadlines and lack of team control can lead to the displacement of work on other projects, which also entails losses for the software development company.

Project Cost Estimation Methods

Several estimation techniques help determine how much money, effort, resources, and time it will take to create a specific system or product. They all have different complexity and accuracy of the estimates obtained. For each project, you need to select your most acceptable method, which will allow you to get a high-quality, most accurate assessment and lead the project to success.

We can divide all methods into two conditional groups.

Flexible methods

They allow you to make high-level assessments at a stage when there is still not enough input information (level of negotiations, commercial proposal):

• Delphi,
• Wideband Delphi,
• Three-point Estimation (PERT),
• Analogous Estimation (Top-down Estimation),
• Parametric Estimation.

Exact methods

They allow you to make deep and more accurate estimates at the stage of project planning (after the conclusion of the contract):

• Function Points,
• Story Points,
• Bottom-up Estimation,
• Use Case Points.

Some of the estimation techniques are briefly described below. For best results, you need to study them in more detail.

1. Delphi (Expert Judgment)

The Delphi method, developed in the 1950s and 1960s at the RAND Corporation, is a systematic, interactive forecasting (score generation) method based on the opinion of experts in a specific area of interest. It can be either one expert or a group of several expertise carriers.

2. Wideband Delphi

It was created in the 1970s by Barry Boehm and John A. Farquhar. The Wideband Delphi method implies more interaction and more communication between participants.

3. Three-Point Estimation or PERT

One of the most common and simplest methods. Based on three types of assessment:

•  optimistic (O = Optimistic),
•  pessimistic (P = Pessimistic),
•  realistic / average (M = Middle or Most Likely).

The PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) method was developed and described in 1958 by order of the US Navy’s Special Projects Division for a missile system project.

4. Analogous Estimating (Top-down Estimation: from general to specific)

Analogous Estimating is a technique that uses parameter values from historical data to estimate a similar parameter for future performance. You can rely on experience to solve similar problems/projects or do something similar. The method is used in cases where there is not enough information and documentation about the project, especially at the initial stages of the project.

5. Parametric Estimating

The method is similar to analogy assessment. It also focuses on information and data from previous projects. The point is to build some parameterized forecast model based on experience, available data, metrics, and statistical data (the main difference from the Analogous Estimating method). Using this method allows you to analyze the impact of a particular parameter on cost, budget, and duration.

6. Function Points

IBM employee Alan Albrecht first proposed the Function Points method in 1979. A functional point (FP) is a unit of measure for expressing the volume of a software product (business functionality) that an information system (as a product) provides to a user. FP defines the size of the software. They are widely popular as the industry standard.

7. Story Points

It is a method for assessing the complexity of tasks in Agile and Scrum. Story Point is a measure used to estimate the complexity of implementing User Story and other charges. The key feature of the method is that this metric is not tied to a specific time, such as days or hours of development. Instead, relative units are used, which do not allow you to determine the exact time that you will spend on growth, but at the same time, help to quickly and efficiently prioritize tasks based on their complexity.

8. Bottom-up Software Project Estimation

The method is similar to an expert assessment, only in this case, the forecast is not made for the entire project as a whole but separately for its constituent tasks. We collect the judgment in parts, determine how much time is necessary for each participant in the development process, and bring everything together, taking additional risks into account. This method uses a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which involves breaking it into smaller tasks.

9. Use Case Points

The method was developed by Gustav Karner in 1993 during his time at Objectory Systems (which later merged with Rational Software and then IBM) to cost estimate software volume, object-oriented systems, and system requirements.

UCP (Use Cases) is a method for evaluating projects based on the system’s use cases being considered. The requirements for the system are written in the form of use cases, and the amount of software is calculated by decomposing them, taking into account technical assumptions and assumptions about the environment.

• A use case is a series of interrelated interactions between a user and a system that enables the user to achieve a goal.
• Use cases are a way to reflect the functional requirements of a system. The user of the system is called “Actor.”

This method is included in the RUP methodology and is applied using the UML (Unified Modeling Language). UCP is based on the Function Points methodology, but it has been greatly reduced for use by non-experts. Unlike FP, UCP takes into account many elements: non-functional requirements, organizational risks, performers, and their competence in assessing technical and environmental complexity.

Types of evaluating an IT project

What are project evaluations? We can roughly divide them into approximate, detailed, and accurate estimates. In each of them, the same amount of work is estimated, they differ in detail and, therefore, in the time allotted for their processing.

1. Approximate estimation

An approximate estimate can provide a rough estimate of the timing and cost. Its main method is an assessment by analogy — based on similar projects and cases created by the performer. In this case, the customer will only hear approximate figures with a sufficiently large fork. This assessment, though quick, is imprecise. It is suitable only for typical projects implemented over and over again. They form a base containing information about the time spent on implementation and solving problems that have arisen. It can be used, for example, to evaluate the creation of an online store. Having similar experience, as well as a general understanding of the number of pages, categories, and products, filtering methods, the desired design, you can give an approximate cost of creating such a site. But projects are not identical — platforms, settings, team composition, competencies change, new technologies are used, or old ones are updated. All this increases the risks and, consequently, the inaccuracy of the assessment.

2. Detailed Software Project estimation

The team will need to break the TOR into blocks and various functionalities to prepare a detailed assessment. In this case, they will use a competency assessment method. The same task can have a different level of difficulty for each team member and, of course, take other times to complete. Consequently, the whole team is involved in such an assessment, not one person. Everyone prepares a review of their part of the work and lays down the risks. For example, creating the same online store may involve various integrations with third-party systems. They will not affect the designer’s work in any way, but they can be difficult for developers. This approach is already more detailed, and the fork will be much smaller. Also, a plus will be a clear vision of the timing and methods of implementing the assessed project — it is clear not only what needs to be done, but by whom and for how long it will be implemented.

3. Accurate estimation

An accurate assessment is carried out based on the previous stage’s results. This method, although laborious, is considered the best – the customer receives the exact time and cost, and the contractor fully understands the future project and how to create it. Such an assessment assumes that the project has already been taken into operation – the customer is focused on the cost, a detailed discussion was held with him,a detailed list of requirements was drawn up, the necessary functionality was selected, and the visual part of the project was agreed. Only after that the team can disassemble the project by tasks and stages and evaluate each separately. For example, only after the project’s design has been completely created, you can start reevaluating the ready-made detailed assessment of the layout.

Software Project Estimation Process

First of all, we need to decide how to form the deadlines and cost of projects.

Step 1: Assess tasks

The first thing that needs to be done in estimation process after studying the customer’s requirements is to divide the project into independent functional parts (tasks). For example, if we are evaluating a mobile application for a standard online store, then the division may look something like this:

•  Catalog
•  Shopping cart and pay for orders
•  Store news
•  Contacts

After that, the software engineering team determines the time spent on the implementation of all the listed tasks:

Step 2: Calculation of the project development time

No matter how hard the developers try, their timing estimate is extremely rarely proper. So, first of all, starting from the complexity of the project and the team’s experience, we define insurance: the amount of additional time required to resolve various contingencies. Usually, insurance looks like a certain multiplier (percentage) by which the total development period is increased.

Next, we need to determine the order of stages of work (workflow). Regardless of the methodology used (agile or waterfall), we need to know how our team performs various types of work. In our mobile app example, the order might look like this:

At first, the back-end and the user interface are developed independently of each other. When they are completed, parallel programming of the application begins for different platforms. If all stages are completed, the project will be considered completed.

Now we have all the necessary information and can start calculating the timing:

• In the case of Waterfall: we sum up the amount of time for each type of work (UI / UX, Back-end, etc.), add insurance to them, and, taking into account their sequence, we find the longest sequence of work, which, in fact, represents the total number time required to implement the project.
• In the case of Agile: taking into account the sequence of work, we determine the time for implementing each of the tasks (catalog of goods, news, etc.), after which, by summing them up and adding insurance, we get the deadline for the project.

Step 3: Calculate the cost of project development

The next thing we should get is the project’s cost, which is usually formed from two types of costs: general monthly expenses (office rent, payment for servers, software licenses, etc.) and salaries of the direct executors of the project. As for the management salaries, they are more suitable for the first category since they are a more ”passive” expense item. In some cases, they can be optional (for example, when it comes to a small team of freelancers).

”Total monthly expenses” are calculated very simply: we divide their amount by the average number of days in a month and multiply by the number of calendar days required for the project.

The software project estimation of costs for performers’ salaries depends on the development methodology used:

• In the case of Waterfall: for each employee, we divide the monthly salary by the average number of working days in a month and multiply the result by the number of working days required to implement the stage of work for which he is responsible; at the end, we summarize all payments.
• In the case of Agile: for each employee, we divide the salary by the average number of working days in a month and multiply by the number of working days required to implement the entire project. In the end, we summarize the results.

Now, knowing the cost of the project (payments to performers + total costs), we can get the final cost by adding a couple more things to it:

1. Profit: everything is quite simple here; we either add the desired percentage of the project cost or add the corresponding item to the “total expenses” (if we want to receive a fixed monthly income).
2. Taxes: everyone considers them a little differently due to various taxation systems and ways of evading them. In some cases, taxes can be considered as some average percentage of the cost of the project with profit included.
3. Commission of the sales manager: depends on your terms of cooperation, if you pay a percentage of the transaction, then this is a percentage of the cost, profit and taxes, and if you pay a portion of the profit, then obviously you count it as a percentage of the pledged profit obtained in the first paragraph.

So now we have the final cost of the project. But what if the client, having heard the result, asks us: “What if we do without X?”.

G-Estimator as a software estimation project is a convenient way to calculate the number of hours and money needed to develop an IT project. In the next section, we will take a step-by-step guide on how to estimate a software project with the help of a G-Estimator.

A step-by-step guide on G-Estimator

Step 1: Average hourly rate

Enter the approximate daily rate you are willing to pay to develop the application. It can be  your in-house team member’s average daily cost or the rates you are paying to your technology partner.

Step 2: Platforms

Next, we select the platforms based on which our application will be developed. For example, let’s take mobile development for two platforms, iOS and Android.

Step 3: Application size

Next, we define the size of the application: small, medium, or large. To determine what size application you need to develop — just look at the description of each type.

Step 4: UI Design

You can choose MVP if you want to check the viability of a product, basic – when design customization is important and polished — when you need a completely custom design with unique elements.

Step 5: Users & Accounts

There are options like: Email / Password Sign Up, Facebook Sign Up, Twitter Sign Up, Google Sign Up, LinkedIn Sign Up, and others.

Step 6: User Generated Content

In this section, you add all the interactive features for your users, for example, Dashboard, Activity Feed, Media Uploading, User Profiles, and more.

Step 7: Mobile specific features

In this section, you can add specific features that are needed for your platform: App Icon Design, Device Sensor Data, Health Data, Apple Watch, and others.

Step 8: Dates & Locations

Here you choose everything related to scheduling, planning, and location: Calendaring, Display of Map data, Geolocation, Bookings.

Step 9: Social & Engagement

In this section you have the option to add features such as Messaging, Forums or commenting, Social Sharing, Push to Facebook Open Graph and Push Notifications.

Step 10: Billing & eCommerce

In this section, we add features directly related to payment and financial transactions: Shopping Cart, User Marketplace, In-App Purchasing, Payment Information Collection, and others.

Step 11: Admin, Feedback & Analytics

Here we choose whether we need such functions as CMS Integration, User Admin pages, Moderation / Content Approval, Support, etc.

Step 12: External APIs and Integrations Days

This point includes: Connect to one or more third-party services, An API for others to integrate with your app, SMS Messaging, and Phone Number Masking.

Step 13: Security Days

This clause includes all security-related features, including SSL Certificate-based Security, DDoS protection, and Two Factor Authentication.

Step 14: App Specific Development Days

Here you can select additional functions such as App Specific Development and Project Managers.

Step 15: Fill Out the Form

The final step is to fill out your email so you can get your approximate estimation of a software project.

Conclusion

Summing up, we can say that assessment is one of the most critical stages in developing any IT project. Only with a high-quality approach to this stage, both on the part of the performer and on the part of the customer, can a result be achieved that will not disappoint any of the parties.

How would you get someone for your team to play the perfect scrum master role? In this article, we are going to discuss that precisely. However, we won’t rewrite the Scrum Guide — the best resource to start with to understand the basics about scrum. You can read this document, which consists of about 20 pages, on your own. 

Let’s talk about more exciting things, such as why people tend to avoid scrum, which misconceptions are popular, and common mistakes scrum masters and product owners make. But first, we will start from Agile, and you’ll see why. 

What Is Agile?

It is a set of principles and approaches that direct an organization’s resources to create products that require customers quickly.

Agile includes the Agile Manifesto, a document that provides a set of twelve Agile principles to formulate the Agile framework as a specific approach toward software development. Iteration or building upon the previous work process to satisfy clients is a core philosophy of Agile frameworks. One of the fundamental principles is to deliver software-related updates to customers as frequently as possible, ranging from two weeks to two months.

There are different methodologies within the Agile set of principles and values, including scrum, eXtreme Programming, Kanban, scaled Agile framework, lean, and several others. Let’s discuss the most popular one—scrum.

What Is Scrum?

If we want to put a formal definition to scrum, it is a framework where cross-functional teams in an organizational setting can work together in perfect synchronization. Experiential learning is highly encouraged in the scrum process while working on a problem. The scrum teams reflect on both their negative and positive outcomes to make necessary adjustments for continuous improvement.

The Scrum Guide has defined four events for a scrum framework called scrum events or scrum ceremonies. The events are as follows:

• Sprint planning. It initiates the scrum team to come together and analyze the outcomes of high-priority work for the sprint and set a target.
• Daily scrum. The team of developers meets on a regular basis, preferably every day for up to 15 minutes, to check their progress toward the sprint’s desired or target outcome.
• Sprint review. Here, the participants of the scrum team get in and discuss completed work. The product backlog is adjusted as needed based on their opinion.
• Sprint retrospective. It asks the team members to discuss what went right and scopes for future improvement. The team formulates specific plans for future process improvements and what tools to utilize.

Since we now know the scrum events, let’s look at scrum’s benefits.

Advantages of Scrum

1. Users get stable and usable products in a shorter time.

2. Greater quality is ensured.

3. Team productivity is better compared to typical processes.

4. More adaptiveness to changes as scrum ceremonies (events) take place frequently.

5. Employees are at a higher motivation level as they enjoy greater engagement through sprint planning.

6. User satisfaction is higher due to the early feedback collection through the iterative process.

7. It can easily be implemented in very complicated projects.

Scrum isn’t an ideal solution for every business. Now, we will see instances where scrum isn’t applicable.

Why Don’t Some People Like Scrum?

Have you ever tried to cut a baguette with a saw? We bet that would make you hate saws. The same is true with scrum. People apply it when it’s not applicable without being ready for the team state and without readiness to invest time to change their mindset. It is essential to understand that the organization/team has to be ready for this. For example, if your team can’t plan their work, it might be better to consider Kanban instead of scrum.

Many teams that use or try to use scrum don’t have a clear understanding of the principles that are the foundation of the framework and the real advantages of the correct usage. That’s why, first, you should decide if you need it at all.

When Not to Use It

There are quite a few reasons why you should avoid using scrum. Here are some of those potential scenarios when you should stay away from using it:

• The environment is too simple. By definition, scrum is suitable for complex scenarios. So if your environment is not complex, there is no point in using scrum, as it will unnecessarily complicate things.
• Stakeholders don’t accept changes to the sprint backlog. The scrum ideology suggests that teams learn from their previous experience and adjust their future goals accordingly. If the stakeholders are too rigid to accept changes, depending on the backlog items, then it is better to avoid the scrum process.
• Development teams can’t take responsibility. If the development teams are not authorized to make decisions on their own, they will not be able to self-organize themselves.
• Stakeholders won’t participate in the sprint reviews. As mentioned above, without the active participation of the stakeholders, scrum won’t be successful because the involvement of all parties is crucial on a scrum team.

The scrum essentials bring us to the topic of the scrum process.

What Is the Scrum Process?

The scrum process is a development framework that meets the clients’ requirements by establishing transparent communication, team responsibility, and iterative learning and improvement. A scrum project comprises well-defined activities and flows of processes. There are five critical phases within a scrum process, which are:

• Establish the product backlog.
• The product owner and development team conduct sprint planning. Determine the scope of the sprint in the first part of sprint planning and the plan for delivering that scope in the second half of sprint planning.
• As the sprint progresses, the development team performs the work necessary to deliver the selected product backlog items.
• On a daily basis, the development team coordinates their work in a daily scrum.
• At the end of the sprint, the development team delivers the product backlog items selected during sprint planning. The development team holds a sprint review to show the customer the increment and get feedback. The development team and product owner also reflect on how the sprint has proceeded so far and adapt their processes accordingly during a retrospective.

The development team continues to repeat phases two to five above until the final outcome fully meets the set standard. Now that processes are known, there are several scrum terminologies, known as scrum artifacts, that we need to discuss at this stage.

Scrum Artifacts

Artifacts are something we make, like a tool to solve a problem. There are three artifacts for scrum:

• Product backlog. It is an organized list of everything required to build a project plan, similar to a checklist. The list is evolved on a continuous basis without being labeled “complete.” It contains elements like market demand, customer support, and competitor analysis.
• Sprint backlog. It is a list of tasks from the product backlog. Development teams divide big product backlog tasks into mini actionable tasks that are updated regularly. If a development team can’t cope with a number of sprint tasks, they can be postponed to future sprints.
• Product increment. Once product backlog items during a sprint are over, the team has to perform a releasable product improvement or sample, complying with their agreed-upon outcome.

Now that you have a basic knowledge of scrum, you are ready to learn about the main topic of this article—scrum master.

What Is a Scrum Master?

The Scrum Guide portrays scrum masters as a servant leader on a scrum team whose role is to facilitate workflow and communication between members of the scrum team and the product owner. The main task of a scrum master is to establish the scrum in accordance with the Scrum Master Guide. Helping everyone involved in the process better understand the scrum theories and practice is a major responsibility of a scrum master.

Scrum Master’s role in an Agile environment is as follows:

Serving the Scrum Team

An Agile methodology scrum master is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the Agile teams by playing the role of an Agile coach. Being a dynamic leader is also a core part of the responsibility. Following the scrum framework, they help the scrum team improve on its functionalities.

There are several ways to that, such as add:

• Training the team on how to self-monitor projects on a diversified and cross-functional team.
• Helping remove any obstacles that may harm the team’s functionalities.
• Coaching the team members on how to make high-impact improvements on their work to meet the set standard.
• Maintaining the productivity, schedule, and efficiency of scrum events.

Serving the Product Owner

There are several ways a scrum master serves the product owner, such as:

• Assisting with how to define a good product goal and coordinate the product backlog.
• Assisting the team members with learning how the clarity of product backlog items is crucial for success.
• Coordinating necessary communication with all involved parties.
• Assisting with forming sequential product planning within a complex team.

Serving the Organization

Now, let’s take a look at how the scrum master serves the organization:

• Mentoring and coaching the organization to learn and integrate scrum practices.
• Suggesting how the organization can implement scrum within its operations.
• Assisting all the involved parties, from employees to clients, in understanding the usability of a well-coordinated scrum approach.
• Addressing all the obstacles that hinder communication between stakeholders and the development team.

As it turns out, the roles of a scrum master are critical to the success of a development team. This may raise a logical question: what skills are needed to be a valuable scrum master.

Skills of a Scrum Master

Some of the fundamental scrum master qualities are consolidated in the following list, which will give you a good idea of what to look for when you search for a good candidate for this position:

• Influence. Leadership is the core responsibility of a scrum master. Hence, the person must have the ability to motivate and influence others.
• Collaboration. A scrum master should always ensure that the project team members and the project owner remain on the same page and coordination is always smooth.
• Observation. Having a clear idea of every individual’s contribution to the project is an important skill that a scrum master needs to possess.
• Knowledge. There are some technical skills and knowledge that a scrum master should have, such as Jira software development skills and project management skills. A skilled scrum master shares Agile principles and fosters them.

What responsibilities should you talk about with a prospective scrum master who wants to join your team? Continue reading.

Scrum Master’s Responsibilities

To give you a clear picture of what to expect from a scrum master, let’s take a look at the following list to learn about the responsibilities of a scrum master, according to the Scrum Guide.

• Coaching. A scrum master plays the role of a coach or mentor for the team members.
• Coordinating events. The scrum master follows up with the team members to ensure that the daily events and scrum meetings take place on a regular basis.
• Servant leader. Being a servant leader, a scrum master acts as the authority for interactions with the team and product owner.
• Product backlog coordination. The scrum master coordinates with the product owner and keeps track of the product backlog and production support.
• Dealing with obstacles. The scrum master helps the team overcome any difficulties and unforeseen events. As a dynamic leader, a scrum master forsters independence within the team.
• Implementing scrum. Teaching and maintaining the scrum principles within the team is the responsibility of a scrum master.

Now that responsibilities and skills are clear, you may ask: what are mistakes or, in other words, anti-patterns of a scrum master that can badly influence a development team’s workflow?

Main Scrum Master Anti-Patterns

The following list shows some mistakes or anti-patterns from scrum masters that might hurt your team’s progress and efficiency.

1. Tailoring too much. Although, ideologically, scrum processes are customizable, making too many modifications along the way may jeopardize the team’s balance on an organizational level, for example, making frequent changes to the duration of sprint events or changing their location.

2. Dissatisfaction with the status quo. If a scrum master is not a proactive person and doesn’t like changes or constantly avoids them, it will definitely create problems for the scrum team. The job of a scrum master is to encourage the team to find the golden mean in new changes and improvement ideas.

3. Extending a helping hand too long. By getting involved in every matter, resolving issues, or offering too many tips, a scrum master interferes with other people’s problems. It usually happens when a scrum master previously worked as a project manager and had different responsibilities. Such actions will decrease the potential of the team members, encouraging them to pass off the problems instead of resolving them.

4. Competing against other teams. The scrum master needs to focus on team results and motivate them without competing with other teams in a similar niche. The scrum master’s team might have a fear of being defeated.

5. Conflict aversion. A scrum master needs to agree that conflicts can be inevitable on any team, and scrum teams are no exception. So, it is a good idea to resolve conflicts instead of avoiding them.

6. Not updating retrospective formats in sprints. The scrum master needs to update the retrospective formats in sprints for continuous improvement frequently. That creates the possibility to think out of the box and look at problems from different angles. Sticking with just one format is a fundamental mistake.

7. Unwelcome to criticism. Being unwelcome to criticism or challenges will make the scrum master lose sight of potential scopes for improvement, which will eventually hinder the team’s performance.

8. Failure to create leadership. By assigning specific tasks to team members instead of allowing them to take responsibility, a scrum master will fail to achieve the full potential of scrum teams. Just remember that there are no bosses in scrum.

Knowing the pitfalls of the scrum master position will help you improve the development process. And now you may ask if it’s difficult to start a career as a scrum master; let’s see.

How to Become a Scrum Master

1. To become a scrum master, first, you will need to learn the scrum framework. Online resources are abundant for this purpose. Also, there are a lot of useful books on the subject.

There are several certifications available to become a scrum master practitioner, such as:

    a. Certified Scrum Master (CSM);

    b. Professional Scrum Master (PSM);

    c. Agile Project and Delivery Management Certification (ICP-APM).

2. Secondly, you can decide on what certification to pursue and then sign up for it. The cost will vary. For instance, a CSM, or Certified Scrum Master, training course usually costs between $1,000 to $2,000 and takes a couple of days to complete.

However, like any professional, a scrum master must always remember that having a certification is not the end of learning; rather, it is just the beginning. There is no alternative to constantly expanding their competencies through continuous learning and training.

Certification

Upon completion of the training courses, you will need to pass the CSM exam and score at least 74% for membership certification, which is valid for two years and can be renewed afterward.

Salary

The scrum master salary structure is lucrative and very competitive, indeed. The following list will give you a good estimate of the salary structure for scrum masters across different regions:

• United States: USD 106,791
• Singapore: USD 102,626
• Australia: USD 73,978
• United Kingdom: USD 64,000
• Canada: USD 63,264
• New Zealand: USD 61,696
• South Africa: USD 30,631
• China: USD 30,209
• India: USD 19,966

While we talk about maintaining good employee morale in a scrum setting, having a great team velocity is crucial for achieving project outcomes efficiently, as described by Geniusee. You may also be thinking about where you can find great support if you want to implement scrum in a company. That’s where Geniusee comes in.

Improve Teamwork with Geniusee

For a successful outcome, team velocity calculation in scrum is a crucial cornerstone that you cannot miss. With Geniusee, you can accomplish the following goals easily to improve your teamwork in compliance with methodologies specified in the Scrum Guide:

• Track the total amount of reported team efforts completed for each sprint.
• Forecast how much backlog effort the team can deal with in future sprints if its formation and sprint duration remain constant.

It’s obvious now that Geniusee can help scrum masters improve their efforts and make the development team’s workflow smoother.

Summary

Scrum is a good practice from the process perspective—you can use all ceremonies to maintain transparency and adapt quickly. On the next level, it also includes deeper elements underlying those process attributes.

With a diversified portfolio of skills, scrum masters implement Agile best practices to enhance team efficiency and quality of product deliverables. So, if you want to become a scrum master and have a dedicated development team in your company, Geniusee will be a useful tool to assist you!

To ensure potential difficulties are supervised with the correct solutions to fit the product and market, you should develop the software through PoC, prototype, or MVP. But what’s PoC vs. MVP vs. Prototype? What are their differences? And which option will work best for you?

All your answers are here, so let’s have an in-depth exploration.

What Is PoC?

Proof of Concept, or PoC, is a stage in software development where the product is built to test technical assumptions and confirm if the idea is beneficial and applicable before going for the actual development.

That means you build PoC when you are unsure if the software would work according to the planned idea. PoC is usually a small segment of the entire system, which is unseen to the end-users, as it is just to clarify which way to go before going for the development.

Main features of PoC

If you’re looking for an accurate and quick way to endorse or void assumptions about your core audience and software concept, then PoC is what you need. Some of the valuable features of PoC are:

• It gives you the knowledge on whether or not your software idea is workable
• It allows you to understand how your software can be implemented
• It helps you unearth risks and errors at the beginning of software development
• You can make quick decisions, as the results are in ‘yes’ or ‘no’
• It saves your time and costs, as you can change your strategies rather than starting the entire project again after completing it

How Do You Create a PoC?

We’ve prepared a list of steps on how to create a PoC:

• Clarify the product idea and the goals it’s trying to achieve, along with the scope of work, objectives, and essential resources
• Make the team responsible for product development and decision making, including the stakeholders
• Create use cases to measure the success criteria
• Implement test cases to examine the product’s positivity, negativity, and durability
• Gather all the results and compare and discuss them with the stakeholders and the entire team to see whether or not the product is successful

PoC example

One of the best examples of the PoC approach is when Walmart decided to include Blockchain technology to track products’ origins and refine its entire logistics system. To ensure it was the right thing to do and the company wasn’t wasting its resources, the Walmart team built a Proof of Concept (PoC).

So your concept is proven now. The question is, how can you confirm whether or not it would work?

Relax! Next comes the prototype phase to ensure your product’s viability.

What Is a Prototype?

A prototype is a model or sample of a product developed to test how effectively it works. One of the main reasons for building a prototype is to analyze, test, and rework the product until the expected outcomes are attained. In other words, the prototyping phase is a strategy to examine how a product would look once it’s developed and what amendments it requires if the results are not up to the mark.

Building a prototype takes place when the PoC turns out to be positive, and it exposes bugs during the study and designing of the product.

Main features of prototypes

The prototype approach answers how the product will function. For instance, prototyping a mobile app is a type of user research to verify the strategic design of the software. So, the mobile app prototype will be the initial visualization to understand the mobile app’s appearance and feel.

Therefore, using a prototype in this scenario is for testing the usability. You will have plenty of time to make amendments to the overall UX design and development to satisfy users in case of any problems or bugs.

A few of the many great features of the prototype include:

• It helps to identify mistakes in the design before the start of product development
• It saves your precious time, as well as monetary resources in contrast to full-stage development
• It permits users to understand your product’s workflow
• It allows you to enjoy quick feedback before the development process
• It represents all complex ideas under a comprehensive format
• You can reuse prototypes to develop more complicated projects
• You can get a successful product prototype with attractive design and development, which will convince people to invest in the idea

How Do You Create a Prototype?

You can make a prototype of your product by following these steps:

• Define the user requirements and make a list of them so you can make the prototype accordingly
• Create the initial prototype (prototype I) with all the listed features
• Test the initial prototype by presenting it to the target audience, stakeholders, and users
• Gather the feedback and discuss it with the team
• Revise and repeat the process by following the input until desired results are achieved

Prototype example

The RubyGarage design team made a prototype of an e-commerce store. The store showed different UI element types and their positions to perceive how users would interact with the store when the final version is launched.

Once you know your prototype is successful, it is time to understand how the product would actually work in the real-life market. To do so, you will have to develop the MVP.

So what is that, and how can you create one? Keep on reading to find out the answers.

What Is MVP?

The “Minimum Viable Product” or “MVP” is what you call a testing version of the product with limited but sufficient features, making it workable. In simple words, in MVP development, the product doesn’t include a variety of cool features but only those traits that reveal the core functionality.

The reason why you build an MVP is to introduce the narrow version of the product to the market. In that way, you can understand whether or not the product is valuable. And in case the product emerges to be beneficial, bingo! You can start making money instantly from your initial customers and early users. And with this good news, you will be loaded with confidence and funds to include additional features on your MVP.

Main features of MVP

If you’re implementing the MVP approach, it will help you develop a nominal and operational version of your product to kick off and test in the real market. The method will permit your team to grasp targeted users’ experiences and their responses to your product. And learning from the real users’ insights, you will be able to allot effort, time, and budget to all the essential areas to ensure the product satisfies your business objectives.

Creating an MVP is a repetitive process that helps reveal users’ pain points and defines the correct functionality to overcome those problems over time. The MVP development comes with numerous features, like:

• It helps you develop the product with useful features to tackle users’ requirements
• Uncovers the right direction for advanced development
• Provides knowledge about the product’s ease of use and market demand
• You can verify the assumptions related to the product and its workability
• Reduces the product risks
• It helps save money and time for development and allows you to plan a correct development path
• A fully developed MVP can help you gain greater user feedback to show as proof to investors

How Do You Create an MVP?

This is how you can build an MVP for your product:

• Understand market demand to enhance the product idea
• Focus on the value addition
• Make a user-friendly design of your product for user flow
• Add the most beneficial features to the MVP by questioning users, like what they want and how this product can ease their lives
• Upon deciding the design and main features according to market needs, launch the MVP

MVP Example

It all started when an MVP successfully became the famous marketplace you know as Amazon.

When the initial version of Amazon was launched, the platform grew, and the founder, Jeff Bezos, started the expansion by widening the best-selling products on the website. He further improved the site’s design to enhance user experience as customers were increasing on Amazon.

It was all possible because of user feedback, which allowed the gradual development of this global marketplace. And that made Amazon one of the biggest retailers in the entire world

Now that you’re aware of what PoC, prototype, and MVP are, let’s see a table with the main differences between them.

Comparison of PoC vs. Prototype vs. MVP

Which Approach Should You Choose?

We’ve prepared some tips for you to use when deciding which path to choose:

When Should You Use Proof of Concept (PoC)?

• To show customers a working model of the app
• To earn through your product (app)
• To have an error-free application ready for use by customers
• To understand the market demand to improve the application

When Should You Use a Prototype?

• To have an early-stage funding
• To verify if the idea is technically workable
• To share internal knowledge with the team
• To evaluate the success rate of the project or product traits

When Should You Use Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

• To have a complete visualization of the app’s functions
• To bring the app into the stakeholders’ knowledge but have limited resources
• When the technical resources are limited
• To have an immediate appearance of the application

Conclusion

Knowing the importance, features, and pros of PoC vs. MVP vs. Prototype and selecting the correct strategy saves not only your time and money but also mitigates the risks of failures.

So, if you’re unsure where to begin, our Geniusee specialists are always prepared to provide remarkable guidance. Contact us now, and let’s turn your dream product into reality.

In this article we discuss what should be the minimum viable product at the time of the pilot entry into the market.

Let’s start with a viral sketch of the development path of a startup based on the MVP principle, which gets around the Internet and which you have probably come across with.

90% of authors use the illustration above in their publications in a literal sense, which misleads readers.

What is MVP in software development?

The top line has nothing in common with MVP. This is clear. It depicts a classic development cycle. The author used it as an exaggeration for the sake of context in the example below. Of course, at the first stage where the picture shows only the wheel, any minimally viable product is out of the question. The product goes through 3 stages of development (wheels, body, engine) before it could fulfill its mission, i.e. to enable you to drive.

But the second line also does not reflect the principle of MVP quite correctly. Why does our understanding of a minimally viable product not converge with such a concept? Assuming that it reflects the development path of a product, it becomes obvious that it has undergone 4 fundamental changes. As a result, its creators have received three groups of commodity-generic competitors: 1 – a skate-scooter-bike; 2 – motorcycle; 3 – car.

Yes, the buyer, as we know, buys not a product, but a solution to their problem. And the skate seems to solve the basic need (move faster than on foot). But after all, a skate and a car are completely different means of transportation, aimed at a different audience, with absolutely different purposes of driving. The ways various products satisfy the demands for comfort, price, maintenance complexity, speed, etc are not similar. As a result, each product has its own target audience.

The car appeals to a wider range of users: elderly and young people, those who travel alone or in company, who go to work or travel to a random destination – they need speed, comfort and a possibility to drive in any weather conditions. The skate is intended solely for one person, more often a child or teenager, and the purpose of the ride is more entertaining in nature. The prospect of transforming the product into a car that needs fuel, expensive maintenance, and the user being at least 17 years old may not go down very well with the skate audience, not to mention the price of the car itself. And those who need a car will not initially pay any attention to your scooter. Yes, each of these products can have MVP, but they are not MVP for each other.

Henrik Kniberg, the author of this picture, repeatedly wrote that his image is not always interpreted in the right context. The fact is that he invested a metaphorical meaning in it, in which the goal of the development was not to build a car, but to solve the problem of “getting from point A to point B”. And the simplest viable solution to this problem is a skate. That is, a certain concept of product search was transferred onto the picture in an abstract and very simplified form. Skates or scooters are not MVP for the car, it goes without saying. The picture only shows the idea that as a part of the creation of the product, you can make several pivots and eventually find the MVP.

And this revised version of MVP appeals to us more:

In the product business, the MVP of a product is the product itself, only made with some simplifications, reductions, and a cheaper one. MVP of a high-rise building is the same high-rise, but not of 24 floors, but of 5, without an elevator, a garbage chute and other conveniencies. MVP of a car is a car. First, it can be made from boards and a rough and ready frame, with a weaker engine (or no engine at all), with seats from a furniture set. But the three key functions that differ it from a skateboard or scooter – speed, spaciousness and long trips – will already be in it.

Why is a minimum viable product important?

Startups offer a product or service to meet the specific needs of the target audience. The higher the significance of the problem for the consumer, the more valuable the proposed solution. MVP implementation allows at the initial stages of business development to determine how the product meets the expectations and needs of the client. Accordingly, the company’s management and investors receive the data necessary to make a decision about the future of the startup.

According to statistics, about 70% of startups fail. Failures are partly due to the release of useless or untimely goods. Recall, for example, the legendary story of the emergence of sugar sticker packets. Their inventor wanted to make life easier for users. He assumed that cafe visitors would be able to break the bags in the middle and empty the contents without spilling a crumb. However, the customers of the cafe continued to tear off the corner of the bag out of habit. At first glance, an ingenious idea turned out to be completely useless in practice. And although the stickers later gained popularity due to their ease of transportation, they did not bring profit to their inventor.

MVP helps to establish the required functionality of the product and efficiently use production resources based on the goals set at the start of development. By creating an MVP, a team can understand customer interest in a product without spending time and effort in perfecting the idea. The sooner creators get feedback from customers, the less effort and expense will be spent on a losing idea. MVP in software development projects gives a more reliable result than surveys of the target audience and allows you to observe the real interaction of the user and the program. This means that already in the process of creation, developers will understand the potential payback.

This concept is based on the philosophy of the Lean Startup and involves an iterative process of constructing a measurement-learning cycle until market needs are fully met. Starting with a minimum viable product, the team focuses on the core functions and value of the proposed idea. SIt clearly understands the most important tasks and implements them in a priority order. For example, in the case of software development, programmers move on to optimizing the user interface only after the release of the minimum viable product.

Answering the question why is mvp important for software development we learn that MVP prevents fear of “unfinished construction” and provides a clear direction for development. In addition, having a functioning product motivates the development team and reduces product managers’ concerns about lack of functionality.

Main advantages of using mvp for business.

Below we have provided a list of benefits of the minimum viable product:

• confirm the viability of the idea and test hypotheses about the product using real data;
• identify trends that can be used when developing the full version of the product;
• reduce the risk of large financial losses in the event of an unsuccessful product release;
• reduce development costs by prioritizing important and identifying unclaimed features;
• speed up the search for errors and internal testing of the product;
• build a user base before a full-scale launch;
• to occupy a market niche and attract investors before competitors.

Making an MVP: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Launching a minimum viable product requires eight preparatory steps. The first four steps are aimed at preliminary refinement of the business idea. The fifth and sixth stages relate to the design of the product, and only at the seventh and eighth points it will come directly to development and testing.

1. Formulate the problem

Each product is created to solve a certain problem, and it’s not about making a profit. This requires a customer-centric approach. Why does a user need a product?

By clearly formulating the answer, you will get an idea of ​​the purpose of the product and its value to the user. So, by opening a service for short-term rental of parking spaces, you solve the problem that all drivers face – you make it easier to find a place where you can leave your car.

2. Define the audience and highlight its core

Focusing on the needs of a wider audience when designing an MVP is a flawed strategy. Narrowing down the target audience allows you to more accurately target the future product. To do this, it is necessary to formulate a portrait of an “ideal” user, a person who will buy your solution without hesitation and will be satisfied with its capabilities.

Typically, such a portrait includes information about the age of the user, education level, income, habits, interests and hobbies. These details are necessary to understand how well the product is suitable for the future user, and will help later, at the stage of advertising and promotion.

3. Analyze your competitors

Don’t overestimate the exclusivity of your product, especially if you know in advance about other companies in the industry. Analyze your competitors. Find out their strengths and weaknesses to determine the functionality of your future product. Rank your competitors based on how they compete for market share.

Identify your competitors. Analyze the three main market players, find out how long they have been on it, what products and services they provide. Determine if they have a competitive edge and rate your ability to offer something better.

Describe their market share. Research their past and current strategies, sales, earnings, financial and marketing goals. This data will help you understand how successful and cost-effective they are.

Use primary and secondary sources of information. Information that companies share themselves is the primary source and most reliable for analysis. Visit company websites, view presentations, white papers, annual reports, blogs, marketing materials, and other publications. Secondary sources of information – articles in magazines and newspapers, videos, reports and books – shape public opinion about market players. While these sources may be less reliable than the primary sources, they provide the most comprehensive insight into the industry.

Dig deeper. Feel free to attend business events with competitors, make contacts, use a competitor’s product, and analyze reviews.

Use analytics software. Various online competitive analysis tools will make your life easier. Services like Similar Web, Ahrefs, Quantcast, App Annie, or AppFollow collect data about websites and apps. With their help, you can find out about the popularity of competitors’ app / site, their monthly traffic, audience interests, geographic location of customers, as well as similar products. Some of the existing tools provide basic information for free. Others, like Moz and SensorTower, are subscription-based.

When you know the strengths and weaknesses of key competitors, you can understand what will make your product unique in the market and what it lacks to become one.

4. Create a SWOT analysis

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This structure is commonly used in strategic planning. However, it is also fairly easy to use in ranking MVP ideas. To perform a SWOT analysis, you need to objectively answer several questions related to the above categories. Let’s see what a SWOT analysis might look like using the food delivery example we mentioned above.

The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to focus on strengths, identify and minimize weaknesses, avoid threats, and leverage existing opportunities for further development. Strengths and weaknesses are usually related to internal factors. Opportunities and threats – with external ones.

SWOT analysis helps companies analyze competitors and choose a market positioning strategy.

5. Define a user journey map

User flow – the path that the user goes through when interacting with the product. It should be logical and understandable.

User Journey Map – Guidelines for content and site / app design requirements. When building a good user journey map, you need to understand what customers want when using your product. Make sure you provide additional information to users and identify potential issues that might prevent them from moving to the next step.

Let’s use the example of Tamam food delivery App to consider a list of tasks that users must solve in order to achieve the main goal. The user’s path will be as follows: placing an order, managing an order, paying for food, receiving an order. Once the steps are outlined, you need to define the functions for each of them.

6. Make a list of functions, graded by priority

You need to list the required features for the future product. The storytelling method (or user stories) will help you during this planning stage.

User Stories is a dual approach to managing user stories. It allows you to focus on specific parts of the functionality and at the same time not lose the full understanding of the product. The methodology aims to help developers choose useful features from the user’s point of view. Its author and practitioner Jeff Patton believes that a function description should contain a human action.

We have listed 4 steps that users take with our product: placing an order, managing an order, paying for food, and delivering an order.

Now we have to describe the functions for each step and write them down on cards. For example, to customize an order, a user can:

• choose where he lives;
• choose a kitchen;
• choose a restaurant;
• choose a dish;
• choose a drink;
• read descriptions of selected items;
• add order to cart.

After you are done with the descriptions, draw a horizontal line to indicate the user’s path, and show the main steps and their functions on the map.

Now let’s prioritize. You have to find out how important and valuable a particular function is, how often it is used, whether it has risks, how many users turn to it.

After you have ordered the features according to their priority, draw a vertical line and place them in the order you want. Put the most important and frequently used ones at the top of the list, and place the rest at the bottom.

7. Determine the scope of the MVP

Once you have prioritized the features, you can determine the scope of the MVP and role of MVP in your software development. The first horizontal row on the map is called the walking skeleton (frame). This walking skeleton is the smallest useful version of a product that lacks “meat”, that is, functionality. First, we need to create a wireframe.

In some cases MVP is the same as the framework, and sometimes it has limited functionality. To understand the differences between the framework, the MVP, and its further concept, you must classify the features.

Let’s draw a line to separate the main functions from the non-essential ones. The features that you give the highest priority represent the minimum viable product in software development. Others can be added after MVP deployment and feedback analysis.

8. Choose the most appropriate method for managing and developing MVP

Once you’ve identified the scope of work, you can finally start developing your minimum viable product. Let’s find out what project management techniques apply to building an MVP.

LEAN

One of the Agile software development methods, based on several principles: eliminating unnecessary costs, fast delivery, strengthening learning, and building integrity. In fact, Lean uses create-measure-learn iterative development. With Lean, developers can defer most design decisions, establish a fast feedback loop, and make sure they are creating a compelling product.

SCRUM

Another iterative approach to software development. It implies efficient allocation of workload that helps teams complete tasks faster. You can manage the development of MVP features in a sprint (short cycles of about two or four weeks). Define a scrum master who will monitor the stability of all scrum processes. MVP is implemented immediately after the first sprint. The development team can update the product in all subsequent sprints, responding to user feedback. While Scrum is more time-consuming than Learn, it can be less stressful for professionals – suitable for gradual and long-term development.

KANBAN

Focuses on the work-in-progress model and, unlike Learn and Scrum, does not have a cyclical progression. Instead, Kanban suggests focusing on tasks as they arise. This allows you to balance the amount of work with the capabilities of the team. Experts add tasks to the pipeline as soon as they receive feedback from users. Kanban can be applied after the first version of the MVP for a software development project is released and becomes a powerful method if feedback continues to flow.

EXTREME PROGRAMMING (XP)

This is a set of development practices such as code refactoring, small releases, simplified design, coding standards that allow you to improve the code and update it as soon as possible. Development cycles with XP do not exceed one week, so you can run the first version faster and then scale it up. XP is well suited for an MVP that relies heavily on code quality.

Choosing one of the iterative design approaches is critical because it allows you to create a sequential feedback loop.

9. Use alpha and beta testing

Alpha – so-called internal testing, when a limited group of people (mainly friends or family members) evaluate a product. If the product passes this test, you can move on to beta testing – let real users try the product for one to two weeks. Analyze the feedback and determine what features need to be added or replaced to make the product better.

If you have collected enough feedback, you can update the product, then test it again and get feedback. The number of build-test-learn cycles and their time frame vary by product. After you’ve completed a few loops, you can go back to step 0, change direction, or continue to iteratively improve your product.

What to wrap in MVP so that users want to try it?

With the concept of MVP figured out, let’s now talk about how to determine the stuffing of a pilot product, prioritize the functionality and make the first version of the product in demand.

The first thing to do is to find out what tools, features and capabilities will become necessary for your product.

Pareto principle

“20% of the effort gives 80% of the result, and the remaining 80% of the effort gives only 20% of the result.” This is an empirical principle, which means that many phenomena in the world, including development, are subject to this ratio. 80% of your users will use only 20% of the functionality. Therefore, you do not need to spend months polishing your product to a crystal shine before launch. Write down a complete list of the features of the future application and identify those 20% that will cover 80% of the needs of users.

MVP = required + easy

Have you heard about the priority matrix? It is a popular task prioritization technique that distributes features on the “required” and “simple” scales. Draw two axes where the horizontal axis will show the increase in complexity of the implementation of a particular function, and the vertical axis will represent the path from the desired to the required. Scatter all the planned functionality on this diagram, answering 2 questions:

– Is it difficult or easy to implement?

– Is it desirable or necessary for the user?

Having a ready-made list based on this matrix, you can safely contact the developers.

Rice Score Formula

Rice Score Formula is another effective method of prioritizing ideas and features for MVP. You need to evaluate each function by four factors and substitute the values ​​in a simple formula.

• Reach – how many users’ lives will you improve?
  (Rate over a period of time and take numbers from metrics, not making a guesstimate)
• Impact – how much do you improve the lives of users?
  (Very much = 3x, quite a lot= 2x, fairly = 1x, a little= 0.5x, insufficiently = 0.25x)
• Confidence – how confident are you that the hypothesis will be true and the product will fire?
  100% = high confidence, confirmed by surveys or studies, 80% = average confidence, 50% = low confidence, 50% and lower = a lot of doubt)
• Efforts – how many man-hours, man-days or just days will be spent on implementation?
  (1 person-day = this is the day of one developer)

Instead of Conclusion

The MVP approach plays the role of an airbag and allows you to adequately predict the commercial and technical potential of the product. Therefore, when we brief our customers, we insist that it is better to start development from it. And, of course, we help to determine the key functionality. If you plan to create a minimally viable product, then the best option is to build it on NoCode technology. Today, codeless application development platforms are in high demand. They allow you to create web applications of any complexity faster and cheaper, and existing NoCode freelance exchanges help you choose the technology that suits your business needs and a proven specialist. We dare to assume that the tendency to simplify and reduce the cost of development will only intensify. And now is the time to harness its potential.

BPM is used to manage primary and secondary business processes. The former are focused on creating the main product – for example, development and sales, the latter – on supporting the main processes: accounting, procurement, HR, etc. Typical business processes include the production of a product or service, processing user requests by technical support, delivery of goods, office work.

BPM doesn’t have strict rules and standards. Common approaches to process management have been developed by organizations such as BPMInstitute and Workflow Management Coalition. BPM practice also uses Lean techniques and the recommendations of the ISO 9000 series of standards.

Difference between BPM and project approach

A project is a one-time job, a unique and non-repetitive process. The project is limited by start and finish dates, budget and resources. Examples: launching a new product on the market, working under a contract, marketing event.

A process is a set of sequential actions that are repeated regularly. The process requires typical costs and a certain number of participants. The content of the next process, in contrast to the content of the next project, usually does not change. Examples: Processes of the purchasing department, accounting department, HR.

Hence the difference in the tools that are used for the project and process approach to management. For project management, SaaS solutions like Trello or Asana are suitable, which are of little use for a BPM approach.

Life cycle

The BPM implementation process is usually broken down into five stages.

1. Design. Detailed development of a business process for a specific department or task – for example, for a purchasing department or a sales department. This stage includes defining the participants and the order of operations, assigning roles, describing areas of responsibility, approval stages, escalation conditions, tasks that can be automated, and so on.

2. Modeling. Most often – visual modeling of a business process in a BPM software system (iBPMS) and, if the software functionality allows, preliminary testing. In modern iBPMS, this is usually implemented in the form of a graphical editor and other low-code tools.

3. Execution. Integration of BPM into real business processes.

4. Monitoring. Track the effectiveness of simulated business processes. Analysis of metrics and KPI indicators (for example, in the form of graphs and charts).

5. Optimization. Refinement and improvement of business processes, taking into account the data obtained at the monitoring stage, feedback from employees and customers.

Instruments

BPM implementation is impossible without the appropriate software today. This class of products is called iBPMS (Intelligent Business Process Management Suites). There are many iBPMS options on the market, including Russian ones.

Analytical agency Gartner publishes ratings and reviews of BPM software vendors. The last “magic quadrant” of iBPMS was published in 2019. Among the world leaders, the agency noted the products of Pegasystems, IBM and Appian.

Trends

RPA technologies (Robotic Process Automation) are being introduced into BPM systems to automate typical processes. Robots are useful where simple but labor-intensive operations are performed faster than humans. Example: RPAs fill out standard contracts, instantly copying data from another document, when an employee would have spent minutes or even hours on it.

Artificial intelligence is used in BPM for various tasks: processing large amounts of data and generating analytics in real time, working with standard documents, customer requests. This also includes, for example, tools such as chat bots.

Another trend is a visually oriented IDE with a low-code platform. BPM solutions that implement low-code tools are easier to learn and maintain: employees who do not have programming skills can model processes in such iBPMS.

BPM solutions are moving towards versatility, combining functions that are usually implemented as separate software products. Full-featured iBPMS includes modules for working with clients (CRM), document management (EDMS), project management and more.

BPM Benefits

• Efficiency. BPM helps automate common workflows and optimize complex ones. Extra steps (operations) are eliminated, interaction between employees and departments is simplified, productivity is increased.
• Flexibility. The company remains competitive in a rapidly changing market. With BPM tuned, it’s easier to adapt to change and make progress.
• Saving. By streamlining processes, the company reduces operating costs.
• Transparency. It is easier for management to control business processes, identify and eliminate bottlenecks.
• Effectiveness. Employees devote more time to specialized work and less to unnecessary one.
• Satisfaction. It is easier for employees to solve even complex problems when there is a streamlined workflow, when this process is clear and logical, and unnecessary actions are minimized.

Conclusion

When implementing BPM, it is important to understand that this is not a one-time “set and forget” type of work. Some business processes require continuous and sometimes continuous optimization. Choosing the right iBPMS is just as important.

The market and customer preferences change quickly, you need to be prepared to change with them. In this sense, Business Process Management is an approach that helps a company maintain performance at the proper level.

What Is Discovery Phase?

The product discovery phase of software development is a procedure for collecting information that gives an understanding of the industry for which the product is being developed, of your customer’s business, and the target audience. In other words, it is the project planning stage. It is important to gain a deep understanding of what the customer’s expectations are like, who are decision-makers on their part, as well as who are the product end users.

The main purpose of the preliminary analysis is to provide a technical proposal to the customer. To do this, you need to find out about the needs of the client as much as possible and create a separate document with product requirements.

All the details that you will find out during the project discovery phase will help you determine the amount of work, the project timeline, and the plan for fulfilling the tasks of the project. It will also help ensure that the customer receives a high-quality software product designed for their needs.

What Is The Analysis Needed For?

• To find out the motives, goals, and problems of users;
• to understand the context of product use;
• to find new ideas for development;
• to understand what users expect and their relation to the product.

What Is The Duration Of The Discovery Phase?

• For medium-sized projects – 1-2 weeks.
• For large projects – 3-4 weeks.

Project Discovery Team

• Project Managers/Owners. They are responsible for defining the product vision, understanding market needs, and aligning the development process with business goals. The project manager gathers insights from stakeholders, conducts market research, and collaborates with the development team to ensure the product meets user requirements. In other words, they create project boundaries.
• Business Analysts. These discovery team members contribute to the project discovery phase by conducting research, gathering and analyzing user feedback, and identifying business requirements. They work closely with stakeholders to define product features, prioritize functionalities, and translate business needs into technical requirements.
• Designers. They conduct user research, create user personas, and develop prototypes or wireframes to visualize the product’s user interface and user experience. UX/UI designers work hand-in-hand with the development team to ensure the product is intuitive, user-friendly, and aligned with user expectations.
• Developer. They collaborate with project managers, business analysts, and UX designers to assess the feasibility of proposed features, identify technical constraints, and offer insights on potential project implementation approaches. Their input helps in determining the viability of certain ideas and refining the technical scope of the project.
• Team Leads. The project team lead takes on the responsibility of evaluating the technical feasibility of proposed features, assessing potential risks and constraints, and providing technical insights to guide decision-making. They collaborate with other discovery team members to ensure that the product vision aligns with technical capabilities, helping to shape the overall direction of the project during the IT project discovery phase.
• Account Manager. They play a crucial role in bridging the gap between the client and the development team, ensuring effective communication, understanding client requirements, and aligning project objectives. They act as a liaison, facilitating collaboration, managing expectations, and ensuring that the product discovery phase delivers insights and outcomes that align with the client’s needs and goals.
• Stakeholders. These individuals may include product owners, executives, marketing representatives, sales personnel, or subject matter experts who can provide valuable insights, domain knowledge, and market perspectives.

What Will Happen If You Skip The Discovery Phase?

Skipping the product discovery process in the development of a new IT product can have several negative consequences. The project’s discovery phase is an essential part of the product development lifecycle as it helps gather critical information and insights that guide the subsequent stages of development. Here are some potential outcomes of skipping the project discovery phase.

1. Inadequate Understanding Of User Needs

The main aims of the discovery phase are conducting market research, user interviews, and competitor analysis to understand user needs, pain points, and existing technical solutions. By skipping this phase, the IT company may have a limited understanding of the target audience, which can lead to developing a product that does not effectively address user requirements.

2. Unclear Project Vision And Strategy

The project discovery phase helps shape the product vision and strategy by defining goals, identifying key features, and establishing a project roadmap. Without this phase, the IT company may lack a clear direction for the product, resulting in a lack of focus, wasted resources, and potential conflicts during development.

3. Higher Development Costs And Delays

Without a proper understanding of user needs and a clear product vision, the development process can become inefficient. This may result in frequent iterations, scope creep, and rework, leading to increased costs and delays in product delivery.

4. Increased Development Risks

The discovery phase allows for identifying potential technical challenges, assessing feasibility, and understanding the project scope. Skipping this phase can lead to unforeseen risks and complications during development, such as underestimating the required resources, encountering technical roadblocks, or discovering fundamental flaws in the initial concept.

5. Poor Market Fit And Low Adoption

By neglecting the discovery phase, the IT company runs the risk of developing a product that does not meet market demands or lacks competitive differentiation. This can result in poor market fit, low user adoption, and ultimately, limited success in the market.

What Do We Do During The Discovery Phase?

We create a series of documents and schemes for effective work on the project.

Lean Model Canvas

Firstly, a conceptual description of the business model of the future product for MVP is created in the form of a diagram describing all business processes related to the product: proposal, infrastructure, consumers, and financial aspects.

User Journey Map

In addition, we create a “map” of customer communication with the product. This is a visual graph of the user’s interaction with the product. It includes all the proposed points and channels of such interaction, as well as the client’s visualized experience, taking into account their thoughts, emotions, goals, motives, and fears on the way to achieving the result.

User Flow

To determine how the user will interact with the interface of the new product, we create User Flow in the form of schematically shown screens of the software project and transitions between them. Thus, the design of user behavior scenarios through visual interface prototypes takes place.

User Stories

Then we create a brief description of how the system will be used. In it, we describe functional requirements for the system and acceptance criteria. User Stories allow the customer to effectively prioritize the project implementation of product functionality.

5. Product Vision

In this document, we describe the general objectives of the project execution and the proposed solution. This allows you to better understand the goals of creating a product, its potential, and its prospects. Product Vision is useful to all parties involved in the development – developers, staff, marketing department, etc.

6. Non-Functional Requirements

Our team also issues recommendations regarding system properties or limitations that are not related to the system behavior – the optimal tech stack, infrastructure architecture, and expected load.

What Are The Main Benefits Of The Discovery Phase?

There are many benefits of doing preliminary analysis and research.

Quite often, when startups come to us, they have an idea but don’t have an understanding of what the project should be like from a technical point of view, or what components it should contain. We are also faced with the fact that it is difficult for customers to evaluate what is really in demand by users. In addition, customers may not have enough technical knowledge and experience to make an exhaustive list of the necessary software elements of the product.

We always offer the project discovery phase. The study is conducted by our business analyst, designer, and company project managers. In the course of communication, they find out the wishes of the client. Then a market analysis is carried out and a project description is formulated.

This approach minimizes the number of changes in the development process since the project volume is determined along with other key factors, such as the type of solutions required, functions and functionality, optimal platforms to use, deadlines, and budget.

Having determined all the details of the project in advance, the customer receivesseveralf advantages. Here are the main ones:

• Refinement of the idea and essence of the project, based on real analysis.
• Identification of some aspects of the project that were not taken into account initially.
• Understanding the expectations and problems of users based on competitor research.
• The opportunity to get an expert assessment of the project and methods of working on it, as well as consideration of alternative solutions and technologies proposed by the contractor.
• Compilation of a clear list of user accounts for the project.
• Avoiding the need to make costly additional edits and changes during the development.
• Establishing a balance between the business goals of the client and the interests of the end product users.
• The opportunity to understand how much the contractor meets the expectations of the customer, how comfortable the partnership interaction is, and make the final product decision on further cooperation.

An additional advantage for the client is the fact that, having received a clear technical description, a work plan, and an assessment of the required costs, it will be easier for them to receive financing from potential investors.Subscribe to our newsSubscribe

Tools for a Discovery Phase

There are several groups of tools that can be useful during the project discovery phase to gather insights, conduct research, and facilitate collaboration. Here are some commonly used tools.

Project Management Tools. Tools like Jira, Asana, or Trello can help in organizing and managing the discovery phase activities. These project management tools allow teams to create tasks, set deadlines, see development timelines, assign responsibilities, and track the project’s progress.

Communication and Collaboration Tools. Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workspace facilitate communication and collaboration among project team members. They provide channels for real-time discussions, document sharing, and remote collaboration.

Survey and Feedback Tools. Tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform enable the collection of user feedback and opinions. Market surveys can be designed to gather information about user needs, preferences, and pain points.

Prototyping and Wireframing Tools. Tools like Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD are used to create interactive prototypes or wireframes. These tools allow designers to visualize and iterate on the product’s user interface and experience before moving into development.

Analytics and Data Tools. Tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Hotjar can provide valuable insights into user behavior, website traffic, and user interactions. These tools help in understanding user engagement and making data-driven decisions during the discovery phase.

Competitive Research Tools. Tools like SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, or SpyFu assist in conducting competitive research and analyzing competitors’ strategies. They provide information about market trends, competitor research, keyword analysis, and search engine rankings.

User Research Tools. Tools like UserTesting, Optimal Workshop, or Validately support user research activities. They facilitate user testing, remote usability testing, and user interviews, allowing teams to gain direct insights from target users.

Mind Mapping and Diagramming Tools. Tools like Miro, Lucidchart, or MindMeister aid in visualizing ideas, creating mind maps, and diagramming workflows. They can be useful for brainstorming, organizing thoughts, and capturing key information during the discovery phase of a project.

Data Visualization Tools. Tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Google Data Studio help in visualizing and analyzing data. They allow teams to create charts, graphs, and dashboards to better understand and present insights from user research or market data.

Documentation and Knowledge Sharing Tools. Tools like Confluence, Notion, or Evernote are used for documentation and knowledge sharing. They enable teams to store and access project-related information, research findings, meeting notes, and other important documents.

What Is The Average Cost Of The Discovery Phase For The IT Project?

The average discovery phase of the project cost can vary depending on various factors such as the complexity of the project, the size of the team involved, the duration of the phase, and the specific requirements of the project. Additionally, the rates charged by different service providers or consultants can also vary.

As a rough estimate, the Discovery Phase for a medium-sized project typically ranges from $10,000 to $20,000. For larger and more complex projects, the cost can range from $20,000 to $35,000 or more.

It’s important to note that these are just average estimates, and the actual cost can be higher or lower depending on the specific circumstances of your project. 

How Geniusee Conducts the Discovery Phase?

During this discovery phase, Geniusee aims to transform ideas into a clear product vision or provide new life to existing software projects. The project discovery phase helps clients gain valuable insights about design preferences, features, and services that will attract users. It serves several purposes, including finalizing the vision, validating the idea, ensuring market fit, identifying the business strategy, predicting and reducing risks, careful budget planning, defining goals and scope of work for the Minimum Viable Product, and building the groundwork for additional project funding.

The Geniusee project discovery phase deliverables that clients can expect include:

Product Overview

• Problem statement: A clear understanding of the problem the product aims to solve.
• Key functionality required for MVP: Identification of the essential features and functionalities needed for the Minimum Viable Product.
• Business objectives: Clearly defined objectives and goals for the product.

Architecture Decisions For Product Implementation

• Conclusion on product’s interoperability with other tools and systems: Assessment of how the product will integrate with existing tools and systems.
• Product’s physical structure overview: High-level overview of the product’s architectural components and infrastructure.

UI/UX Concept

• Product prototype representing the concept of user’s interaction with the product: A visual representation or interactive prototype illustrating how users will interact with the product, showcasing the user interface and user experience.

To-Do List

• Product backlog: A list of prioritized tasks and features to be developed during the project.
• First release (MVP) sized backlog: A subset of the product backlog specifically focused on the features and tasks required for the initial Minimum Viable Product release.

These deliverables aim to provide clients with a comprehensive understanding of their product, its software requirements specification, and a roadmap for development. By going through the project discovery phase, clients can gain clarity and make informed decisions before proceeding to the next stages of the software project development.

Thanks to the discovery phase of a project, we lay the foundation for effective work and, as a result, we provide high-quality software solutions that are designed taking into account the individual needs of our customers.

Conclusion

Are you looking to kickstart your software development project with a strong foundation? The project discovery stage is a crucial step that should not be skipped. By conducting thorough research, gathering insights, and creating a comprehensive plan, you can ensure that your project meets user needs, aligns with your business goals, and avoids costly mistakes down the road. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to gain a deep understanding of your product’s potential and set a clear direction for its development.

Order Geniusee Discovery Phase service today and pave the way for a project success tailored to your specific project software requirements specification. Contact us now to get started.

The ability to accurately determine the amount of time required to create a product is a critical skill for each developer and customer. We explain how to learn this.

The task should be as clear as possible

Often, programmers don’t delve into the project details, and therefore it is not possible to correctly evaluate the time for its implementation. Before evaluating a project, you must clearly understand what you have to work with.

Usually, it looks this way: the developer team studies the task and the attached files, then discusses the details with the client. During this communication, you can get a much deeper understanding of the project, ask clarifying questions and collect the information that is necessary for you that the client has not provided up to this point.

Admit to yourself that there are no perfect cases

When you estimate time for work, you think that this time will be enough. And sometimes you even lay additional, given the experience of failure to meet deadlines and other factors.
In general, one of the options for dealing with this is trying to determine the ideal time taking into account your experience and multiply it by two. For example, if your team or developer makes up a simple site in 2 days, but sometimes the terms increase to 3 days, then you can safely take 5-6 days to work. Of course, provided that the customer is satisfied.
Otherwise, you don’t have to choose how much time to put into development, because the customer does it for you. But in this situation, the result may suffer.

Divide the work into parts

For example, if you are involved in web development, check how much time it takes to develop a section with contacts, reviews, and a directory. Record for each type how much time was spent on the task, make several projects according to this scheme and then analyze the results.

Use time management techniques

In general, time management allows you to control yourself, escape from burnout, and even deliver projects on time. It doesn’t matter which accounting and management method you choose. The main thing is that you follow it for some time, and not give up, as soon as it seems that you have already learned to control yourself without the help of services and techniques.
One of the most popular is the Pomodoro Technique. First, you make a list of tasks, start with the most important one, work 25 minutes, and then take a break of 5 minutes. After several such cycles (usually after two hours), you can allow yourself to rest for up to half an hour and then continue.

The easiest way to control yourself is with existing services and mobile app. You can also write your own app and practice programming at the same time

Do not give an answer right away

When the client asks how long it will take to complete, write that you need some time to answer. In a few hours, you will have time to evaluate your capabilities in the near future and make an informed decision. Often the impulsiveness is the reason that we promise to complete the work faster than we can do in reality.

What if you do not meet the deadlines again?

Firstly, as soon as you find that it is likely that the project will not be delivered on time, you need to re-calculate how much time it actually takes. If it turns out that you are definitely not in time, inform the client about this in advance.
It is worth explaining what exactly went wrong without reporting and complaining that you were failed by colleagues, circumstances, etc. Make sure to ask how critical this is and what is the deadline by which you will complete the task. It’s good if you show that you are really doing the task.

Sum up:

• Don’t plan the task, as the way from point A to point B. Imagine that in any case there is a reason that will delay the work on the project. Then you will no longer go to the task in a straight line but in an arc.
• Plan not only the time it takes to write the code, but also the testing. Very often, developers stumble, finding out in the last hours that somewhere the code does not work as it should.
• If the time frame is in days, add a day, in weeks – a week, in months – a month. Perhaps it sounds absurd, especially if you imagine that the development period is one year. In fact, it will allow you to do the job more efficiently, and if you do everything earlier than you promised, then there – you will receive a bonus from the customer.

In this article, we gave some advice to developers and teams on how to determine the time required to complete tasks. Tips are based on the personal experience of Geniusee team, as well as the opinion of the developer community. They will also be useful to customers, to understand why the performers set such time frames.