How to speed up software development - Our method
The impact of software development speed on businesses
Software development can have a huge impact on the growth of a business, especially when it comes to how long it takes to deliver a project. If a project is not completed by the deadline, it can bring up cost overruns or even damage brand credibility. Additionally, there is a chance of falling behind competitors and losing potential customers while taking too long to release a product. Here are some practices that helped us get faster results in our software development processes.
Assigning tasks to the right team members
It goes without saying that having knowledgeable and experienced developers is a must for any software development company that is wanting to increase its developing speed. Not only that but analyzing each task individually to understand what professional is better fitted for each one is also extremely important. Developers with experience in a specific area or programing language should be prioritized over lesser experienced ones. Selecting less experienced developers to “learn while they go” will certainly get slower results. This also highlights the importance of having a good project manager on the team, being the person who will do the best job at assigning tasks and managing timelines.
Constant feedback from clients and team members
Making sure there are fewer incidences of errors and task redundancies is an essential step to increasing development speed in an organization. Thus, team members and clients should be put in constant communication with each to avoid such issues. Developers meet up daily during the development of a project to discuss their individual progress and the remaining tasks that need to complete. Clients and the project manager touch base weekly or biweekly to report on the overall progress of a project and discuss the next steps.
QA and software testing
With QA and software testing in combination with Agile and DevOps processes, we have been able to aim for faster deliveries while still maintaining great product quality. QA practices are implemented from the begging of the project, which include test automation, parallel testing, pair programming and test-driven development. These ensure code is being reviewed as it is being written, which helps find bugs early on and ultimately saves time in the development phase. QA testing contributes to a lower incidence of errors and guarantees the code has been validated beforehand.
Continuous integration and continuous delivery
Along with QA, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) plays an important part in delivering test versions to our clients in very little time. This methodology says you should deploy as much as you can, meaning more quantity and more frequently is better. At App Masters, we have chosen to implement GitHub Actions, which is an automation platform that allows for better management of our build, test, and deployment pipelines. This tool assists us in making constant deliveries of test versions to clients, who can give us rapid feedback about their product and eventual changes can be implemented in the very next build.
These practices cited above have been significant contributors to faster speeds of software development in our company. Results can be seen in the number of commits and test versions in our projects, which we have been able to improve at every new project.
Quality vs Speed dilemma in Software Development
Having fast deliveries has been a crucial concern for App Masters since the start. One of our first slogans was “your project from idea to live in 3 months”, and that still holds up for MVPs. From the very first projects, we have been doing our best to reconcile speed and quality. We understand it’s a utopia to achieve maximum speed with no detriment to quality. Going for that higher quality takes time, which means that a quality-driven approach to development may trample any aspiration of having a faster time to market. However, we believe in an approach where a balance between quality and speed can be reached, leaving all parties involved satisfied. Some of the tactics and technics we have implemented at App Masters play a pivotal role in achieving this balance.
Is software development speed a relevant factor for your company?
Get in touch with our team and learn how to provide fast high-quality digital solutions for your business today
Vitor Ferraz
Vitor Ferraz is a content producer from Curitiba who graduated in Advertising from the Federal University of Parana. He has lived in the USA and Canada and is now App Masters' Head of Marketing. Loves technology and new ideas. Photographer as a hobby. Enjoys good music and good food. He aspires to be a filmmaker one day.
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