In Part One, I talked about the importance of understanding customer use cases and mapping them to your business objectives when developing your mobile strategy.
In the second installment, we looked at some of the technical considerations you’ll have to address. Now let’s talk about the implementation.
Step 4: Create Your Development Roadmap
You understand your use cases; you’ve identified and prioritized device support; you’ve selected your technology platform(s). Now it’s time to build something.
But you shouldn’t treat this as an “interesting” project for your team to take on in their spare time or view the development effort as a one-off.
If you think this is an activity that you do once and perhaps revisit a year from now, you’re doomed to failure. You must approach this as if you’re developing a product that has a lifecycle - because it does.
Tip #1 - Run mobile development like a product, not a project...
Whether you’re building a native app or developing a mobile website, you want to ensure a perfect experience every time. If you’re successful, tens of thousands or possibly millions of people will be accessing your app every month. If it doesn’t work revenues are at stake, as is your customer’s opinion of you.
New features will be added over time; new marketing offers will be launched. Whether it’s an over-the-air update or just new content on the mobile website, when these changes are made they will go live to ALL of your customers at the same time.
In today’s social network-connected world, any failures are amplified to existing and potential customers very quickly.
Don’t just fear the #FAIL hash tag; plan to avoid it by using a structured product management and development methodology:
- Develop release schedules
- Spend appropriate time on mobile architecture—don’t rush to code
- Use estimation methods properly
- Have a shared understanding of what metrics you are evaluating before releasing new code to production
Tip #2 - Be agile; don’t wait for "the big release"...
Because mobile marketing is so fluid and is evolving so quickly, a traditional waterfall method of creating a huge release plan isn’t the best way to approach mobile development operations.
Consider adopting Agile development methods like SCRUM (or if you’re adventurous, XP) to put yourself in a better position to adapt to changes in your users’ behaviors, new technologies and platforms (e.g., Facebook Places), and competitive changes in the marketplace.
Step 5: Analyze and Adjust
As your mobile app and mobile strategy evolve, your roadmap shouldn’t be static. Just because you create an initial vision for your mobile presence, you are not done. Far from it. As a prospect said to me the other day, "mobile operates in dog years".
What you do today, may not be right a month from now and likely look dated in as little as six months. You cannot begin a down the mobile path thinking that this is a one-time effort. You must plan to continually update your mobile offerings to ensure it’s still supporting your business objectives.
Now a big part of determining what comes next is by looking at whether the last version of your mobile app/site met the business goals that you set. How do you do that?
Create a set of metrics in advance and ensure you have a method for collecting data. There are a number of tools and metrics to use that will help you evaluate whether or not you’re achieving your objectives.
Some of the basic questions you should be asking are:
- How many people are downloading the app?
- How often are people logging in and using it?
- What are my conversion rates?
- Is anything changing in the customer base?
- Analysis of usage—where, when, what features are most popular?
- Are we meeting our up-sell/cross-sell or revenue objectives?
- Have there been changes in customer satisfaction or sentiment?
As more information comes in, it should immediately be evaluated and fed back into your product development roadmap so you can readjust accordingly.
NB: This series is a summary of a white paper on mobile strategy in travel by Ness Software Product Labs. The full whitepaper can be downloaded here.