Four lessons from building software that gets things done faster and why the cost of software development made it necessary!

“Time spent in sharpening the axe may well be spared from swinging it.”

Sermon “The Dull Axe” 1856.

I’ve been having my first experience with software development.

You see, systems are powerful and can be done with spreadsheets and word documents…

But to get the full benefit?

They need software.

So I’m building software.

I did not go to software school.

I cannot code.

What I am doing is guiding the process but having no direct role in touching a single line of code.

Here’s what’s interesting…

I discovered that software dev now runs by a systematic creative process.

The reason?

The cost of actual coding is so high that anything that can be moved to planning and mockups saves massive amounts of time and money.

And the process is very similar to project management in your own business.

Here are the four major steps…

• High Definition Mockup

Build a working model of the entire software that demonstrates everything in the final app.

• Quality Assurance on the Mockup

What?

QA on the MOCKUP?

Yep.

Remember, the costs of actual coding are so high that extra time spent on QA at the mockup identifies any issues and solves them HERE instead of in coding.

• Design

Make it look pretty.

The mockup works. The mockup has been tested.

Now the designers get to make it look great.

And build consistency, so the same functions act the same throughout the software.

AND FINALLY…

With all of this done…

• Software is coded.

This process should run smoothly and cleanly.

Why?

All of the work that went in before this.

Great planning = great software.

Poor planning = poor software.

What are the lessons to take from the experience?

• Getting the order of your steps correct means you do less work fixing errors late in production.
• Building great plans means fast and accurate production, so your overall costs stay low, and you are quicker to complete your projects.
• Get your plans reviewed and tested before you produce a final product so you can fix problems easily instead of wasting time redoing final production.

What does this mean for you?

How you manage your projects makes a difference.

If you continually have projects that run over budget and run late, consider investing MORE in the planning, so your execution is smooth and fast.

Need help? Send us an email to [email protected] or contact us at www.systemio.dev and we can talk through where you can save time and make more money with better systems for planning.