After a year of dev, MagicBoards software is running smoothly and effectively.
Will and the team at Momentum Group in Sydney have been coding the app for me.
They asked me to write a Google review for them.
Yes, they have been great to work with, and this has been a successful coding experience.
Yet, this is less common than you might expect...
It is estimated that 60-70% of software projects fail.
This is my 5th attempt at software.
My previous 4 attempts failed. I suppose I am a little worse than the average!
As a friend of mine in the software game said... "It's highly unlikely that you will succeed in software on your first 2 or 3 attempts".
So what worked this time?
Why have we successfully coded the MagicBoards app?
Sure, you might think it's because we coded on a no-code platform.
And yes, this meant we could build much faster than traditional software coding.
But when I looked at what was different this time... I don't think it was the platform.
One of my previous failures also used a nocode platform.
So what was different?
What happened this time for MagicBoards App to be successful?
When I reviewed the process, here's what happened.
- We spent a lot of time getting clear on the purpose of the software in Google Docs.
- We built high-definition blueprints in Figma and discussed and documented how they would work.
- We coded the app.
We repeated this model for the 14 sprints through the year.
This is not just a model for successful app coding but a larger framework for successful projects in general.
Why?
The amount of work at later stages is usually significantly higher.
Building in Figma is a lot more work than working on a Google Doc.
Coding the app requires a lot more work than designing it in Figma.
Why spend the time investing into the planning?
Because generally, changes at later project stages take a lot more work.
Planning a funnel is less work than writing the copy, which is less work than building all the pages and tech.
Building a house is a lot more work than designing the blueprints, which is a lot more work than making the Pinterest idea board.
Getting it right at the early stages means a lot less work fixing it at later stages.
And that is one key to successful projects.
