Addressing The Most Common Software Development Challenges
Market competition is fierce in current times and every business is trying to beat the competition leveraging on available solutions. A customized software or app is certainly an asset for any business- it's like the ideal solution to make the products and services more accessible to the targeted customer base.
Every business knows the importance of having a customised software or app. While the execution is as simple as hiring the right software development company, yet some sort of dilemma or doubt does prevail among enterprises. There is nothing wrong in being introspective, after all, an app is an important extension of a business and thus need to be handled carefully.
Listed below are some of the common software development challenges faced by every enterprise.
1. Requirements Volatility
One of the major challenges of software development is the constant change in requirements. As a project advances, even the client's understanding increases and thus more precision and specification starts pouring into the list of requirements, which leads to uncalculated delay in deliveries. This becomes a pain area not just for the software design company but also for the client. The following practices can settle down this requirement volatility to a larger extend:
A. Both parties must agree on the scope of the project at the very beginning itself
B. The client or the users must be kept involved in the development process right from the onset so that the communication with the development team can be clear. This can be effectively achieved with the Agile development model that follows the concept of a weekly sprint review and provides more flexibility of improvisation in the project.
C. UX of the software should be given high importance right from the beginning of the development process.
2. Never-Ending Technological Advances
Take the example of smartphones, every year a new version gets launched, making the just a year old device outdated in many aspects. That fast technology is advancing! Same holds true with software or apps as well. Business owners, marketing professionals, stakeholders and development experts, all sit together, brainstorm to define the requirements and then develop software by integrating the best of technology available. But the advancing technology soon outgrows and makes an app outdated. Thus, enterprises should go for an agile development model that follows an incremental approach, which provides elaborative scope to implement improvisation in the software to keep it at par with the ruling technologies.
3. Security Threats
Another major and evergreen challenge is security. Data is the most valuable commodity for a business, and clients are willing to pay a lot for security. On hiring a custom software development company, undoubtedly the client entrusts an outsider with its enterprise data, and thus it is a huge responsibility and pressure on the development team to keep the client's information safe from security threats. One can't stop the hacker from trying to hack the code, but at least the client should have the assurance that the development team has not overlooked security loopholes in their codes. Some good security practices to be followed by the development team are:
- Fight against SQL injections by using parameterized queries
- The client must discuss the security aspect in details and ensure that the development team is using a security bound software development model
- Use strong security protocols not just in the development model, but also in the other aspects of project handling.
4. Time Estimation
Another major challenge is time estimation. Any software application development company would give an estimation, but often fail to stick to it. In the end, projects usually go over the schedule and can impact various other related business plannings or strategies. Choosing the wrong software development model can be the reason for incorrect time estimation. For fast-paced project delivery, Agile model is an ideal choice, because here instead of giving a time estimation for the entire project, the need is to estimate the time frame for each sprint, which is a lot easier and also sticking to the timeline is doable.
Concluding Thoughts
From the development perspective, there are various challenges, but that is for the development team to handle. An efficient development team can easily overcome those challenges. Mentioned above are the main challenges from the client's perspective. To tackle these challenges, the client first needs to associate with a competent software development agency and should maintain clear communication throughout. At the very onset of the project, the client must discuss the points mentioned above in the article to introspect the efficiency of the development team.