Approximately 1,500 mobile apps are approved and released every day in the Apple App Store. This is coming from the world’s second-largest mobile app marketplace, before Google. When you combine both marketplaces, around 3,500 apps are released worldwide every other day. If you understand the mobile app development process cycle, that is a lot of man-hours used to create the application. Traditionally, mobile apps were developed using the Waterfall methodology. What this essentially means is that the entire mobile app development is divided into few phases. The development team works together on each phase and complete them before proceeding to the next development phase. There is little to no interaction between developers and clients when they move from one phase to another and that has created another set of problems.
A typical app developed using the Waterfall methodology can take a long time and by the time the app is ready and released, the market forces may have changed, leading to wastage of capital and labor hours.
Agile Methodology
In order to solve the time issue with Waterfall Methodology, many software companies in Singapore are now adopting the use of the agile methodology in mobile app development. How Agile differs from Waterfall methodology is that there concurrent development and testing, allowing for more communication between the stakeholders involved (customers, developers, managers, etc). Instead of phases, each project in the development cycle is broken up into a short duration of time (usually a week), often labeled as iterations. At the end of each iteration development cycle, the app is released into the market to gauge the mobile app feasibility among the public.
At the end of each release (iterations), the team (comprises of the app stakeholders) will hold regular meetings to discuss and make changes to the app, depending on the market response. The Agile methodology is more beneficial if compared to the Waterfall methodology, as it can afford the client more freedom to decide on the app features, among with other benefits such as:
- The client is kept in the loop with the current progress of the mobile app development cycle.
- Agile development teams know their roles well and are highly motivated to deliver results.
- The development quality is maintained.
- The client and development team knows which modules have been completed and which have not. This helps to reduce the risk in the development process.
Scrum Methodology
Contrary to popular belief, Scrum is a widely used and popular framework and is actually categorized as a subset of the agile development methodology. It is focused more on the project management aspect and aims to deliver a working prototype of the mobile app within 2-4 weeks after inception. The Scrum development framework promotes transparency by making transfer knowledge transparent and is aimed to counter the shortfall of Waterfall development methodology, mainly in the field of timeline, cost and resource control, quality control as well as reporting standards. All main stakeholders of the app, such as customers, managers, developers, and the client will benefit from this development methodology. Being a subset of Agile, it promotes transparency and accountability in the software development and features control.
Development Timeframe Using Scrum Methodology
A typical mobile application developed using agile methodology can take up to 4-5 months to complete. This will depend on various factors as well, such as client’s requirements, app complexity as well as compliance with security measures, especially in data privacy and protection. It is best to communicate as clearly as possible with your chosen software company in Singapore so they can plan the development process and come up with a timeframe.
