How Businesses Waste Resources and Time in Software Development
Software development waste is a big issue. Studies show companies in 2020 in the US lost $1.56 trillion in operational software failures. Organisations can save a lot of money and resources by tackling this problem head-on. This article will show you what software development waste is and ways that won’t impact your agile delivery or autonomy.
What is software development waste?
Software development waste is any activity that does not add value to the end user and includes any unnecessary task for building, delivering or supporting the product. Examples of software development waste include:
· Extra features, functionality or requirements that don’t add value to the product or its users
· Rewrites due to technology changes or changing requirements
· Extra testing cycles and documentation caused by unnecessary features and functionality
· Duplicate work caused by multiple teams working on the same thing
· Bugs introduced by unnecessary features and functionality
· Unused or underutilised features, functionality or requirements
How much money, time, and resources do businesses waste in software development?
The most common cost associated with software waste is time. Businesses often spend months or even years developing a product that ultimately fails to meet their needs. This can also be financially pricey, as companies may not make back the money they invested in development.
Let’s say you’re a start-up with a unique idea for an app that could be the next big thing. You have people working on it full-time and enough money to keep it going for six months. You get your beta out after four months, but it doesn’t take off as quickly as you’d hoped, and no users get on board. Now you’re running out of cash and need to find investors or ways to keep afloat. If your development costs are over $20,000 monthly, and technical debts cause 40% of the development time for fixing problems and bugs, you’ll lose over $8,000 monthly.
The lack of an efficient way to manage your team’s agile delivery leads to more money used to develop the same product or software again.
How to reduce waste in software development?
Reducing waste in software development is a big job, but it’s not impossible. Here are ways to get started:
Build your product with as few assumptions
Use user stories written in simple language and focus on a feature’s benefit to the user instead of functional requirements. The descriptions emit details like how the feature works or how long it will take to create it. This helps developers understand what their consumers want from them before they start building anything.
Know what you’re building
When you’re working on a project, it can be easy to get caught up in implementation details and lose sight of the big picture. What problem are you trying to solve? What do your users need? Take some time at the beginning of each project and write these questions down, so they’re easily accessible when the going gets tough later.
Reduce distractions with tools
We all know that the biggest time-suck in software development is communication with other people. Whether it’s email, Slack messages, or just having to talk to someone on your team, it causes delays and bottlenecks in software development.
Use tools to set up filters on your email so that only essential emails get through. Or maybe use Slack bot integration so that when someone posts something in your channel, they’re automatically added as collaborators on a specific task in Basecamp or Trello.
Conclusion
Less is more; stop starting and start finishing. At Jullieter’s Store, we believe in providing high-quality products and delivering them in the shortest possible time. We’ve got everything you need to launch your digital product or software on time and within budget. This service lets you focus on growth instead of wasting time on software development while allowing you to maintain real-time control over your project’s progress. Please contact us to take agile delivery to new heights.