How to Effectively Communicate Your Idea & Vision to Your Software Development Team – Tips from a Software Development Company

So you have an idea for a software application. How do you communicate the vision in your head to your software development team? We get it. It can be hard to get your point across or capture your vision in words.  Most clients excel at communicating their business vision, but when it comes to websites and mobile apps, they sometimes lack the background to explain the finer details of what they are seeking. The transfer of your vision takes dedication, excellent communication, and intentional planning.

We are confident that if you keep these practical tips in mind, you will reduce the amount of time spent developing your application due to miscommunication.

Understand HOW Your Project Will Move to Completion

As the client, it is helpful to first define and understand the phases in which your project will move towards completion. There are two main types of project completion processes used in software development teams – Waterfall and Agile.

Waterfall: At the beginning of the development process, each phase is outlined with specific deliverables and a review process. Project development teams only move to the next phase of development or testing if the previous step has been completed successfully.

Agile: Here at Swan Software Solutions, we have adopted a fully integrated agile methodology. This means we move our software projects forward to the end goal through (2-week) sprints in close collaboration with customers, product management, developers and QA. This allows us to fill in the gaps through updates and changes along the development process to rapidly adapt toward a better product.

Talk with your software development team to determine how your project will move to completion. Educating yourself on this factor will allow you to better outline and understand tasks with your team/project manager.

Lay the Foundation

Before you do anything, clearly outline the basic foundation and purpose on which everything will be built. The basic functionality is the foundation on which all other functionalities will be built upon.

Define the main purpose you want users to get out of your application. How will this application improve business processes or improve user-usability? Make sure that everyone starts on the same page. Developers are skilled in creating the technical side of your application. When you clearly communicate the basic functionalities and purpose of your application to your development team, the technical side will be built with your core end goal in mind.

Get Visual

Grab a pen and paper and start sketching out your idea. There truly isn’t an easier way to transfer your vision to an individual than visualization. Getting visual with your idea can break down unclear objectives within your development team.

The basic idea is that you whip up a sketch of each application screen in your user interface. Map out the layers to your application.

After you’ve sketched and discussed application screens, you can draw visualizations of the user flow. The goal here is to capture UX. You want to convey your vision for the user’s experience. This refers to how your user will navigate through and interact with all the screens and pages in your application.

Walk Developers Through Your Business’s Use Cases

Developers will not fully grasp the inner workings of your business. This is why you will need to communicate many inner workings of your business.

For example; how will a user purchase a product on your website? Explain how users’ payments are processed and how refunds are issued.

We hope that these tips will help you communcate your vision effectively  to your software team!

Looking for an affordable and thorough software development team? Since our founding in 2005, Swan Software Solutions has partnered with over 250 business leaders to build custom applications and bring their vision to life by providing our customers with the help that they need to grow their business.

“We’ve worked with Swan for over 3 years. They have consistently demonstrated the ability to create out of the box solutions, which is why Swan is our go-to outsourcing partner.”

Tony Ray – VP of Software Engineering at T2 Systems 

Our quality combined with our affordable rates makes us a preferred choice for your software development needs. Bring us your project or idea and get a FREE technical discovery with our qualified team.