Over 17 percent of IT projects get so off track in their development time cycle that they are axed. 

Custom Software Development can be a tricky business because it is largely unpredictable in nature. One has to estimate the time scales to ensure on-time delivery and keep things under budget.

This blog will teach you the factors to keep in mind when giving a time estimate to your client.

Why Is It Important To Keep Track of Development Time?

It’s Good For Business: when you promise your client a period when the project will be fully delivered, you are now bound by your word. Business is all about trust and maintaining connections.

If you cannot keep your promises, your clients will not hire you, and the word will spread over the industry.

Competitors- Software development has become a highly competitive industry over the past two decades. You now have more companies in the development space, so it’s important to maintain an edge over your competitors.

When starting a Custom software application development process, it is important to assess things from an objective standpoint. Try to maintain a level of accuracy accounting for any foreseen incidents.

How Things Go Haywire During Software Development

• Not enough focus is put on planning out the timeline for the project.
• The possible blockers and difficulty level is not fully accounted for in the time frame leading to the deadline. Delays and project extensions are required.
• The clients demand work in an unreasonable time frame, and the company has to say yes. These demands down the line become a serious problem, and projects go haywire.
• The companies can be overly optimistic about their goals and the chances of them finishing the project in time are low.

When projects go haywire, it can put undue pressure on the employees, and the company’s reputation becomes at stake. Without a proper methodology and understanding of calculating the Custom Software Development causes severe headaches for everyone.

Making a Predictive Development Cycle

To create a predictive timetable of Custom Software Development, one can look at two factors:

• Relevant Software Experience: once you’ve been in the career of developing software for years on end, you can rely on them to give valuable feedback. You will know how long it will take, the issues that can occur, and what to avoid during the process.
• Competitor’s Time Scale: many people have done the same projects you’re attempting. It’s the easiest way to create a benchmark for you to follow and keep yourself competitive with the industry.

To ensure that you get the best time estimate, keep in mind the following factors.

• Firstly, Every piece of data inputted into the evaluation scale has to be accurate and has been properly vetted.
• Secondly, All your calculations should have a good degree of accuracy to them.
• Thirdly, Try to go through historical data to get an average mean to set your timeline based on.
• Follow reliable and standard Custom Software Development methodology to ensure that everything goes according to the plan.
• The level of stability your software requires will determine how long and extensive the debugging process will be.

Evaluation of Your Employees

A company is nothing but a group of people working together to complete a task.

Depending on the project’s complexities and the level of experience it requires should determine the team members. You should do an evaluation test of every team member and see what they can bring to the project. See the fine technical skills they can bring to the table to solve the edge case problems.

Create a Continual Testing Program

To ensure that your Custom Software Development work stays on track, ensure that the software is continuously tested.

You can implement an AGILE software methodology that ensures that your software is being rigorously tested. It ensures that your software has limited bugs, maximum stability, and no major issues.

Ensure your deadlines are met with no late-breaking bug to ruin your development cycle.

Clear Goals and Limited Changes.

Frequently in the Custom Software Development cycle, a sudden change or a lack of clarity can cause undue stress.

It’s extremely important to ensure that the mission statement and goals are well defined. Try to avoid any major changes during the development because one change can lead to cascading effects. The whole timeline can be thrown off, and the project will go haywire.

Final Thoughts

You have now learned about why you need a good model to estimate the software development timeline.

It is important to give an accurate timeline and not pressure to give an unrealistic timeline. Software development can often be notorious for a lot of crunch periods and overworking the employees.

Try to avoid it by keeping in mind the mental health of your workers and provide some flexibility.