Meeting the strict software development timeline requires careful planning and strategizing. Today, estimating the time it will take to finish software development depends on a number of variables. These include the project scope and complexity, team experience, and access to the resources necessary to finish the product.
Even with most of these variables taken care of, the truth is giving a precise timeline for software development is hard. Fortunately, there are techniques around the variability and uncertainty of estimating a software development timeline. Read on to find out tactics for creating a realistic software development timeline.
What is a realistic software development project timeline?
A software development project timeline refers to the time it will take to finish all the tasks in developing a given software. The timeline takes into account the various aspects of software development. A timeline breaks down the software development project into different stages, each with its execution period. Usually, it includes the following phases:
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Product discovery
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Design
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Development
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Testing
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Deployment
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Maintenance
Product discovery (4 - 9 weeks)
All software projects begin with product discovery. In this phase, the goal is to validate the application idea and find ways of implementing it effectively. Product discovery involves discussing the scope of the product in detail, covering the goals of the app, the problems it will solve, and the intended market profile.
In this phase, you need to determine the app’s requirements. It includes things such as
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Deliverable and features
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Milestones
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Tech stack
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Skills and expertise needed
Product discovery also helps get an idea of how much the app will cost to develop and the time it will take. The simple wireframes and software development workflow in this phase can help you get a rough picture of the app.
Thus, product discovery is arguably the most important phase in the software development cycle. With proper product discovery, you can easily overcome the top causes of failure in software development like changing objectives, unidentified risks, and poor communication. This phase should take around 10% of the total software development timeline.
Design (9 - 13 weeks)
Now comes the interesting part of designing the software using well-defined requirements. In this stage of the software development, the task will be:
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Doing detailed user research
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Building user flows
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Creating wireframes
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Building a mockup
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Making a prototype
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Doing user testing
You must go through all these if you want to give users an excellent experience through user-friendly design. As you iterate from a wireframe to a mockup to a prototype, you will notice how design evolves in each stage.
You may be wondering what is the average duration of this phase. On Average, software design takes around 9 to 13 weeks, split across UX design (3 - 4 weeks) and UI design (4 - 5). Of course, more visually demanding software will make this phase longer. For instance, adding custom animations will easily add weeks to the estimate.
Often, delays occur because of back-and-forth between designers and stakeholders for approval. In addition, doing prototype usability testing can stretch the software development timeline.
Development (13 - 25 weeks)
This is perhaps the most intensive phase in the software development project timeline. The software development team combines the UI design with system requirements to create a working software. This phase of software development takes almost half of the software development time.
On average, it will take around 13 to 25 weeks - split 50/50 across the front and back end of the software. That said, you can speed up development if both the backend and front end are done simultaneously.
However, complexity is the main reason you will face delays in this phase of software development. In addition, the expertise and size of the development team plays a role. Fortunately, a dedicated team of senior engineers can work faster.
Testing (3 - 4 weeks)
This phase in software development helps ensure the end product does not have bugs before launch. The testing phase requires the quality assurance team to be thorough, which can take time. Based on the bugs found, this phase can take a few weeks or months.
In case of a critical problem, the software development project may revert to the development phase. When this happens, it can stretch the timeline of software development even more. That’s why integrating quality assurance from the start is essential to address. This will save time and money because the sooner a bug is found the cheaper it is to resolve.
The testing tools the team uses will influence the duration of this phase. Using automated testing tools such as Selenium will help them work faster without compromising quality. This allows them to focus on solving more pressing and complex issues. Expect to spend around 3 to 4 weeks in this phase even if you integrate quality assurance from the start.
How to estimate software development timeline
Define software development project requirements and scope
To accurately estimate the timeline of software development, you must understand what you are building. This requires you to define the project requirements and scope in terms of software goals, features, and functional and non-functional requirements.
After getting these elements, go ahead and define the scope of the project in terms of deliverables and necessary resources. This will give you everything to start estimating the timeline of the entire project.
Identify risks and uncertainties
Before you begin estimating the software development timeline, identifying risks is paramount. Failure to do this will result in unforeseen delays and cost overruns that can derail the project or, worse, kill it.
So, what are the risks to look out for? Here are the top 7 software development project risks you should be aware of:
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Stretched resources
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Operational mishaps
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Low performance
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Lack of clarity
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Scope creep
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High costs
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Time crunch
You need to address each risk. Suppose your software project relies on the integration of several third-party APIs, the risks could be compatibility issues and potential downtime. Thus, your timeline estimate should consider time buffers that account for the risks. As well, you need a plan to resolve the risks fast. This will help you come up with a more realistic estimate.
Divide the software project into small tasks
After establishing the scope and the risks, break the software development project into smaller, manageable tasks. Dividing the project into smaller tasks makes it easy to have a precise time estimate. In addition, it provides an effective way of tracking progress.
So, how do you do it? The best way is to go for a work breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS is a hierarchy of the deliverables, tasks, subtasks, and activities necessary to finish the project. With a WBS in place, it becomes easier to estimate how long a software development project will take to finish.
Select a timeline estimation method
With the software development project divided into manageable tasks, you now need to select the estimation method. Choosing the right one will be crucial to the success of the project. The most popular time estimation methods are:
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Analogous estimation - This predicts the timeline depending on a similar project from the past.
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Bottom-up estimation - Uses individual tasks to estimate the time required to finish the software development project.
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Parametric estimation - This approach uses statistical and historical data to estimate the project timeline.
That said, different projects require different methods and can result in wildly different estimates depending on the project. Therefore, ensure you are using the right method for the project. To ensure you use the right method, consider the following tips:
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Match the method to project complexity
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If possible, combine several methods for a more precise estimate
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Take into account stakeholder expectations
Pick the project team
The last thing before calculating the estimate is to select the team that will work on the project. Your pick will have a substantial impact on the estimate. If you go for a team of senior engineers, they may complete the software development faster. In addition, while picking the right team, ensure you have a cross-functional one.
A cross-functional team breaks the silos of traditional organizational structure, which helps team members see the big picture. Such a team allows members to work on different parts while at the same time collaborating with others in the project.
This helps decrease bottlenecks and speed up the progress. Therefore, remember this when estimating the software development timeline. Here are useful tips to help pick the right team:
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Identify required skills
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Build a cross-functional team
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Hire a dedicated team
Calculate and document the estimate
Lastly, you need to calculate the estimated time to finish the project and document it. This requires you to carry out a detailed project breakdown and to review it with the team. It is important to do this to ensure the estimate is realistic and allows the team to meet the deadline.
Also, document the assumptions behind your estimates and go through them with your team. Doing so lets you know where you made a wrong call in the estimation and correct it accordingly. What’s more, the documentation will be a good reference point for tracking progress during development.
When estimating the timeline, remember these tips:
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Include time buffers
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Document assumptions
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Review and validate the estimate with the team
Importance of a realistic software development project timeline
A realistic software development timeline is essential for the successful delivery of the project. First, having a precise time estimate coupled with a detailed timeline makes it easier to plan software development. It allows you to assign resources and define realistic deadlines for the different tasks. Precise time estimate helps you avoid scope creep, a major project killer.
Best of all, accurate time estimates prevent breaching the budget limit. A detailed project timeline helps you align the budget with the actual project needs. It gives you a shot at successfully finishing the project within or under the set budget.
Challenges of estimating a realistic software development timeline
An accurate time estimate for developing software is challenging at best and almost impossible at worst. Here are some of the factors that influence the accuracy of a timeline estimate.
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Design complexity
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Software complexity
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Integration capability
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Database migration
Design complexity
Intricate software design with custom animations usually takes longer to develop. This will increase the software development timeline considerably.
However, using a simple user interface makes design easy. For instance, you can use Android or iOS native libraries of pre-built components to swiftly build your app interface. This makes estimating the time you need to design the app easy.
That said, it is not always easy when designing huge custom software. Often, this requires you to build much of it from scratch, which complicates the estimation. On average, expect the design of a custom app to take 9 to 10 weeks.
Software complexity
The complexity of the software is proportional to the time it takes to develop it. The more features and advanced functions the software has, the more time it will need to build them.
For perspective, simple software with a few screens may take 3 to 5 months to develop. Compare that to feature-packed software like Instagram, which can comfortably take 10 or more months to develop.
It is not surprising since complex features demand extra coding and testing. In addition, you need to factor in buffer time to take care of arising problems and hindrances. All these make estimating the development time for complex software hard because the multiple variables make it easy to miscalculate the estimate.
Integration capability
The ability to integrate with modern applications is the norm today. Unfortunately, it is not easy to integrate software into an existing application. It takes effort and time to accomplish this, which consequently increases the software development timeline.
This is true when integrating the software into legacy systems. Older software lacks data access layers or APIs that facilitate integration. As such, the development team may have to create them. One way of shortening the integration process and simplifying estimation is through the use of third-party plugins. These plugins provide a quick connection to other services.
Database migration
Transferring data from one system to another may seem trivial if everything is perfect. However, in software development, this rarely happens, especially when transferring data from an old system to a new one.
Often, the data is incomplete, so it has to be processed. Alternatively, the data format could be incompatible with the new software, which means it has to be converted. In such cases, you often create scripts to handle the data, and it takes time.
What’s more, once imported, you must test and optimize the data to ensure good performance. To complicate matters, estimating the time it will take to migrate data is hard. At best, it may take days, but the transfer of a large database may take weeks or months.
Why accurate estimation matters
Estimating a software development timeline is a science and an art. It requires you to rely on tactics and knowledge. That said, only experience will give you a more precise prediction. That’s what Devot brings to the table. Our team of dedicated engineers routinely completes apps on budget and time.
