Agile App Development Process for Startups
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December 17, 2024
Even the most skilled developers can fail if the app creation process isn’t well-structured. A clear, well-organized approach doesn’t just prevent mistakes—it drives success. Studies show that using proven methods like Agile makes a big difference. For instance, Agile projects have a 64% success rate compared to just 49% for Waterfall, making them nearly 1.5 times more likely to succeed.
It’s not just about completing projects—Agile also boosts results. Companies that adopt Agile report an average 60% increase in revenue and profit. A strong understanding of app development phases is essential for both successful projects and business growth.
At Ptolemay, with over 50 experts and two multi-skilled teams boasting more than 5 years of experience, we’ve perfected the steps of app development to ensure exceptional quality, fast. We’ll show you how we’ve aligned every part of our workflow to deliver polished results, helping your startup succeed without delays or inefficiencies.
Build your app’s technical base in just 1 minute with our free AI calculator. Get a full project breakdown—costs, timeline, tech stack, and roles. Explore it here.
Understanding Agile Methodologies in the App Development Process
Agile is a development approach centered on flexibility, teamwork, and ongoing improvement. While many in IT know the Agile Manifesto, it’s worth emphasizing that it doesn’t provide a step-by-step guide. Instead, Agile offers 12 core principles that can be adapted to fit your team’s needs. Frameworks like Scrum or Kanban then provide the structure to implement these principles.
For startups, particularly smaller teams, experimenting with these frameworks and customizing them to align with your application development process is essential. The goal is to establish a workflow that efficiently handles your unique challenges while staying scalable as your business grows.
Here are the key principles of Agile and how they support a scalable app development procedure:
These principles aren’t just for developers—they’re tools for startups to stay agile, responsive, and efficient, making them essential for navigating the life cycle of an app successfully.
Here’s what you’ll gain next:
- A clear breakdown of the app development process.
- Expert tips on streamlining workflows and avoiding pitfalls.
- Insights into key tools and techniques for building a successful app.
Agile App Development Process Guide for Startups
After completing the technical specification, the next step is building an app development process. For startups, this means organizing tasks, setting priorities, and choosing workflows like Agile to turn your plan into a working product.
1. Define Clear Goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Before starting any development work, it’s essential to define clear goals and measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These guide your team during all application development phases and provide a way to track progress. Here’s how to establish them effectively:
Set Specific and Actionable Goals
Start with goals that directly reflect your app’s purpose. Use the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to ensure your goals are actionable. For example:
- Specific: Launch an MVP for a marketplace app with basic search and product listing features.
- Measurable: Aim for 2,000 active users in the first three months.
- Achievable: Build within the capabilities of your current team and technology.
- Relevant: Focus on features that validate the app’s core concept, like the ability for users to make transactions.
- Time-bound: Deliver the MVP in 12 weeks.
This ensures the team remains focused and aligns their efforts with meaningful outcomes.
Choose Relevant KPIs for Each Phase
Each mobile application development phase comes with its own challenges, so it’s important to measure progress with clear and simple metrics, or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These help ensure your team stays on track, identifies issues early, and delivers a successful app.
Key KPIs for Each Mobile Application Development Phase
Flexibility is key—update goals as new data emerges, whether from user feedback or market conditions.
3. Build a Cross-Functional Team
A successful app development process starts with the right team—a group of specialists from different fields working together seamlessly. Developers, designers, testers, and product managers each bring unique expertise that ensures no detail is overlooked. This mix of skills speeds up decision-making and keeps your project moving forward.
Hiring skilled developers may seem expensive, but it saves money long-term. They write clean, reliable code, reducing bugs and future fixes. Cheaper developers often need more oversight and create messy code, leading to delays and higher costs. Invest in experience to build scalable, future-proof solutions.
Learn how to hire remote developers within your budget without compromising quality. Need interview prep? Here are essential questions for startup founders.
The smartest option for balancing budget, quality, and speed is to hire a dedicated outsourced team, giving you instant access to experienced professionals without the hassle of building a team from scratch.
Key Professional Insights for Cross-Functional Teams
- Early QA Involvement: Bring QA into design discussions to identify potential usability issues and create efficient test plans.
- Parallel Workflows: Overlap tasks (e.g., backend APIs can be developed while designers finalize UI prototypes) to reduce idle time.
- Single Source of Truth: Use platforms like Confluence or Notion to centralize requirements, documentation, and updates for easy reference.
- Regular Feedback Loops: Conduct bi-weekly retrospectives to refine workflows and remove bottlenecks.
- Upskilling Opportunities: Encourage team members to learn cross-functional skills (e.g., developers understanding user personas) to enhance collaboration and adaptability.
4. Build a Flexible and Transparent Development Process
When managing a development project, flexibility and transparency are critical. At Ptolemay, we’ve refined our process to follow Agile principles while using a structured approach to ensure every task is clear, trackable, and efficiently executed. Here’s how we structure our workflow to keep projects on track and reduce technical debt by 37%.
Our Development Workflow
We use YouTrack to keep everything transparent and organized. This tool allows every team member, from developers to testers, to stay aligned, and it gives managers a clear view of project progress. Here’s how each app phase in our task lifecycle works:
1. Open: All tasks begin here. We ensure there’s enough information to start, like specific requirements or expected outcomes. If details are missing, the task moves to the next stage for clarification.
A task to “Create user login page” might need a design mockup before development can begin.
2. Clarify Details: Missing information is gathered at this stage. Designers may provide mockups, or product managers clarify functionality requirements.
The team collects specs for input validation on the login form.
3. In Progress: Once the task is clear, it moves here, and the developer begins work.
A backend developer codes the logic for user authentication.
4. Code Review: Completed code is reviewed by a peer to check for errors, adherence to best practices, and scalability. If issues are found, the task goes back for fixes.
The code is updated to handle edge cases discovered during the review.
5. Reopened: If errors or missing elements are identified during testing or review, the task is sent back to development for correction.
QA discovers the login form doesn’t handle empty fields correctly.
6. QA (Quality Assurance): After passing code review, the task is tested for functionality, performance, and compatibility.
Testers check that the login page works on different browsers and devices.
7. Ready to Release: The task moves here once it passes QA. The project manager schedules deployment.
The login page is set to go live with the next system update.
8. Release: The task is deployed to the live environment and made available to users.
Users can now log in using the new feature.
9. Verified: After release, we do a final check in the live environment to confirm everything is functioning as expected.
Testers log in using real accounts to ensure no unexpected issues arise.
10. Completed: If all checks are successful, the task is marked as done.
Get the full guide from Ptolemay on setting up a seamless development process, covering all stages of app development, here.
Tools to Make It Happen
We recommend using tools like YouTrack, Jira, or ClickUp for managing this process. These platforms allow you to customize task workflows, track progress, and keep everything organized. They’re particularly useful when handling complex mobile app development stages, ensuring every aspect of the project is accounted for.
For startups, this structured yet flexible approach helps deliver high-quality products without unnecessary delays, making it easier to meet deadlines, manage budgets, and maintain clarity throughout the development process.
5. Managing the Backlog: A Practical Guide for Startups
The backlog is your project’s command center—a prioritized list of everything your team needs to do. Managing it well keeps your app development on track, helps the team stay focused, and ensures no task is overlooked. Here’s how to handle it effectively while keeping the application development life cycle smooth and adaptable:
Update the Backlog Regularly
The backlog should reflect the project’s current priorities. As your app evolves, some tasks may become less important or irrelevant. Regularly review and update the list to keep it clean and actionable.
Hold a weekly backlog review with your team to adjust priorities and remove unnecessary tasks. This keeps the focus on what matters most.
Make It a Team Effort
A backlog isn’t just for developers—everyone involved in the project should contribute. Designers, testers, and stakeholders all bring different perspectives that ensure the tasks are clear and realistic.
During a review, a designer can highlight missing details for a feature, a tester can flag potential edge cases, and a stakeholder can confirm the task aligns with business goals. This collaboration improves the steps to create an application by catching issues early.
Use Tools to Simplify Management
Managing a backlog manually can quickly become overwhelming. Tools like YouTrack, Jira, or Trello help you organize tasks, set priorities, and track progress visually.
These tools show the bigger picture, helping your team understand the steps of building an app and how each task contributes to the final product.
How It Works
Here’s how a task moves through the backlog:
- Start in the Backlog: A new task, like “Create login page,” is added with clear details and priorities.
- Move Through Phases: Tasks progress through stages like “In Progress,” “QA,” and “Ready to Release.”
- Mark as Complete: Once tested and deployed, tasks are marked as done and moved out of the backlog.
By keeping the backlog dynamic, involving the entire team, and using the right tools, you create a clear roadmap for your app. This helps you stay organized, prioritize effectively, and navigate every stage of the application development life cycle with confidence.
6. Project Documentation: The Blueprint for Your App’s Success
Thorough documentation is the foundation of an efficient app-making process, ensuring clarity, saving time, and enabling smooth transitions between team members. Here’s what well-organized documentation should include:
1 - Code Base
All code is stored in a version-controlled repository like GitHub, with detailed deployment instructions. This approach ensures that the code is always accessible, structured, and ready for updates or fixes.
2 - API Documentation
Tools like Swagger or Postman provide comprehensive API documentation, including endpoint details, request/response formats, and usage examples. This speeds up integrations and reduces unnecessary back-and-forth between team members.
3 - Technical Specifications and Test Cases
Technical specifications outline every feature and requirement, while test cases validate functionality throughout development. This ensures the app aligns with the plan and operates reliably.
4 - Task Logs
Task management tools such as YouTrack or Jira document progress, ownership, and deadlines for every task. This keeps the team aligned and provides a transparent record of completed work.
5 - Architecture Diagram
A visual representation of the app’s components and their interactions. This diagram simplifies understanding for new team members and facilitates future system updates.
6 - Technical Architecture Document
A detailed document covering key decisions, module descriptions, and system interactions. This ensures consistent implementation and reduces confusion across the development team.
Start your app dev process on the right foot with our AI Tech Plan Generator. It creates a complete roadmap, covering features, user roles, timelines, and design guidelines so you can focus on building a successful app.
Monitoring Tools: Keeping Your App Development on Track
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. This principle is crucial for both in-house and outsourced teams. For every project, transparency and measurability are essential across the application development lifecycle. Tools that automate tracking and monitoring make it easier to spot bottlenecks and optimize processes in real time. Here’s a breakdown of the tools we use and recommend, and how they help us manage projects effectively.
Monitoring Tools for App Development: Features and Benefits
FAQ: Everything You Need to Know About the App Development Process
What are the 7 steps to creating an app?
Creating an app involves:
- Define the Idea: Identify a problem your app will solve.
- Research the Market: Analyze competitors and validate demand.
- Design the App: Create wireframes and user interfaces.
- Develop the App: Write code and integrate functionalities.
- Test the App: Conduct thorough quality assurance.
- Launch the App: Deploy to app stores.
- Market and Maintain: Promote the app and release updates.
What is the first step in app development?
The initial step in app development is defining the idea. This involves identifying a specific problem your app will address and ensuring there's a market need for it.
How do you structure an app?
An app is structured into three main components:
- Frontend (User Interface): The visual elements users interact with.
- Backend (Server-Side Logic): Manages data processing and storage.
- APIs (Application Programming Interfaces): Facilitate communication between frontend and backend.
What is the app lifecycle?
The app lifecycle includes:
- Conceptualizing the app.
- Building the app.
- Ensuring functionality.
- Releasing to users.
- Updating and improving the app.
How many developers are needed to make an app?
The number of developers required depends on the app's complexity. A simple app might need one developer, while more complex apps could require a team including frontend and backend developers, designers, and testers.
How much does it cost to build an app?
App development costs vary based on features and complexity:
- Simple App: $10,000–$50,000
- Moderate Complexity: $50,000–$100,000
- High Complexity: $100,000+
Use our App Cost Calculator to get detailed insights in just 3 minutes.
How long does it take to build your own app?
Development timelines depend on scope:
- Simple App: 2–4 months
- Moderate Complexity: 4–6 months
- High Complexity: 6–12 months
How difficult is it to create an app?
Creating an app can be challenging, requiring technical skills in programming, design, and project management. Utilizing no-code platforms or hiring experienced developers can simplify the process.
What is the best software for app development?
Popular app development tools include:
- Flutter: For cross-platform development.
- React Native: For building native apps using JavaScript.
- Xcode: For iOS app development.
- Android Studio: For Android app development.
How does an application earn money?
Apps can generate revenue through:
- In-app purchases: Selling virtual goods or features.
- Advertisements: Displaying ads within the app.
- Subscription Models: Charging recurring fees for premium content.
- Paid Downloads: Charging users to download the app.
Conclusion: Simplify Your App Development Journey
Building a successful app starts with understanding the essential application development steps—setting clear goals, assembling a skilled team, embracing Agile principles, and ensuring proper documentation at every stage. Each step matters, and a structured approach can save time, reduce costs, and improve the final product.
To take the first step toward your app’s success, try our App Cost Calculator. It’s a quick and easy way to get a clear estimate of your app’s budget, timeline, and technical requirements.
Meet Our Expert Flutter Development Team
Our full-cycle Flutter development team at Ptolemay specializes in building high-quality, cross-platform apps from start to finish. With expert skills in Dart, backend integrations, and seamless UX across iOS and Android, we handle everything to make your app launch smooth and efficient.
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