Starting an iPhone® Application Business For Dummies®

Chapter 14. Managing the Development Process

In This Chapter

• Assigning a project hierarchy and specific roles

• Establishing a project timeline

• Detailing the software development process

• Setting and reaching milestones in the application development

• Testing the application as needed

• Incorporating changes and iterating the process

• Reviewing the items needed to submit your application

So you have your team in place, and you've agreed on the scope of the project. You've paid your deposit, and now you've started the clock — development is in motion!

But unless you're a seasoned software developer, you're going to find out that managing software development is far trickier than, say, having your house remodeled. And if you're not attentive, you may find yourself waiting ... and waiting ... for a process that never seems to end.

Building software is a compromise between features, quality, time, and price. The art of software development is balancing these factors in a commercially successful way.

Setting Up Hierarchy and Roles

If you have a small project with just one or two people doing the implementation, project management is pretty easy. For instance, a simple game might require an artist, a software developer, and some friends as testers. You can see the artwork and the storyboards, so that's easy to track, and you can at any time ask the developer "where are we at?"

But once you get more than a few people on the team, you need some hierarchy. A developer won't get anything done if they're taking ...