How to communicate a business idea to your development team

Something big always starts from an idea. Depending on how well you can articulate the idea to other people will determine its success and final results. In this article, we are going to give some tips on how you can prepare for communication with the development team if you haven't had experience before. A good communication strategy will help you save time, nerves, and money.

Get ready to present yourself

It will be a good idea to tell the team a little bit about your background. This way if you are not a technical guy, developers will keep it in mind and use more understandable language not overloaded with tech terms. Then tell how you got the idea for your future product and what will be the target audience. Mention what users' pain your product solves. This way experienced developers may suggest some helpful ideas on how to make your product even better.

Prepare some documentation to share

You do not need to spend months writing dozens of pages describing all the details, however, find time to document clearly what you expect to see in your product. Think what parts of the application there will be, what features do you want to see in the app. Various charts and flows can structure data and visualize ideas to make them understand easier. For example, try Miro to describe the user flows.

Another good thing to do is to think about the design of your product. If you start without any UI/UX designer, then try to find some samples of design that you like. This way your team will get the idea of what you expect and what libraries they can you to achieve the goal.

Do not ignore the idea of user stories. They will help you and your team to grab the idea of what the function of one feature or another feature is. A simple user story can be written by following this scenario As as [user type], I want [action], so that [purpose]. For example, As a mother, I want to pin a chat with my child, so I see it first on the list and start the conversation quickly. Or here is one more As an online shopper, I want to be notified when the item is in stock again, so I can immediately make a purchase.

First things first

A big mistake of many start-ups in past was that they wanted to launch a product with many features to outstand the competitor or to attract more and more users. However, time showed that this is a bad direction. First, make a proof of concept that your idea is interesting for the users, and then you can add new features. Make a plan for your MVP (minimum viable product) and post MVP. This way the developers will know what they should focus on and what is the highest priority.

You can write out all the features that you want to see in your product and then group them by importance. For example, core features without which product could not exist, basic features - some extra things that will add extra value and good to have features. For your MVP you will need to implement all core features and a couple of basic ones. With the next iteration, you can build up more things.

Discuss the deadlines

It is an important thing to discuss with the team. Share your expectations and tell the date when you expect the product to be ready. Then ask the team how much time do they need for the development. Make sure that the scope of work aligns with the time frames. A very tight deadline is risky. Always add some bounce period before the deadline, in case anything goes wrong. During the development check progress and how well the team fits the deadline.

Define the communication process in the team

Some product owners think that after they handed documentation to the development team, they are free and can get the product sometime later. This is the wrong strategy. You should be in touch with the team as they can have questions while implementing the features or will want some feedback on the first results. Discuss how and where you want to communicate. For example, you can have 30 minutes weekly call to be aware of the progress. The team can send short daily updates, so it's clear what is the main focus right now. Any blockers or issues should be communicated and addressed as soon as possible.

Conclusion

There is no room for confusion when you want to bridge the gap between project expectations and reality. And there is more than just finding common ground that can help you explain a business idea to the development team.

Start by writing a simple request and preparing some critical facts about your project to discuss with your potential partner. Get ready to move on to the next phase of discovery.

If you are not a technician and do not have a qualified team, then collecting data for the discovery phase can lead to some problems. It may also take longer than necessary. Please leave it to the specialists on the developer company’s side; they will ask the right questions and collect all the details to evaluate the project.

DevelopsToday has a dedicated team of professionals who love what they do. Their ability to listen and understand the client’s ideas always leads to an accurate assessment of the project and its implementation. Share your idea with us, and we will translate it into a viable action plan that will lead to success.