What Will My Mobile App Cost?

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There’s one thing about custom mobile development that everyone wants to know: What will my mobile app cost?

Unfortunately, there is no simple formula from which to reliably derive an estimate—mobile application development is a distinctly complex undertaking where myriad decision points impact cost.

However, based on our experiences developing a variety of mobile apps for a wide cross-section of companies and industries, we believe that—while there’s no magic eight-ball for estimation—there are seven starting strategic perspectives that will help you factor in key cost considerations.

#1 – There’s No Free Lunch (Expect to Invest)

Like any other significant upgrade to your business capabilities, building an effective enterprise mobile app will not be cheap.  Yes, you can get an agency to build you a beautiful mobile app—but it will be built for a three-month campaign, not architected for enterprise integration or a product lifecycle.  Yes, you may get some recent college grads in a garage to knock out a functional app, but it’s unlikely these guys will be 22 year-old versions of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.  Finally, yes, you can get some offshore shop to build an app; however, it’s hit or miss whether these developers will truly understand cultural context (or you), properly implement security or securely integrate your back office—and they might even sell the secret sauce in your code to a competitor.

Takeaway:  Building a mobile asset of true value will require a commensurate investment of time and effort.  There are no shortcuts that can sustain your investment given the chaotic nature of the mobile space.

#2 – It’s a Product, not a Project (Lifecycle Plan)

If you’re looking at developing a mobile app as checking a box—“Hey, look we have an app!”—you might as well burn your money.  

The reality is that successful mobile apps (where success is measured as driving business outcomes) are planned and managed as products, not projects.  Thinking about your mobile initiative as a product with a lifecycle is much different—and critical to your success—than planning for a project!  (See also Mobile Project vs. Mobile Product)

From a cost perspective, the implications of product lifecycle planning include:

• Establishing a product roadmap to create progressive value.  Expect that you will incrementally implement product features over time, most likely starting with a “minimum viable product” (MVP) release (see also Does an MVP Release Make Sense for Your Mobile Initiative?).
• Establishing a product release plan with a cadence to support a “test and learn” approach.  Your ideal release cadence will be dependent on many factors.  A few principles are in play:
• You will make mistakes of all sorts.  No one gets it 100% right the first time or can afford to rest on their laurels.  Users will generally forgive mistakes that are quickly addressed in a new release.
• It’s much more effective to try a few new features that you can discretely evaluate than to roll out a ton of new features at once.  This implies frequent, small releases.
• The device landscape will change rapidly.  New operating systems versions, new devices, security issues, as well as other changes will require you to update your app in order to remain operationally viable.  (Yes, you will be subject to less flux due to these factors in a private enterprise mobile app where you control devices and deployment.)
• The competitive and market landscape will change rapidly.  Mobile is a key point of both competitive differentiation and innovation.  Expect that both competitive pressures and technical innovations will require you to regularly re-prioritize your product roadmap and release plans.
• Identifying and empowering a product owner.  This person must have the business and technical acumen—as well as the authority—to quickly make product decisions to direct the product development team’s work.  Ideally, they have product P&L responsibility and report in to a product management organization or business unit, not IT.
• Building and maintaining a product development team.  Teams that function at the highest levels of velocity and quality tend to be composed of long-term resources, especially in key leadership roles.  Assume that success will require velocity (ability to frequently release product updates) and quality, both in terms of user experience and software quality attributes such as reliability, performance, and scalability.

Takeaway: Plan to invest in building a product development team that will remain significantly intact over the planned product’s lifecycle.

#3 – Good Help is Hard to Find (Expertise: People and Partners)

Now that you’re bringing together a product development team, what types of expertise are going to be required?  While precise skills are technology-dependent, at minimum you will need core team members with the following skills:

• Product Owner / Product Manager with mobile product management skills (see also Magenic Technologies' Product Owner or Product Manager?)
• Mobile Architect with mobile application architecture and enterprise integration skills
• Mobile Developers with specific experience and expertise on your chosen development platform and technology stack, including the ability to integrate supporting systems
• Mobile User Experience Designers who understand mobile devices, mobile interaction design, your chosen platform’s design guidelines, and mobile design/prototyping tools
• Mobile QA Engineers who with deep understanding of mobile device functionality, context and interaction models, mobile test strategies and tools, and an ability to test data at the code level

In addition to the core product development team, there may be also be extended team members from customer service, marketing, analytics/BI, back office systems’ IT (and this may be a significant need), operations, legal, security/compliance or other groups, depending on your industry and focus.

A major decision at this point is determining whether to make a long-term investment in full in-house mobile expertise, bring in staff augmentation resources to form a blended team, or work with partners to outsource development on a long-term basis (or until you reach a point where it makes sense to bring development in house).  In any case, locating, attracting and hiring resources with the right skills and experience—whether FT hires or through a partner—is a challenging task with many long-term implications.  (See also Magenic Technologies’ Are You Ready to Bring in a Partner to Create a Mobile App? and Best-in-Class Consultants or Learning on Your Dime?)

All staffing models can work; however, keep in mind that it will prove wise to work with mobile experts when building your mobile app’s foundational releases or tackling a complex initiative.

Takeaway:  A mobile product development team is composed of many specifically-skilled resources, many of whom are in short supply.  Plan to invest the time and funding in identifying and composing the best team you can find—it will be a top indicator of impending failure or success.

#4 – There’s a New Delivery Ecosystem in Town (Processes, Tools, and Infrastructure)

Delivery Methodology as Cost/Risk Control

As you’re assembling your product delivery team understand that this team can’t work efficiently or mitigate your considerable risks using a traditional waterfall-type delivery methodology.  The timeline from initiation to delivery is too long for a big bang release, there’s little room for re-prioritization, and your measurement of success will be totally different—you’re shooting for a business outcome, not merely coming in on schedule and within budget.  From a cost perspective, plan to embrace an Agile delivery methodology to reduce risks, increase flexibility, and best manage spend.

Mobile-Specific Tools Required

If you hire internal resources, plan also to invest in mobile-specific product development tools for developers, designers, and quality assurance engineers.  Additionally, you may need to also invest in enterprise mobile management (MDM/MAM) tools if you’re also investing in devices and/or using a private enterprise app store.  Furthermore, you may also need mobile analytics tools, mobile marketing tools—the list can go on.

Many mobile tools now are cloud-based and relatively inexpensive.  That said, licensing or usage-based fees can add up.  If you work with a partner and plan to bring development in house in the future, make sure that you own all tool licensing and subscriptions.

Infrastructure:  The Long Pole in the Tent

Believe it or not, updating your back office systems’ ability to support mobile applications may be your largest expense.  The integration architecture built to support web- or desktop client-based systems is poorly suited for serving mobile devices communicating over fragile (or offline) data connections with very high response, performance and scalability expectations.

In addition, your mobile app may require cloud-based services such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud—you will want to understand the various pricing models and available services.

In a recent interview with Diginomica, Kevin Benedict sums up the issue well:

“What we’re learning is that creating the world’s coolest mobile app isn’t going to do any good if your infrastructure can’t support real time interactions with your ERPs, and other business solutions and processes on the back end.  Mobile applications are driving this digital transformation back into the enterprise.  CIOs are saying, ‘We have to do this in order to be competitive, because more and more of our business is being transacted through our mobile applications.’”

Takeaway:  New delivery processes, mobile-specific tooling, and potentially extensive (and expensive) infrastructure updates will be needed.  Existing CapEx/OpEx financial cycles will be challenged to support an agile delivery team.  Significant CapEx—and leading time to implement—may be required to update back office infrastructure.

#5 – Expect Disruption (Competitive, Technology, and Market Pressures)

The harsh reality of the mobile world is that you can execute with all the prior strategic perspectives in mind and still be blindsided by an unexpected disruption or a competitive innovation that leaves you questioning your product’s enduring value proposition.  While this is also true of other channels, in our experience the innovation cycle is much more rapid and compressed in the mobile apps space.

From a financial perspective, these unexpected events create a variety of impacts from the relatively simple, such as supporting a new device, to the complex—perhaps a competitor is now driving his mobile app experience using artificial intelligence (AI).

Takeaway:  Plan to be financially flexible in order to quickly respond to the market.  Again, your customers will forgive you for falling momentarily behind if you establish a track record of responsiveness.  Better yet, plan to make the investment to be a mobile leader!

#6 – It Takes a Village (Digital Transformation)

As indicated earlier, to work most effectively toward enabling your mobile app’s capabilities to drive business outcomes you will need to form an extended team and socialize awareness so that all work in harmony to meet the same objectives.  

For example, if your industry is retail and your app is customer facing, what do your sales associates know about your mobile app?  Are there any promos in the store—or in promotional media—to advertise the app and its benefits?  Is the app integrated with your loyalty program?  What about integration with social media or coupon apps?  Does your web site highlight the app?  What happens if a customer calls Customer Service with a question about the app?  Is there an operational opportunity to use the app to significantly improve customer satisfaction such as through Buy Online / Pickup in Store?

Whatever your industry, know that you will need to identify and rally all customer (this includes internal users!) touch points in the organization to create a cohesive and consistent user experience.

Takeaway:  Plan to make the necessary investments of time and effort to raise internal awareness, make supporting roles and responsibilities clear, providing training or change management guidance, and communicate product plans and progress.

#7 – Innovate and Disrupt (Separate from the Field)

Have you considered that simply a having a cool mobile app won’t be the engine to drive targeted business outcomes?  Maybe everyone in your industry segment already has similar mobile apps.  Now what?  Can you afford to be a “me too” entry?

Depending on your market position and competitive pressures, you may need to consider investing in the necessary research to create an innovative new way of doing business that leverages customers’ “mobile moments” (see also Capturing the Mobile Moment) and fundamentally alters the value chain.  Innovation is typically an expensive proposition—think about the capital required to launch AirBnB or Uber.  Note that their mobile apps are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of technology and cost.

Takeaway:  Consider the possibility that a mobile app may only be a small part of an innovative streamlining of your industry’s existing value chain.  Creating something of this magnitude will require a full range of investment, not just a mobile app.

Closing Thoughts

Embarking on a mobile product journey is exciting but also full of risks, not least of which is being unprepared to make the necessary financial moves to ensure your initial investment is not lost. Making sure your financial bases are covered at the outset will go a long way to positioning your initiative for success.

Mobile App or Mobile Web?

At the outset of many new mobile initiatives there’s a debate about whether it will be best to develop the desired mobile capability as a mobile app or mobile website.  Each approach has its virtues and fans and, over the last several years, much as been written about the effectiveness of both approaches.

For scenarios where a single approach—a mobile app or the mobile web—will be selected there are a number of comparison points that will decisively sway the argument, depending on the unique characteristics of your business objectives and technical environment.

The tables below identify key points of comparison, which we’ve grouped into three categories: 

• Strategic and Operating Concerns
• Target User Engagement
• Devices and Hardware Integration

Next, we’ve rated the relative strengths of each approach on a simple scale.  Please note that the priority of each comparison is completely dependent on the nature of your targeted business capabilities and objectives.

Strategic and Operating Concerns

Strategic and operating concerns are those factors that will directly impact important mobile initiative planning, including:

• Time and Cost
• Security
• Product Marketing
• Product Development Roadmap

Summary

Clearly each approach has its strengths.  The mobile web is fast to deliver, cost-effective, has great reach, is easy to deploy and update.  Mobile apps are highly flexible and have few boundaries, are highly secure, and provide rich data to drive business insights.

Target User Engagement

Next, target user engagement highlights those factors that most likely to indicate whether a mobile initiative will be well targeted to the intended users and able to influence desired behaviors, including:

• Quality of User Experience
• Online/Offline Support
• Ability to Actively Engage Users

Summary

By almost every measure mobile apps provide a richer, more interactive and engaging user experience.  That said, the mobile web is still great at enabling a user to quickly lookup information such as a store location.

Device and Hardware Integration

Lastly, device and hardware integration factors will indicate which approach is best given the following needs:

• Access to Device Hardware
• General Device Integration
• Device Support

Summary

Again, mobile apps are much more completely and capably integrated with users’ mobile devices in just about every case.  The mobile web, however—even with browser support challenges, still shines as the best way to go to market on the greatest number of devices.

Closing Thoughts

Planning the best approach for your mobile initiative is a complex task.  And it's important to understand the far-reaching consequences of the decisions required to bring a mobile product to market that will deliver desired business outcomes. 

Making the right decision—mobile web or mobile app—is just one of many decision points along the journey.

A Simple Guide to Assessing Mobile Maturity

“Jim, how do our company’s mobile capabilities rank against our competitors?  What do we need to do be the Uber of our industry?”  

If you’re Jim, you have your work cut out.  Often you’ll want to start with an effort to gauge your current “mobile maturity”—where you are now—and then map out steps to grow and compete at a target level.

Assessing your organization’s level of mobile maturity is a daunting task—the mobile ecosystem is a large, fluid and complex web of people, processes and technologies.  And shooting for “Uber-fication” is a tall order only a few companies—all startup/disruptors—have mastered.  What’s more, by the time you complete a typical full organizational evaluation and plot a path forward the landscape will have shifted, sometimes significantly. 

Industry Guide Posts

Looking to leading industry analysts, Forrester and Gartner each provide approaches to evaluating mobile maturity based on progressive frameworks.

Based on the seminal book The Mobile Mind Shift, Forrester has developed the Mobile Mind Shift Maturity Framework (subscription required).  In short, Forrester sees mobile maturity as a progression through four key stages:

Gartner takes a five-stage approach to their Mobile Maturity Model (subscription required) which is more process improvement oriented:

Both models are very useful maps for pinpointing your current position, identifying steps to improve outcomes and finally transforming your business.  However, as Gartner pointed out in a recent webinar, “evaluating all the elements [of mobile maturity] takes too much time” and that “a complete evaluation may not tell more than a limited one.”

Getting a Mobile Maturity Snapshot

So, what’s an efficient and effective approach if you want to get a quick snapshot of your current position?  Based on working with a variety of clients’ (of widely varying levels of maturity) mobile initiatives over the years, we believe that there are seven key areas that go a long way toward quickly determining current mobile maturity level:

1. Prioritization
2. Measurement
3. Ownership
4. Governance
5. Talent
6. Technology
7. Customer Experience

For each area (and in no particular order) we’ll briefly describe three levels of maturity on the scale and also reference related posts should you wish to dig in further.

How does your organization identify and then determine which mobile initiatives will be worked on?  (See also Why Your Mobile Initiative Isn’t Getting Funded)

How does your organization measure mobile initiative success?  (See also Developing a Mobile Analytics Strategy)

 

How does your organization approach management of mobile products?  (See also Mobile Project Vs. Mobile Product)

How does your organization manage mobile initiatives and products over time?  (See also Eight Reasons Why You Need Mobile Governance)

 

How does your organization ensure that top minds are designing, delivering and evolving product?  (See also Magenic Technologies' Best in Class Consultants or Learning on Your Dime)

 

How does your organization ensure the technology foundation for mobile initiative investment will be effective and durable?  (See also Magenic Technologies’ Choosing a Mobile Development Platform)

How does your organization ensure that customers’ (internal, partners, external) mobile experiences are high quality and exceed expectations?  (See also Frictionless Mobile Experiences and Why They Matter)

Closing Thoughts

While the journey toward mobile maturity for each client is unique, we've learned a great deal from our own and clients’ mobile successes (and failures) over the years.

Maybe you’ve been scoring your organization as you’ve been reading.  How did you do?  Of course, the biggest room in the house is always the room for improvement!

Does an MVP Release Make Sense for Your Mobile Initiative?

Over the last several years we talk less and less about building mobile proofs of concept (POCs) and more about producing “minimum viable product” (MVP).  

The two terms are not the same in that a POC is generally intended to address key risks—often technical—or to socialize a product concept internally.  While MVPs can do these things too, the big difference is that an MVP version is released to the market as working software.

However, some product owners have heartburn about the MVP concept.  The idea of releasing what they see as a half-baked effort is believed to be a significant market and brand perception risk.

In addition to assuaging risk-related concerns, defining MVP can be like the proverbial twelve blind men and the elephant—each stakeholder sees the product and its success from their own perspective.  Is it minimum testable, minimum usable, or even minimum “lovable” product?  Or should you wait to release an “exceptional viable product” that is impressive but doesn’t have everything included?  Isn’t MVP just for start-ups?

What is MVP?
What is an MVP-caliber product release?  To give context to the answer, consider the standard MVP definition for all products (software or not):

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

Generally, an MVP release has the four key characteristics:

1. Sharply pruned, minimum feature set for a new product that is required to test foundational product hypotheses—what we believe to be true about “early adopter” or target users’ needs and desires, likely behavior, and what is valuable.  What’s “minimally viable” is a subjective call and can be quite difficult to agree upon (see also my post on Capturing the Mobile Moment, a quick guide to targeting the right mobile features).
2. Intended and designed to test, measure and learn how to shape the next product release
3. Minimizes risk by conserving effort, time and financial investments
4. Released to the market and/or end users

For mobile applications there are a several additional considerations that will impact your definition of MVP:

• Target Device and OS.  Much effort, time and money can be saved by targeting a narrow range of devices and operating system versions.
• Connectivity.  Will your application work only when connected or must it also work offline?  Adding offline capabilities will probably add complexity, especially if there is any data synchronization required.
• Integration.  Getting to mobile readiness of corporate data is often the longest duration task for mobile products.  Data that’s readily available will probably influence the MVP feature set.
• Deployment.  It’s no secret that getting your application through app store approval is easier for Android apps—typically a couple days—than for iOS apps (maybe two weeks), which are also subject to a much higher level of design review.
• Management.  If you’re deploying an enterprise or B2B mobile app you may be required to secure, deploy and manage the app through an MDM product.
• Analytics.  Capturing basic user event data and app performance data is a must-have to support the test/measure/learn approach that makes an MVP effective (see also my post on Developing a Mobile Analytics Strategy)
• Privacy, Security, Compliance.  Inadvertently exposing customer or company data can be a disaster—don’t skip this vital step!  If you are collecting regulated customer data, make sure it is properly safeguarded.

Where MVP Fits in the Product Lifecycle

As we decide if MVP is right for your mobile initiative it’s important to briefly establish an MVP release’s place in the product development cycle.

Think of MVP as your product’s introduction to the market or end users.  It’s the first of many releases, each of which builds value based on lessons from prior releases.  Mobile apps in particular require many releases due to not only user feedback but technology changes, market changes, competitors, privacy or security concerns, and much more.

Have you ever looked at leading mobile apps’ release histories in the app stores?  They typically update several times a month for years.  MVP was a one-time event that introduced the product—and only the tip of the iceberg for the product roadmap.

Is MVP Right for Your Mobile Initiative?

Now that we have established what MVP is, identified special considerations for mobile apps, and properly placed it in the product lifecycle, is it right for your mobile initiative?  There are several factors that will indicate if an MVP-based approach to your mobile initiative will be effective and appropriate:

• Is this a new product?  If the answer is yes, then an MVP is absolutely on target.  In short, it is the best way to minimize risk, conserve budget and then apply time/money saved to lessons learned.  If your mobile initiative is not a new product but only an incremental release or minor update of an existing mobile product then an MVP may be unnecessary.

• Is mobile a new platform for an existing product?  If you are migrating an existing product from, say, the web to mobile you need to take an MVP approach.  While you may believe you understand what features and capabilities from the existing web product translate to mobile—and which uniquely mobile capabilities to add to the product—it’s well advised that you will still need an MVP to vet key assumptions.

• Do you have a product roadmap?  Product roadmaps are based on a collection of hypotheses about users’ needs and desires, likely behavior, what will be valuable, and so on.  For mobile apps—maybe more so than other channels because the technology and market landscape is incredibly fluid—the MVP approach is the best way to efficiently validate your hypotheses based on users’ real feedback.  However, if your mobile initiative is not tied to roadmap for delivering progressive value (are you missing an opportunity?) and the initiative is to achieve a highly tactical objective that won’t be measured or improved you may not need an MVP release.

• Are you targeting consumers or internal/B2B users?  If you’re targeting consumers MVP is a must.  Consumers—especially the mobile crowd—are simply too fickle and unpredictable to responsibly do otherwise.  If you’re targeting internal or B2B users with a new product or a product that will evolve over time starting with an MVP release is the best approach.  However, there may be specific circumstances, such as an upgrade of existing product or an extremely well-understood operational capability, where an MVP is unnecessary.  If your initiative seems to fit in the “specific circumstances” bucket, proceed with caution—mobile is full of surprises.

• Is user feedback a priority?  Ok—this is a little tongue-in-cheek.   Every product owner values user feedback.  And this is precisely why learning from an MVP release is the quickest and most time/financially efficient way to test product hypotheses—and then make quickly make changes that reflect what your users’ feedback and behavior (because you’re collecting analytics) are telling you about what they value.

Planning For and Learning from an MVP Release

Most mobile initiatives fit profiles that benefit from an MVP/Product Lifecycle approach (see also my post on Mobile Project vs. Mobile Product).  If your mobile initiative is in this group, here are a few planning activities (among many others) to cover before launch:

• Align with Business Objectives.  Which business objectives will the mobile app support?  (See also my post on Why Your Mobile Initiative Isn’t Getting Funded to ensure you’re on target in this critical area.)
• Identify Success Criteria and How to Measure.  How will you know that the app has achieved MVP success?  How will you objectively measure that?  Conversely, what results will indicate that the product concept either requires a significant pivot—or even a swift death?
• Identify User Stories and Perform Backlog Grooming.  Again, the wisdom and art is in what you exclude rather than what you include.  Prune to the minimum set of user stories that will enable you to effectively evaluate product hypotheses for target user personas.
• Plan to Collect and Analyze Data.  Be sure that the data to support your success criteria is collected and available for analysis to prove product hypotheses.
• Establish a Timeline.  How long will the MVP release be in production before you prioritize your lessons learned and focus on the next release?  Hint:  You will need a high-level of velocity here in order to not lose mobile users—patience is not their strong suit.

Now that your MVP release has launched, you will want to have a laser-focus on quickly learning what to change for your next release.  Several key sources of information include:

• User Analytics Data.  Did users do what you expected or planned for them?  Is their behavior aligned with business objectives or do you need to rethink?
• Application Performance Data.  Did application performance impact user tasks or retention?
• App store reviews (if public) or user interviews (private).  What do users love (or hate)?
• Target KPIs.  Impacted as planned?

Finally, know that mobile has a unique set of concerns; some level of mobile governance will help your new product meet objectives over time.

Closing Thought

Defining MVP release scope and functionality—as well as clearly identifying what hypotheses will be tested—is an important part of a winning product introduction.

Mobile Project vs. Mobile Product

Are you thinking about starting a “mobile project” to build an app?  Think again—your plan may have a high probability of failure.

Why?  Depending on the characteristics of your initiative, planning to build a “mobile product” will be a much more effective long-term approach to meeting business objectives than a project.

What’s the Difference?

First of all, what’s the difference between a project and a product approach?  Isn’t it just semantics?  Actually, they are quite different.

While there is some overlap between project- and product-based approaches, the key difference is that a project is typically focused on delivery of a single mobile app release while a product is focused on achieving business outcomes throughout a product lifecycle spanning multiple mobile app releases.

But that’s not all.  Here’s a summary of a number of significant differences between project and product mindsets (credits to Marty Cagan and Moonshot Horizon):

Why a Product Approach Matters for Mobile

Wouldn’t the comparisons above apply to any application development initiative?  Unquestionably, yes. So, why the big deal about taking a product approach to mobile?

Mobile initiatives are subject to a unique set of vectors that impact success, including:

• Users’ Experience Expectations.  You’re not just competing with competitors’ latest features; you’re competing with well-designed games, social media, music, video and other apps for your users’ eyeballs—and brand estimation.  Frequent updates required!

• Stakeholder/Sponsor Expectations.  They want their app to do that new thing that Instagram does.  How hard would that be?  Popular apps are often updated with the latest capabilities inside of monthly—nobody wants a stale app.

• Fluid Technology Landscape.  New devices, new OS versions with new capabilities, security or privacy issues, integration changes, new tools, regulations, etc.   The ground is constantly shifting.  Keep up or risk quick irrelevance.  Or worse, a security/privacy event.

• Data.  User ratings/reviews, user event data, application crash data, customer service information, etc.—not to mention business KPIs—all must be constantly be monitored and analyzed to ensure key objectives are being met.  Data must also be analyzed to surface insights that will drive and prioritize changes to the product.

So, what are some of the risks in treating your mobile initiative as a project rather than product?  

• Missed Opportunities/Lack of Innovation.  Some of the best-loved mobile apps today started as apps of a different color; that is, they made major pivots or innovated based on user feedback.  Here are two classic examples:

• The founders of SnapChat struggled to attract users, but it started going viral in high schools.  This discovery led to the shift in focus in customer segment.  Today SnapChat is ranked as the #7 free app in the Apple App Store.
• Burbn started as a mashup of Foursquare and Mafia Wars that let you check in to locations, earn points for hanging out with friends, post pictures, and so on. User data indicated that photos was the real opportunity so the team cut everything except for its photo, comment and like capabilities.  What remained was Instagram, the #11 free app in the Apple App Store.

By the way, did you know that Android was originally conceived as an operating system for cameras?

• Wasted Investment.  Analysts believe that mobile apps typically require four major version releases—and typically a pivot—before they begin to deliver on business objectives.  Have you looked at a successful app’s App Store or Google Play release log?  It’s unlikely you will achieve lasting success on the first try.  Alas, your project budget was all spent on the first release.

• Brand Injury.  Whether a mobile app is customer-facing or internal, users will judge your brand based on a wide range of factors such as effectively addressing their mobile needs (or needs not addressed), quality of user experience, device and OS support—and much more.  It’s highly unlikely you will achieve the right balance of these factors the first time around.  Don’t worry; app store ratings and reviews, social media, and blogs will all happily share the story.

• Customer Satisfaction.  Mobile app users are often much more annoyed by a failure to improve (by releasing an updated app) than they are by an initial effort that falls short and is then improved based on feedback.  When you approach mobile as a project, you’re telling your users that their feedback is not important.

If a typical project is delivered on time, within budget and meets key requirements, we happily declare victory—no matter what may happen next.  However, achieving ongoing success with a mobile app clearly requires a much more complex, iterative and nimble journey.

How to Evaluate Your Mobile Initiative

Do all mobile initiatives need to take a product approach in order to be successful?  For the vast majority of mobile apps the answer is unequivocally Yes!  But there can be certain sets of circumstances where a project approach may suffice.

Here’s a few simple criteria for evaluating your mobile initiative:

Might be a Project if…	Might be a Product if…
Corporate-supplied and managed device or only a single device is targeted No vision for future functionality Private distribution (MAM) Not customer-facing (B2C or B2B) Not strategic for the business Success will not be measured Will be owned and managed by IT Static, well understood environment Very small user group	Customer- or partner-facing BYOD/CYOD, public device support Public app store distribution Strategic (e.g., competitive differentiator) or new capability Supports or enables key business objectives Product owner and roadmap focused on customers’ needs Data will be collected, analyzed Investment will be measured; KPIs Dynamic environment Back office/third party integration

Each of the product characteristics indicate that change is highly likely.  Consequently, if you find that your mobile initiative has any of the characteristics of a product, a product-oriented approach is going to be the best long-term approach.

However, even if your initiative has several of the more static characteristics of a project, it would still be advisable to think through the anticipated mobile capability lifecycle.  What might be necessary in six months or a year from now?  The mobile app’s overall context may prove to be more dynamic over time than you think.

Closing Thoughts

Clearly there are many persuasive reasons for organizations to take a product-oriented approach to developing and managing their mobile investments.  And consequential pitfalls for those who don’t!