Let’s Make A Sandwich: A Visual Guide To Application Development Terms.

What kind of sandwich do you want to make? How long will it take?

The first step in every project is also the most important: planning out what it is you’re going to do. Go into the planning process with a clear idea of the business challenge that you are trying to solve. Clearly define your objectives and how you plan on measuring success. From there, you can begin to build your solution.

Drafting the recipe for your sandwich.

Here is where the technical experts come in. They take the objectives and the success criteria you’ve defined in the project planning stage and figure out how it should actually be done. Expect to review any clarifying questions and weigh in on suggestions for making the translation of your requirements into the technology more seamless.

Assembling the sandwich in your kitchen

The developers will work with the technical experts to start building out the solution as agreed upon by the team. It’s up to the developer to determine the complexity of your project and provide timeline expectations. Always build in some extra time for unexpected surprises and setbacks.

Flipping through the layers of sandwich to confirm the correct ingredients are there

If your project is one that requires custom coding, the code review stage is when a senior developer will review the newly-built code to make sure that it complies with industry standards while meeting the project requirements. It is the first pass of quality assurance testing before we get to the next stage…

Taste-testing your new sandwich

Before you’re ready to take this to your boss or your co-workers, always make sure to test the solution yourself! Define some realistic scenarios that will allow you to confirm that you’re on the right track with this solution. Try to keep your testing as close to how the final product will be used in real life.

Serving samples to your family and friends to see if they like the sandwich too

If your solution will be used by other people, make sure to get them involved in the testing. Have them try out the scenarios they would use and gather their feedback. What worked, what didn’t work? Are there any assumptions you made that will have to be re-evaluated? This is one of the most important stages in ensuring long-term success.

Debuting your new sandwich to the world!

Deployment is the stage that takes everything in testing and makes it, well, live. Whether your project is only available to a subset of your co-workers or is public for anyone to see, this is the important final step in wrapping up all those hours of hard work! Put aside some extra time for testing and monitoring after a deployment to make sure things are working as you envisioned..

Teaching a cooking class for your world-famous sandwich

Training is an important element that helps users get the most value out of your solution. Whether you plan to have documentation, a video, or an in-person training seminar, figure out a strategy for rolling out the new change across your users.