Mobile App Development Team: Steps to Build an App at Cleveroad

A mobile development team is a living organism that performs different tasks by applying joint efforts. The development team should have all skills needed to create a high-quality app. And each team member in our company is engaged in the development process of iOS or Android apps to do their best.

Let's start from the very beginning and look at the composition of a team needed to build an app:

• Product owner. Their role includes organizing and ranking the product backlog to ensure the development team focuses on the most important and beneficial features.
• Project manager. The project manager supervises the project and ensures effective communication among all departments.
• Sales and marketing experts. The responsibility of sales managers involves communicating information to customers regarding the company and the technical abilities of mobile app developers.
• Business analysts. They comprehend business demands, collect them, and turn them into practical outputs for the development team.
• Solution Architect. This specialist designs and implements technical architecture for businesses to reach their goals securely and efficiently, and integrate with external platforms.
• UI/UX designers. These specialists use principles of UI and UX design to develop mobile apps that are visually pleasing, easy to use, and intuitive.
• App developers. Their role involves converting the app's design and functionality into downloadable software for users of mobile devices.
• QA engineers. These professionals control the seamlessness of the created software according to pre-defined specifications.

Let’s consider the said roles in detail to understand more about the responsibilities of the said specialists.

The product owner manages the product's business-oriented vision, schedule, budget, and revenue strategy. Their key objective is to make sure the product is profitable.

The product owner has responsibilities similar to those of an entrepreneur and CEO, ensuring the product succeeds. It's critical to distinguish this position from project managers and business analysts, who prioritize technical issues and guarantee on-time and within-budget delivery.

Let’s discuss some of the typical responsibilities the product owner deals with:

• Working with stakeholders, the development team, and other appropriate parties to determine the order in which the items in the product backlog should be prioritized
• Aligning the software product with the larger organizational goals and objectives
• Providing this guidance to the team for app development and other stakeholders to ensure everyone is aware of the goal of the product
• Developing user stories that provide concise and clear explanations of a feature's operation from the user's perspective
• Managing the product backlog that consists of features, improvements, and bug fixes
• Gathering stakeholder needs, rating them according to value and urgency, and updating the backlog as necessary

The person who is responsible for the implementation and successful project delivery. This professional manages the project and connects all departments with each other. Project manager communicates with the customer directly, discusses all issues regarding a mobile app being developed and settles all disputes that may arise.

What skills should this specialist have?

• First, of course, they should know well how business strategy in mobile app development should be built properly;
• Second, they should be tech-savvy, and able to understand what technology is preferable for that or another project. Knowledge of how to apply different development methodologies is very precious, and we require our PMs to have this skill obligatorily;
• Third, a project manager should have some experience in psychology. To understand customers’ needs and demands, to find the right moment to offer a customer a good solution, and so on. Not to mention communication skills to make contact with a customer.
• And fourth, they should be attentive. It is necessary to check the documentation and ensure the development is implemented according to specifications.

Our PMs in the Cleveroad mobile applications development team are also good at performing a few tasks simultaneously because it is the main point of their work.

Sales managers are the ones whom all customers contact with when they plan to order the app development from a specific company. Sales managers provide customers with a general information about the company and technological stack mobile app developers are skilled at. After estimation of your future mobile app, sales managers notify a customer about the total cost of the app development. If the customer approves the price, sales manager hands over all connections to project manager.

As for marketing team, marketing strategists help promote the future product, create advertising materials, elaborate the strategy for each specific product to make it popular.

A business analyst role is essential in the mobile software engineering team structure as they assist in handling company data analysis and provide insights to enhance decision-making. These specialists act as a liaison between management or stakeholders and production teams. The primary goals of a business analyst are to improve productivity, increase profitability, and streamline manufacturing processes.

Cleveroad also has skilled business analysts who are responsible for the following:

• Interacting with stakeholders to understand their needs, such as business users, product owners, and subject matter experts.
• Examining current company procedures to look for chances for enhancement or automation and collaborating with stakeholders to understand their procedures, difficulties, and objectives.
• Activities for validating and verifying whether the program satisfies the required specifications
• Creating documentation that is clear and simple using the requirements that have been acquired, such as functional specifications, user stories, use cases, or business requirements papers. Ensure the criteria are clearly stated, ranked, traceable, etc.

The Solution Architect is crucial in facilitating communication and collaboration between the development team and business requirements, serving as the technical leader. Their duties involve developing a strong and adaptable framework for the mobile application, guaranteeing its effective execution while considering technical limitations and business objectives.

The Solution Architects in Cleveroad deal with the following responsibilities:

• They works with project managers, business analysts, and stakeholders to understand the business needs and goals of the mobile app. They evaluate requirements to determine architectural implications and restrictions.
• They also design the mobile app, considering scalability, security, performance, and maintainability.
• Moreover, the Solution Architects oversee technology development and collaborate with developers, designers, and stakeholders to properly use architectural concepts, best practices, and coding standards.
• These specialists create an integration strategy and ensure app and other systems' compatibility.
• They consider the best tools for mobile apps based on platform compatibility, performance, efficiency, and sustainability.

Upon the development of the first software version, it should be tested to verify how it works and whether everything is functioning correctly. And QA engineers should ensure that a built app works according to specification. At Cleveroad, our QA specialists perform different types of testing, it allows them to check how an app is functioning under various conditions.

If there are any bugs in the app, QA engineers send it back to developers for revision. Only when QA specialists approve everything, the app will be sent for release.

The work of designers is not as simple as it may seem at first sight. They not only create a user interface and user experience of the app. Designers also work with special documentation and elaborate the whole process stage by stage. Otherwise, it will be impossible to create a good software product. Designers should create wireframes first when they analyze and elaborate the documentation. Then, if everything goes well, they experiment with UI and UX for iOS or Android platforms, depending on the project. Designers' task is not only to create a good design but also to make it attractive using all modern technologies related to design.

At Cleveroad, the mobile app team includes experienced UI/UX designers who deal with:

• The designers concentrate on the visual aspects of the mobile app. They develop visually attractive and captivating interfaces by considering color schemes, typography, layout, and iconography.
• The designers aim to maintain design consistency across various screens and work towards creating a unified and branded user interface.
• Their responsibility involves developing a coherent and user-friendly information structure for the application and logically arranging its content, features, and capabilities for the users.
• They deal with interaction design comprised of multiple components, including navigation flow, gestures, animations, and micro-interactions, to improve user experience.
• Designers create and improve app designs with user feedback using wireframing and prototyping tools, etc.

When user interface/user experience is created, the main part of the development begins - a building of the app structure and functionality. Here Android and iOS developers apply their skills to create a mobile app. We will determine mobile application developer responsibilities. How does development process differ in iOS and Android department?

Android application developers are specialists competent at creating dependable, functional, and user-friendly apps for Android devices. They know Android platform-specific best practices, the Android SDK, development tools, and methods for creating mobile apps.

• Android developers use Java, Kotlin, and C++ partially to create native apps
• Android Studio is the main integrated development environment for Android devs
• Android OS is the most popular in the world, many devices are running on Android, and Android app developer needs to understand what devices customer plans to use. Development time and cost depend on it

At Cleveroad, when we create Android apps, we provide them with support for older OS versions down to 5.0 or 4.4, even if they are built for the 8.0 Android version.

iOS developers possess the skills to develop appealing and user-friendly apps for Apple devices. They are well-versed in the most effective methods for creating iOS apps and Apple's development frameworks and guidelines for app creation.

• iOS app developers use Objective-C and Swift to build good native apps
• For the development process, iOS specialists use Xcode as an environment for apps building
• Unlike Android apps, our iPhone app developers create an app only for the two last versions of iOS. There is no sense to build an app for older version since they lose their popularity fast

Flutter developers play a crucial role in developing robust cross-platform mobile applications by utilizing the features of the Flutter framework. Their expertise in Flutter development enables them to craft efficient, visually appealing, and high-performing mobile apps that cater to diverse users across various platforms.

• Flutter developers typically operate with the Flutter framework
• They use Dart programming language as well as Dart packages and libraries
• They deal with platform-specific APIs
• Flutter developers also handle version control systems (e.g., Git), Firebase backend platform, etc.

Frontend developers, as a part of the app developer team, significantly impact mobile app development as they focus on creating a user-friendly interface and enhancing the overall user experience.

They check if the app meets design requirements, is user-friendly, and aligns with project goals. Their skills in technical expertise, creativity, and attention to detail have a significant effect on the appearance of the app's front end.

The development of a mobile app's user interface (UI) necessitates the utilization of diverse technologies, frameworks, and tools by front-end developers. The selection of technologies will vary based on the project's requirements and the developer's preferences. Some standard technologies from the front-end developer tech stack are React Native, JavaScript, Angular and so on.

A full stack developer knows the front-end and back-end aspects of mobile app development projects. They can manage different phases of application development and have a thorough understanding of the complete software stack.

Full-stack developers are skilled in both front-end technologies and implementing user interfaces. They work with designers to turn design mockups into functional components and ensure a seamless user experience. They also handle everything from backend tech to mobile app functionality.

That was the primary mobile application development team structure able to create a fascinating software product together. You saw application development team roles and responsibilities. And now, we should consider important aspects of the development process for all participants to follow.

There are some crucial factors our specialists cannot ignore, and it is necessary to follow them in order to succeed.

Qualified management

As we noted, mobile development team consists of a few departments and each of them plays it's integral role in the development process. But it is very difficult to control all specialists in each department how they do their job. That is why each department should have a team leader that is responsible for all tasks his/her department implements. And qualified team leaders should monitor the workflow in their department. It will ensure that the process will go coherently and any troubles won't arise. Good and skilled management is the basis that we take into account when we create mobile development team.

Proficient working environment and effective tools

To build a prosperous software development team, it is crucial to provide them with all the necessary resources and a comfortable working environment. This includes equipping your software engineers with the required tools to enhance their creativity and productivity. Providing high-quality technology to software development teams can reduce stress and increase productivity by ensuring they have the necessary tools to stay organized.

Deadlines

All participants of a mobile development team should strictly keep up with the set schedule and move along with this schedule when creating a mobile app. Deadlines should be met in any case. Unless a customer decides to add something new to the app, and it will influence the extension of the development deadline. All specialists in mobile development team should be informed about all timeframes and relevant details.

Joint cooperation

As a mobile app development process is very complex and involves many specialists, it is highly required to do all job with mutual efforts. One specialist cannot be proficient in UI design, quality assurance, app development at once. Therefore, all members do their job and help each other upon request, if it concerns their field of activity. That is the main principle of success for any software development company, and Cleveroad knows about it firsthand. Joint cooperation is a key to a rewarding result.

Let’s find out the main cooperation models, thanks to which you will be able to find a mobile app development team capable of unifying all the above criteria and showing high performance.

After thoroughly comprehending the mobile app development team's structure and task allocation, the next step is identifying the most efficient approach for recruiting mobile app development professionals for your project.

One of the cooperation models you may use to build a business mobile app is to utilize in-house mobile app developers. These professionals would work exclusively on your project and physically in your office. With an in-house development team, you would be able to oversee the app development process and independently hire additional team members as necessary.

Pros of the in-house team cooperation model:

• The approach shows how to manage challenging, extensive projects effectively.
• You establish a proficient mobile app developers team with a particular area of expertise by keeping close ties with your workers over time and monitoring their professional progress.
• You must make sure that private information is kept as secure as possible.
• You have complete control over timelines and quality.

Cons:

• Keeping the in-house team is an expensive thing.
• You have to pass through a tedious hiring process.
• Slow project start is one of the common cons.
• There's a lower drive for self-education among in-house developers than among all others due to lower competition.

You may engage a dedicated team required to build an app from a third-party service provider remotely. A project manager will supervise this team of designers, developers, and QA engineers. They will continue working for the third-party service provider while contributing to your project and coordinating with your developers.

Pros:

• The dedicated team collaboration approach is less expensive than outsourcing and in-house models.
• It gives you ultimate control over timelines and quality.
• A project manager from a software development provider organizes the building process.
• You can quickly access professionals to monitor, approve, or rectify their actions.
• It is effective at finishing current or short-term tasks.

Cons:

• You may have a time zone difference with your vendor. However, it is easily solved with precise planning of the meetings, as we do in Cleveroad.
• Language misunderstandings may be the next barrier to collaboration with a dedicated team. However, skilled outsourcing companies always care about their employees' English (or another language) level enough to solve the tech problems of your product development.
• The risk of revealing confidential information is relatively high. But, outsourcing vendors can successfully avoid it. For example, at Cleveroad, we look after your data confidentiality, signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and saving your app concept uniqueness.

Outsourcing a product building to a third-party company can be an effective completion method. This allows for the complete responsibility of app development to be placed in the hands of another business.

Pros:

• Outsourcing software development collaboration is more cost-effective than an in-house model.
• The vendor provides you with a ready tight-knit development team.
• You get access to a vast pool of software specialists with relevant expertise
• Product development can be started quickly as the mobile app development provider solves the hiring and supervising problems.

Cons:

• You have got limited control over development. It means you can hand the development flow over to the vendor and focus on other crucial business tasks.
• Communication issues can also be possible during outsourcing cooperation. However, the providers have their own communication plans to avoid such situations and succeed.
• The risk of confidential information being revealed is also meaningful in the context of outsourcing cooperation. But the vendors like Cleveroad can save the confidential data entrusted by the clients due to additional agreements being signed.

This is a process where a third-party development company is hired to provide additional specialists to supplement your team required for app development and offer their expertise. The specialists employed by the third-party company work collaboratively with your team and fulfill assigned tasks.

Pros:

• An outstaffing company takes care of financial matters, including wages, taxes, and fees, so the customer only pays what's agreed in the contract.
• Customers managing teams save on management costs compared to outsourcing.
• Using an outstaffing company means less administrative and accounting work for the customer, as the employee is contracted through the outstaffing company instead.
• Hire staff or enter new markets without legal registration.

Cons:

• Collaboration on projects can only be successful with effective communication. It is crucial to build and maintain accessible communication channels for all parties involved since errors might occur if duties are not adequately understood.
• There is an increase in responsibility when choosing an outstaffing approach. To improve project management, it is essential to have competent experts on the team.
• Employers that don't provide perks and incentives to overworked personnel risk demotivating them.

We would like to list crucial steps we need to take to create your mobile app. Our iOS and Android development teams perform the following:

Everything starts with this phase. We should understand the app’s type, how it will work, and what challenges it will solve. A team needed to build an app is engaged in developing use cases that a future app may perform. Also, it is necessary to determine the business value of the future project. Having done proper research, we can proceed to the next point.

Then, our designer can make sketches of your future app simply drawing it in any graphics editor to understand how it complies with your vision. It can help development team to determine the usability of the app on the basis of use cases and customer's vision.

Here it is necessary to perform feasibility assessment to determine what backend should be developed, what systems can (or cannot) be used. It can be achieved with the help of app functionality assessment. Besides that, all requirements should be assessed on the basis of the platform since Android and iOS operating systems have it's own particularities. Also, the development process of your future app depends on whether it will be a hybrid app, cross-platform or a native one. At the end of this stage, your app can be modified with some new features or some of them will be removed due to some strong reasons like inability to implement it or another one.

Do you know some secrets how to estimate the project efficiently? Watch our video to find out it: 

Prototypes make it possible for the customer to see how the app will look and how it will work. A quickly built prototype will lay the foundation of mobile app development. The customer can advise what he/she would like to change to avoid unexpected revision in future especially if the budget is limited.

It is the first stage of app development process itself. UI/UX designers are involved in the creation of user experience of the app, their task is to make UX intuitive and clear for future users. The design process is rather long and it requires a lot of time. When UX is ready, Android and iOS developers can see the whole functionality, how it should work and what processes should be implemented.

This is where main mobile development team members come in. Android and iOS developers start creating the structure of the app, they make it alive and functional. The development process is implemented according to Agile methodology, we consider it the most convenient methodology that helps achieve the best result.

Our QA engineers do their best to shape up your software and make it completely free of any bugs. There are many types of testing and the goal of QA specialists is to provide the app with all testing types that are preferable in this specific case. When the last bug is destroyed, the app can be sent to release. It is a happy end!

There are a lot of software development companies you can apply to find the best mobile app development team. But how to make an informed decision and choose the best specialists to collaborate with? We’ve prepared some pieces of advice that support you.

• Pay attention to their industry expertise. It’s essential to choose a team with deep domain expertise in your business domain. Thanks to its industry knowledge, your development team selected may recommend and implement certain features and functionality pertinent to your sector. They may also provide information on industry-specific procedures, best practices, and interfaces with other systems or APIs.
• Examine the portfolio of the company you’d like to collaborate with and ask for the development team's previous mobile app work. Assess the usability, design, and quality of their developed applications. For example, our company’s website represents Cleveroad’s portfolio, including multi-industry software. If you want to know more, you can always contact us and ask your questions. Our specialists will give in-depth tech responses to them.
• Find out how the development team works and what methodology they use. Agile methodologies (e.g., Cleveroad software development lifecycle works according to Agile) like Scrum or Kanban are commonly utilized in mobile app development because they focus on iterative development, flexibility, and client participation. Ensure the team follows industry-standard development practices and can tailor their approach to meet your project's unique needs.
• The opportunity to operate freely with cutting-edge technology is crucial when choosing a mobile app development firm. Working with a development team ensures that your app remains innovative and lives up to consumers’ expectations. Utilizing modern innovations enables the introduction of cutting-edge features, better user interfaces, and more remarkable performance.

The price of building and keeping a mobile apps development team is another factor to consider while planning to hire professionals to develop your mobile app for business. Let’s find out the main cost-building factors influencing the decreasing or increasing of the price.

The scope and complexity of the future app is the first criteria influencing the size of the team and, consequently, the hiring price. The size of a team, in its turn, can impact resource allocation and expenses (the larger teams require more expenditures) and should be considered during development team decision-making.

The skill and expertise level of the development team impacts the employment cost. The rates for developers often correlate with their level of experience and proficiency. When making cost estimates, it is crucial to consider the project's intricacy and proficiency in particular technologies like iOS, Android, or cross-platform.

The duration of the development process has a significant influence on expenses as to mobile app team composition. Meeting strict deadlines or quick project schedules may necessitate extra resources, extended work hours, or the participation of experienced developers, resulting in added costs.

The team's location can affect the expenses associated with hiring and development tasks. Variations in rates can occur due to differences in labor costs and market conditions between regions and countries. When considering outsourcing or offshoring development work, weighing the cost benefits against potential communication and coordination challenges is essential.

If you decide to apply to outsourcing mobile app development services, think out the approximate budget you may need for the professionals’ employment. With this purpose, we’ve prepared a table with a range of hourly rates for hiring different specialists for mobile development team in the most popular outsourcing destinations.

Please be aware that the prices given are estimates and may vary due to factors such as the expert's reputation, level of expertise, and specific project needs. To ensure precise cost estimates for your project, it is advised to collect thorough information and contact our Business Development managers for personalized quotes.

Looking for a mobile software development team, the entrepreneurs seek specialists capable of delivering a mobile solution, fully satisfying both the customer and company’s needs. Cleveroad — the skilled outsourcing software development vendor can offer you to hire their specialists.

Let us tell you more about our company. We are for 11+ years on market offering mobile app development services of any complexity for different business industries (e.g., Logistics and Supply Chain, Healthcare, FinTech, Telecommunication and Media, etc.). Our software development services and solutions increase workflow effectiveness, address company issues, and aid in gaining competitive advantages for our clients — startups, SMBs, and larger enterprises.

Collaborating with us, you can reach the following benefits:

• Multi-industry expertise to help you develop a modern mobile app for a business domain you require
• A custom mobile app development to suit your unique needs through delivery of native Android, iOS, and cross-platform solutions
• Cutting-edge mobile development tech stack during your product creation. Our experts have hands-on experience working with technologies such as Blockchain, AI, IoT, etc.
• On-demand IT services: custom software development from scratch, legacy platforms modernization, UI/UX design services, IT consulting, building cloud-based platforms, etc.
• A full-service mobile app development: you’ll get assistance at all stages of software building: from concept creation to development, and maintenance

As we said above, a mobile development team can work successfully only when it works in a bundle. It is the main secret to why the company succeeds in what it does. Cleveroad company always keeps up with all customer requirements, and we know what the word 'responsibility' means.

For this time, our team has designed and developed many software projects for our clients across the domains. Here are some featured cases you can acquainted with:

• Quality Management System
• Telemedicine system
• Micro-investment platform
• Location-based marletplace

Do you have any mobile or web projects you want to create? Contact us, and we will make it real.