Sprint Zero: App Design & Development Plan
We lay the foundation for successful products: immersing in client's business, forming and checking concepts, creating design concept and project roadmap
Discuss the project
Sprint Zero covers comprehensive pre-project activities aimed to estimate the scope of work, terms, and budget for a project. The zero stage helps to plan an app development, get a vision of the finished product, and receive supporting materials to get a budget approved.
MVP Spec
roadmap, estimation, design concept
Senior
UX researcher, PM
to 5%
of the project cost
1-3 weeks
depending on complexity
Sprint Zero is required when
- a non-standard project is planned with large scope of work, where it is difficult to formulate basic requirements to a finished application;
- the exact technical specification is hardly to be described without an IT expert specified in your field for years;
- MVP composition is not clear: the backlog is ideal and large, but it lacks prioritization and assessment typically offered within Sprint Zero;
- the architecture is not defined, and the back end, additional integrations, and middleware need to be refined;
- the budget has not yet been allocated, and the project is to be pitched to investors or an internal project committee;
- you plan to build a custom product with smart UX/UI and need experienced team help to make it work on your business goals.
Sprint Zero workflow
1
Planning — a basis of the zero stage
- You give us a description of the product task and your expectations.
- You describe a business problem, target audience portraits, main competitors, and other things we should know about your project before the next parts of Sprint Zero start.
- Quick briefing and analysis of preliminary requirements on the part of the business.
- Brainstorm with both parties involved: it can be founders, marketers, project managers, business analysts, etc.
2
Conducting a research
- Analyzing your niche and its trends and outlining the best ones to follow.
- Detailed competitor analysis, including their strengths and weaknesses (if necessary).
- Checking user pains, needs, and requests to have perfect understanding of your target audience specific.
- Highlighting features required for MVP and subsequent product versions.
3
Result you get at the finish of Sprint Zero
- The unique graphic design concept of 4–5 key screens for iOS (if necessary).
- A short specification with MVP composition, including app architecture, list of integrations, and requirements for the back end.
- A detailed estimate of the application design cost, and a more accurate forecast of the development cost and time.
- Describing and discussing the project risks that can be predicted at the zero stage and planned to be solved or avoided.
Advantages of Sprint Zero performed by Surf
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At the end of Sprint Zero, you get
- well-reasoned MVP composition
- design concept in Figma
- integration plan and risk review
- review of the back end condition on the customer’s side
- detailed project assessment
- backlog and prioritization
- project development map
-
The product team consists of senior level experts
- Project Manager with experience in implementing at least 5 products from scratch to release and product management
- Art Director, Designer, Strategist, Business Analyst with experience in implementing at least 2 projects in your business industry
- System Analyst with experience in API writing (swagger) and back-end task setting in at least 3 projects
- Flutter expert, QA, Backend Leads with at least 4 years of project and risk assessment experience with successful releases under their management
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Sprint Zero reduces risks of
- incorrect positioning for the user
- choosing tech stack that is not the best one for a project complexity and budget
- unnecessary expenses for architecture or development
- incorrect estimates at the presale stage
- failure to protect the project budget within the customer’s company
- overspendings caused by too blurred understanding of custom IT project planning pitfalls
We find the best solutions for our customers
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Video streaming platform
Together with the Client, we built a user journey map: for each contact point, we described the actions and psycho-emotional state of the customer, aha moments, barriers, and ways to reduce them using the future product.See case
In the rating contest 2021, the project was awarded silver in the Rest and Entertainment nomination. -
App for a large online pet shop
Together with the Client’s team, we compiled a backlog, prioritized and determined the roadmap for the future app — in particular, the features to be included in the first release and the features that can be implemented later. In the first two weeks, the new app allowed increasing the conversion up to 15%.See case -
App for the multiplatform entertainment operator
At the presale stage, we studied the user reviews about the current version of the app: figured out what users don’t like and what they need from the app. Based on this, we created a concept that was eagerly accepted by the customer. As a result, we not only built the app, but also laid a foundation that can be developed and improved in the future, and the customer has a roadmap — a plan for the service development for several versions ahead.See case
