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

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.

roadmap, estimation, design concept

UX researcher, PM

of the project cost

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 our IT team‘s help to make it work on your business goals.

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.
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.
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.

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

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