Doing Versus Planning: The New Way to Build Enterprise Apps

Featured article by Aygun Suleymanova, Head of Product Marketing of Telerik Platform, Progress Software

Whether a developer is building mobile apps for a small- to medium-sized organization or a multinational enterprise, the apps themselves have to be enterprise-ready. Getting them enterprise-ready goes beyond choosing a great development environment or IDE; you must consider the entire lifecycle of the application—from design and development, to testing and deployment, to production, to management and continual improvement. We already know developers don’t live in a vacuum―they’re surrounded by a team of individuals including business analysts, designers, testers, operations folks and many more. Mobile development also has the attention of the executive team, which puts added pressure on development managers, architects and the CIO to deliver.

As such, being agile and fast-to-market is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. But being fast requires new processes, new tools and a new mindset. Friction builds when this agile mode of application development must leverage the slower-moving “systems of record,” especially when mobilizing existing legacy applications.

At Telerik, we think if you put your developers in the driver’s seat and waive the complex RFP process, you can build unprecedented mobile competence in your enterprise. Here’s how to build a Mobile Center of Excellence in your enterprise—organically—without the typical obstacles getting in the way.

Out with the Old

Traditional app development starts with a business need. A business user would go to IT and ask the tech guys to build an app that addresses the need. Then, the developers would begin development, employing existing standards and processes. They would define requirements, create a build schedule, perform QA and, eventually, move to deployment. This could take months. By the time the app is deployed, tested and in production, the business need that inspired its development may no longer exist. And look at all the time and money wasted. Additionally, the need was never met when it needed to be.

On one hand, this process was easier, because typically, the app was being built for a single form factor–the web or the desktop. There were fewer systems of record to pull data from, maybe an Oracle database or SQL. It required one skill set—.NET or another common framework. But today, it’s not that simple. Today, there are multiple endpoints with which the app must be compatible. There are numerous, disparate systems of record from which data must be pulled. There are many frameworks and tools needed to connect endpoints with data. Mobile app development requires a different, more organic approach to development, primarily because the business needs the app TODAY, and you have more data sources and platforms to deal with. Take the linear approach of traditional development, and you’ll be left in the dust.

In with the Organic

No, I’m not talking about grass-fed or gluten-free. I’m talking about an organic method of mobile app development that promotes speed, agility, quality and user satisfaction. Here’s what you need to do:

– Get the right tools: The only way to transform your organization into a mobile app development machine is by using the right approach and the right tools to help you develop in weeks, not months. They should facilitate the integration of all systems of record and data with your apps, to make them available to customers rapidly.

– Move IT to the boardroom: IT is no longer simply a services organization. Today’s IT organization needs to work with business units and executives—hand in hand—to build apps together. Oftentimes, app development is a handoff to IT of a rough prototype developed by a business user. Although this isn’t the traditional approach, more and more it’s becoming commonplace. And, with tools that enable an increasing amount of code-free development, the trend is likely to continue. IT folks must shift their mindset to accommodate the new model.

– Buddy-up with the business user: A close relationship with the business user will be essential for meeting the needs of the business in a timely manner. By timely, I mean quicker than ever. It will require getting app prototypes into the hands of users fast, often before all the desired functionality is developed, and incorporating feedback in iterative sprints. Some platforms enable you to gather feedback within the context of the development platform, which enhances collaboration and speeds development further.

– Encourage the new breed of developers: Today’s great developers are the ones who have access to the open source community and other resources. Embrace all the open source tools, so you’re not locked into proprietary technologies. Give your developers the freedom to build the way they want.

– Decouple app dev from infrastructure: Development must be separate from the existing infrastructure and the constraints that accompany it. Why? Because in your infrastructure, considerations around security and data protection can slow things down. Choose a platform that can connect to data securely or sit on top of the infrastructure, without changing it. The fewer constraints your developers have, the faster they can work. For example, RESTful APIs enable you to be flexible and armed with the right tools for building apps quickly and delivering for your business. But if you’re calling user data from a system of record, the channel must be encrypted. With encryption in place, you can stop worrying about the red tape and start developing. Remember, security doesn’t have to mean slow.

A New Kind of Excellence

With Mobile, you don’t have to establish an entire mobile center of excellence. Instead, focus on creating a development environment that enables you to get the first app out to market quickly, then make refinements as you gather user feedback. This approach is more about “doing” than “planning,” and it enables developers to develop from the bottom up with the right tools. Building close relationships between developers, business users and other stakeholders helps you to nail the functionality sooner, and come as close as humanly possible to meeting the business need.

Aygun Suleymanova is head of Platform Product Marketing at Progress Software. She is responsible for evangelizing the idea of developer-driven enterprise mobility and Telerik’s flagship mobile app dev product that enables it. Aygun has diverse experiences in enterprise mobility and SaaS industries spearheading and driving high-impact go-to-market initiatives, educating stakeholders, and accelerating growth for software products for developers and enterprises. She is a big believer in cloud mobility and an avid advocate for the use of open source, developer-focused tools and technologies in the enterprise.