One of the great and perhaps the all-time achievement of the IT industry is that it has generalized a few things so well that anyone has access to them and they have become a mouthpiece. One such example is mobile applications and the ever-increasing number of mobile devices.

The usability of mobile applications has reached a point that there’s hardly a part of the day that we don’t use them. Whenever we are on our phones, we are ultimately using some applications. Mobile applications have turned our mobiles into a single unit of information and they have not remained just a proxy for voice to voice communication.

One significant factor that has contributed a lot to this explosive trend of mobile app development is the increasing number of mobile phones globally. I was reading a report that says, currently there are almost 3.5 billion active mobile devices in the world and this number is projected to cross the 7 billion mark by the year 2027. Also, people now have easy access to mobiles and the internet and in some parts of the world internet is free that adds a lot to the hype of mobile applications.

Now let’s shift the horizon towards the development side of mobile apps, the final product that we use takes a lot of effort and work during the development process to make it look the way we use it in the end. The whole process starts when a business is convinced that it’s facing some problems that needed to address via mobile app development.

In this article, I will discuss how organizations develop a scope of work (SOW) that ultimately leads to the creation of beautiful mobile apps. Or if you are not sure what a competitive scope of work includes, this article’s just for you.

So, let’s get things started.

Defining the Scope of Work of a Mobile App Project:

Before making you go through how a scope of work looks like let’s just discuss what exactly a scope of work is. A Scope of Work (SOW) is a document that includes the division of work to be performed under a contract in the completion of a project, typically divided into particular tasks with stated deadlines. When we refer to a “Scope of Work”, we typically refer to the document detailing the division of work.

Broadly, the scope of work answers the following three questions:

• What needs to be done?
• How it should be done?
• How much it will take to be done?

Business organizations often find themselves in all sorts of hesitation and confusion when answering these fundamental questions. False projections can not only prove to be dangerous but they can endanger the whole development process. So, it’s of paramount importance that companies pull their socks up and spend considerable time deciding the scope of work for mobile applications.

Section 1:Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA):

It’s a good corporate practice to start your SOW with a non-disclosure agreement between your company and the company/person you have hired for the development purpose. This agreement bounds the developing company not to disclose or share any information about your app project with any third party. Breaching that document means breaching the agreement and you can explore different legal options against that company/person.

Remember, these are your ideas that needed to be used to serve your purposes solely. Some companies don’t include a non-disclosure agreement section in their SOW rather they limit the amount of information regarding the project in SOW which again is not the right way because the lesser the information you provide, the greater would be the chances of ambiguities to occur.

Section 2: Overview of the Project:

This section has all the related information about the project quoted in it. For example, if you are operating a business in the real estate sector and you want to convey the idea of what are the driving factors behind your project, how should it look like, what is the target audience, and what will it offer to the audience. You’ll involve all these to following sub-sections:

• What the project is all about?
• How will it work?
• Target Audience
• Business Model

Section 3: Putting all the Technical Information:

This is the most important section of an SOW where you put all your core project information. You pile up all the technicalities and sort them according to the order of preference. It’s not necessary that you only rely on the textual format to present your ideas, it’s a great practice to use visual content such as demographics, flowcharts, graphs, diagrams, pictures, and videos to present your project in a much better way.

• You can also mention some examples/inspirations maybe of your competitors’ applications to better convey your likes and dislikes to the development team.
• Moreover, there’ll be some other technicalities that you’ll be covering in this section, such as:
• The type of solution you are looking for. In this case, it’s a mobile application.
• Details about the admin panel and a list of the persons who’ll be having access to the admin panel.
• List down all the features you want in your app (Make sure you don’t go for extra features that are necessary for you and your customers).
• Terms and Conditions regarding App Maintenance.
• Desired time of project completion

Section 4: Wrapping up the SOW:

This is probably the last section of any SOW that further discusses some aspects that remained undiscussed in the previous ones. You’ll need to add them here before sharing them with the development company you’ve hired.

They are:

• Project Completion Timeline
• Costing (Costing includes development cost, maintenance cost, running cost, any other cost)
• Agreement undertaking.

Wrap Up:

It’s a great deal to always prepare an SOW rather than relying on mere verbal communication. Scope of work not only adds a factor of trust between both the parties but also eases down the process of development since both parties are under an agreement.

If your business lies in New York and you are in a quest of finding a reputable mobile developer, SoftCircles is a top-rank mobile app development company in New York that has expertise in developing robust and competitive mobile applications.