How to brief a software agency
Author: Magda Piechota
Every day we are approached by entrepreneurs with great ideas for new products asking us for a quote. Yes, we do work on T&M basis (we explain here why we do so), but nonetheless, the clients want a ballpark figure to have something to refer to when planning their budget. But giving them such a ballpark quote is not easy.
An excellent brief helps a lot, and although some of the clients in the past came with great briefs, most startups do not know how to prepare them. Here’s a list of things that help us provide you with a realistic estimate:
Product Description
We need to know everything about your product: the idea, its background, and product goals. If you also have some wishes regarding the technology to be used, it would be good to put it into the document too.
Platforms the product will operate upon
Define the platforms you want your app to be available for.
For a web app: should it be responsive, i.e., adapted to mobile device browsing? What browsers and browser versions should it support?
For a mobile app: iOS only, or maybe iOS and Android? Or maybe you want to target Windows Phone too? What operating system versions would you like to target?
Anything you have on your mind about the platforms and your expectations should go here.
Application/User flow
A visual (or verbal) definition of the Application/User Flow. It will show us how the app should work in your opinion. Maybe you have given a lot of thought to it and you want it to be mirrored in the app. This is a good place to put it.
Clickable mockups of the app
They can be low-fidelity images created in Balsamiq or Hi-fidelity screens in InVision. But they will show us the app flow and expected behavior, and our developers will have no problem with getting the feel of the app and estimate it better. Here you can find an example of such a clickable set.
User stories
If you have the clickable wireframes, then the good idea is to have each screen defined with user stories. User stories describe small functionality pieces.
The standard format is: As a … I want to …
There may be several user roles in your app. Create user stories for all of them. This will show us how complex the app is as well as various behaviors and flows.
The perfect way would be to put a screen and present all the user stories referring to it. Keep in mind that the user story is the single item that our development team assesses thus giving us the basis to give you the price estimate. And hey, user stories do not have to be technical, you only describe the preferred app behavior in them.
Extra information we would like to receive
Extra information we would like to receive
Copy for the app
An app is not a static, standalone thing. It reacts to the actions of the user, informing them of where in the app they are, confirming what they have done, showing alerts, sending confirmation messages, etc. We need the copy so that we can input all the text to the app while developing it. If you prepare the copy in advance, it will save precious development time, on constant copy alterations.
Additional relevant information
If you want the app to have Analytics attached to it, put it in your document. If you want a specific technology used, also mention it there.
On the whole, any extra relevant information you supply us with is invaluable to us in reference to the timing and pricing estimations.
With such prepared document, any software studio will be glad to offer you a precise quote on the timing and pricing figures. It will be a pleasure to read and will only prove that the client is very involved in the creation process.
