Speed matters in app development, but make sure you do not go too fast

When can we go live? It is often the first question asked at the start of a new app project. And although speed can be crucial to the success of your app, there is a dangerous paradox hidden in that haste. Because by wanting to go too fast, you run the risk of losing valuable time.

It is like a Formula 1 race: you want to reach the finish as fast as possible, but push the accelerator too hard? Then you fly off the track and end up far behind. Just like a racing driver, you have to find the right balance between speed and control. In this article we show you how.

Why speed is so tempting

The pressure to have an app developed quickly is often high. There are several reasons for that:

• Time is money - automation often saves a lot of time and money. Do your employees still create invoices by hand? The sooner you have an integration built to automate this, the sooner you start saving.
• The deadline is fixed - sometimes you have no choice. Take a housing association that has to comply with the new housing valuation system. Do they not have a tool that calculates the right rents in time? Then they risk fines.
• Costs - the budget often plays a role too. The longer a development process takes, the more it usually costs.
• Competition - add to that the fact that your competitor may be working on a comparable solution, and you understand why many organisations are in a hurry.
• Modern tools promise speed - the rise of modern development tools such as low-code platforms and AI makes it even more tempting. These tools give the impression that everything can be done faster and faster.

The cost of developing fast

Yet speed is not the answer to everything. In fact, developing too fast can end up costing you a great deal of extra time and money. That sounds contradictory, but it really is the case. These are the biggest pitfalls:

A poor foundation

Starting too quickly often leads to a shaky foundation for your app. You may think carefully about every individual feature, but lose sight of the bigger picture. How does all the data hang together? What relationships are there between users, orders or documents? If you do not answer these questions properly, everything grinds to a halt later on. And just as with a house on a poor foundation, repairing it afterwards becomes an expensive and time-consuming affair.

Security risks

Under time pressure, security often gets too little attention. "We will sort that out later" is a dangerous thought. Because as soon as your app is live, it is under fire from cybercriminals. A data breach happens in no time. And the impact of that is enormous: reputational damage, fines from the Dutch Data Protection Authority and costly repair work.

Performance problems

The performance of your app can suffer from rushed work as well. Perhaps everything works fine when five people are logged in at the same time. But what if there are five hundred? Or what if your database is full of millions of records in a year's time? If you do not think about that in advance, you run into big problems later.

Dissatisfied users

Rushed work often leads to apps that work technically, but feel illogical in practice. A cumbersome workflow here, a missing feature there, and before you know it users take refuge in Excel sheets and paper forms. And so you achieve exactly the opposite of what you wanted: instead of making the work easier, you make it more complex.

Code that is hard to maintain

Under time pressure, developers often take shortcuts in the code. They go for a quick fix instead of a lasting solution. In the short term that seems smart, but it makes your app harder to maintain. Adding new features becomes trickier and bugs are harder to track down.

This is how you find the right balance

Fortunately there is a middle way between sluggishness and rushed development. By working smartly, you can achieve both speed and quality.

Start small and simple

Start with the core of your application. What is the absolute minimum you need in order to go live?

An example from practice: for an app for an inspection service, we initially wanted to build all the functionality in one go. Including buying credits through iDeal. But instead of developing a full payment system straight away, we first only showed users their available credits. Buying new credits happened through the existing website. Thanks to this smart shortcut we could launch the app much faster, without compromising on quality.

Take the time for a good foundation

It may sound contradictory, but investing time at the front end often saves time at the back end. Make sure you get all the important information on the table before you start building.

That means:

• Ask the right questions of all stakeholders
• Map out processes properly
• Think about future extensions
• Create a well-considered data model

An extra day of preparation can save you weeks of development time, and it also delivers a better result in the end.

Be realistic about deadlines

Software development is complex and therefore hard to plan. Practice shows that tight deadlines often lead to rushed decisions and messy code. It is better to work with rough time indications that become more concrete as the project goes on.

Or work with 'time windows'. Instead of saying "everything has to be live on 1 March", you say "we are aiming to go live between 1 March and 1 June". That takes the pressure off and gives developers the room to deliver quality.

Test thoroughly before you go live

Also allow enough time for testing your application. Not only functionally ("does everything work?"), but also:

• Security tests
• Performance tests under heavy load
• Usability tests with real end users

Let smart systems help you

Use tools and frameworks that help you develop faster without giving up quality. Modern development platforms such as Mendix, for example, make sure many things around security and performance are taken care of automatically.

Take the time to save time

Of course you do not want to put an unnecessary amount of time into your app. But avoid being too eager to go live. Because one thing is certain: the time you do not invest at the front end, you pay back many times over at the back end, in time, in euros and in headaches.