January 2019

<h2>Mobile App Development Future: Omnichannel, Cognitive and Self Adjusting</h2>



It’s hard to see changes when they advance gradually. A few years ago, enterprises were just setting out on their mobile journeys. They had to learn what it meant to support multiple platforms, how to leverage smartphone features, and how to distribute apps in app stores. Fast forward to today, and companies have been largely successful at overcoming these challenges. Now that the basics are mastered, we will enter a new phase of innovation in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.appzoro.com/">mobile app development</a>. 



Here are three trends that will transform the apps we use:



<h3>1. From enabling the mobile channel to perfecting omnichannel</h3>



With the proliferation of digital interfaces, from mobile and web to kiosks, wearables, and chatbots, it’s becoming clear that <a href="https://appzoro.com/enterprise-solutions/">enterprises </a>must learn how to interact with users across these touchpoints. The fact that the user experience is split across channels is an opportunity — each touchpoint can be exploited for its particular conveniences. 



To develop for all of these channels, enterprises are standardizing on a common platform for interaction, even as they customize the front-end experience for each form factor. This not only streamlines development and facilitates reuse, but also enables new types of cross-channel interactions. For instance, a user may start booking travel on the web, continue her reservation later on her mobile device and receive flight notifications on her smartwatch. She may access the lounge with her smartphone, which recognizes her gold status and unlocks the door. Or, she might verbally agree to pay for her extra luggage while her identity is confirmed in the background by non-obtrusive biometric authentication. Multiple channels work together to create a seamless experience. Omnichannel touchpoints go hand in hand with developing a common set of microservices (back-end functions) that decompose and isolate features. This allows delivery streams to be autonomous and to auto-scale different components of the application independently, depending on fluctuating capacity demands. Specific microservices can be added to a particular channel experience without needing to deploy a completely new back end, reusing capabilities across channels. 



<h3>2. From predefined interaction patterns to customer lead engagement</h3>



Mobile apps used to be &#8220;me too” entities, mimicking the tried-and-true web interaction patterns with a little extra mobile flavor, such as push notifications. However, we now understand that mobile enables a completely different style of interaction. The key insight is this: Instead of the app dictating when and how the user should accomplish a task, the app enables customers or employees to choose when and how to engage and can also proactively guide users as they try to accomplish particular tasks. To do this, the app leverages the rich world of data, both on the phone and on the web (given user permission, of course), to understand the user’s current context and to anticipate what the user needs next. For example, a hospital app can inform a patient arriving at the hospital that there is a longer-than-expected line for his first appointment and that he should proceed first to the blood lab. Such an interaction can improve hospital efficiency and make the patient experience more pleasing. An app can also give users the flexibility to choose how to engage. A fan at a golf tournament might use a tournament app to follow only her favorite players, rather than everything that is happening at the tournament. She can get notifications when these players are about to tee off, read statistics about them, and interact with other fans rooting for those same players. 



With the advent of cognitive services, the ability for apps to identify the user’s intent and garner the right experience will become even easier. By knowing what a user is trying to accomplish at any given moment, you can also simplify the interface so it’s easy and rewarding to use. Cognitive services, personalization, and event-based programming models are key technologies to build this new breed of apps. 



<h3>3. From inflexible, hard-to-customize apps to continuous experimentation and adaptation</h3>



It’s not always obvious what users will and won’t like. And the answer is never final — user preferences and expectations change over time. Therefore, we must view mobile app development as a continuous, agile process with no clear-cut boundaries between analysis, development, and deployment. Setting up a continuous cycle of experimentation, feedback and adaptation are key. However, adopting this framework for mobile is especially challenging, since the process of updating the app, delivering it to app stores, and coaxing users to download the latest version can be lengthy. New technologies have evolved to assist with these challenges, including those that support the incremental rollout of app features, collecting rich usage metrics, and then deciding to either proceed with a rollout or to retract changes. 



Other technologies enable turning features on and off with the switch of a button — known as &#8220;feature flipping — distributing different feature sets for different user segments and dynamically updating content and app capabilities. Imagine an automotive app that dynamically configures itself for the specific car you are currently driving or an app that automatically presents a credit card tab right when your credit card application is approved. These kinds of optimized user interactions require continuous analysis of how features are being used, how users are engaging with the app, and whether different capabilities are having the desired impact. 



Mobile app development is moving in two complementary directions. As the need for more omnichannel apps grows, technologies for scaling development and deployment become more important — hence the rise of DevOps, microservices, and continuous integration. 



In parallel, users will naturally gravitate to applications that are engaging and help them accomplish what they are trying to do. This means that applications will make better use of user context and technologies that support adaptation such as feature flipping.



Supporting these trends means taking a data-driven approach to app development, continuously experimenting with new features and experiences, measuring outcomes, and adjusting development priorities based on outcomes. Combined, these trends will usher in the next generation of apps.

The future of mobile app development: Omnichannel Cognitive and Self Adjusting. Read the article to learn the details.

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The Future of Mobile App Development

In the earlier articles, we have discussed Project launch and execution, and we continue with the next topic of Project performance and control. This phase requires the project manager to connect with the management staff and stakeholders to report them in terms of progress, quality, commitments, changes, new requirements, and critical concerns. The purpose of project control is to efficiently manage the task and the execution cycle to prepare the project for the next phase. Below we have compiled a list of steps on how to manage performance and control for your project and the types of reports required.
<h2 dir="ltr">Project control</h2>
Project control is a function of project management. It is targeted to define and achieve desired objectives and expectations with a strict schedule which involves three high-level processes to carry out throughout the project :
<ul>
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Setting standards
</li>
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Measuring performance
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Taking iterations and feedback
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</ul>
The above processes are further divided into five small steps :
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Hold meetings
</li>
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Adhere to quality control
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Tracking task progress
</li>
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Respond to change
</li>
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Manage and solve issues
</li>
</ul>
<h2 dir="ltr">Hold Meetings</h2>
The aim of conducting meetings during the project execution is to bring the team on the same page and manage efficiently by clearly defining goals and objectives. In a meeting, the project manager provides an overview of the work, weekly plan, current goals and issues, and how communication can be more seamless. Meetings should have a clear agenda, and all team members should be communicated in advance for the meeting. A meeting can be beneficial for the following tasks :
<ul>
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Assign roles and review the responsibilities of the team members
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Create a project roadmap and provide direction to the team
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Current status of project work, backlogs, and open issues
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Establish success benchmarks
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Perform quality control
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Hear feedback and suggestions from team members
</li>
</ul>
By managing and controlling project quality, it is possible to complete the project with the desired expectations, product requirements, and adhere to technical standards.
Below we have compiled a list of essential task to perform control quality:
<ul>
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Create and review schedules, Gantt charts at any given stage
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Detailed work agenda and teams to determine critical tasks
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Assign work to team members, define roles and responsibilities
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Streamline documents and decisions in written format
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Ensure there is clear communication and follow best practices
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Consult stakeholders whenever required and provide the project status
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Detailed monitoring of work progress
</li>
</ul>
List of how to track progress and maintain project control:
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Track the task performance data, start-finish date of the tasks, break down tasks in hours and provide timelines to team members
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Update the schedule with the actual work performed
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Estimate the remaining time and cost during a given period
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Adjust team members availability and reassign if required
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Involve additional resources it needed
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Measure team performance
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Determine bottlenecks
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</ul>
The objective of controlling changes is to define and execute the additional work in the given stage.
<blockquote>
Project control is a complicated and comprehensive process. It requires project managers to stay compliant and follow all the steps of the process. Lastly, documentation is essential, and below, we have compiled a list of the necessary documentation for project performance and control.
</blockquote>
1. Status report
The status report document provides the current state of the project at any given time. This helps stakeholders and managers to know the project in a single snapshot in respect to the time, cost, quality, and can adjust these elements accordingly.
2. Forecasting Report
A forecasting report states the expectations in the project, predicts future performance, and gap analysis of the project at various times and parameters. This helps to foresee and track the allocation of resources for optimum utilization.
3. Trend Report
This document helps to compare the current performance and the last performance of the project at a given time duration. These time durations can vary from monthly, weekly, quarterly, or annually. This report helps to understand that the performance of the project is improving or degrading.
In the next article, we will discuss the last phase of <a href="http://bit.ly/2Kf2Tdr">Project Management &#8211; Close and Sign Off</a>. Appzoro helps individuals, startups, and organizations to build beautiful and scalable mobile applications for their audiences. For more information, visit our resource center or contact an <a href="http://bit.ly/2Zm5HvJ">app development expert</a> today.
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Also Read: <a href="https://appzoro.com/blog/know-more-about-snapchat-ipo">Know more about Snapchat IPO</a>

This is a guide about how you can track your project performance? Let's read this article and dive into deep.

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The Future of Mobile App Development

How to Track Project Performance?

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