Key Considerations for Application Planning: Defining Problems, Users, Goals, and Stakeholder Contributions

Planning is the most important part of the application development process. When planning, you should consider what problem the application will solve, who will use it, and what goals and objectives it will meet for users.

Knowing the answers helps keep the design on track and avoids the trap of treating the application itself as the goal rather than the solution to a problem.

In this section you will learn how to identify the business problem (use case), gain a deep understanding of the business process, use your solution to optimize the process, decide whether automating the process is worthwhile, and create a project plan.

Understanding the Current Business Process

You should break down the business process that addresses the problem and examine each step in detail, documenting contributors and the process itself.

Identifying Key Contributors

Carefully consider every person who contributes to the process, including members from your department and other departments, and understand their roles in the context of the business problem.

When you start documenting the business process in the next section, you will rely on these people to help you understand each step, and you may need to add new team members to provide additional perspectives.

Tip: Avoid blind spots! If you encounter a step where "then, a miracle happens," find someone who can illuminate it, and consider work preferences and constraints from different angles.

In our example scenario, we identified the following key contributors: