What should Mobility Road map Cover?

Governance

End to end processes and tools are defined from ideation to BAU (Business As Usual) phase. Clear definition of entry criteria, exit criteria and approvals need to defined. Existing application development documents like BRD (Business Requirement Document), Design Documents etc need to be modified to fit into mobile development. Summary of governance model will look similar to below table

Project Phase	Entry Criteria	Creator	Work Products	Approver	Exit Criteria
Business Requirements	None	Business Team	BRD (Business Requirement Document)	Business Lead	BRD is approved
Software Specifications	BRD is approved	Analyst	SRD (Software Requirement Document)	Business Lead, IT Manager	SRD is Approved
Planning
User Experience Design
Software Design
Legal
Deployment
Development
Testing
Go Live
BAU

Tool set needs to defined for all these workflow approvals. Emails are primitive way of approvals and searching for approvals is a big pain. Imagine searching for an approval after two years.

 App ideas and ROI

Apps without ROI are a bane to any organization. ROI metrics and measurement should be defined for all app ideas. Read “Identifying app ideas for organization” for details.

Mobile Platform Selection

All app development platforms have their advantages and drawbacks. Read “Data driven selection of mobile development platform fororganizations” for details.

Selecting Mobile OS

At the present time, it’s easy to choose a mobile OS to support. Android and iOS have 98 % smart phone market share. If 2% of audience matters for your organization you can think about developing for Windows Phone also. Ex: 2% customers is important for e-commerce giants like Amazon. Thumb rule is if Windows Phone adoption increases to 10 % you can think about Windows Phone.

98% quoted above is worldwide market share. This may vary across geographies and demographics. To get realistic customer pattern, check analytics of your organization’s existing websites.

Selecting devices

Check the analytics of existing websites to get top ten device models users are using. Make sure development and testing is done for these top devices.

When it comes to company provided devices. Selection of devices is much easier

• High end users will prefer iPads.
• For low end users, go for Android tablets.
• Ruggedized devices need to be chosen for heavy duty usage like manufacturing floor, mobile POS systems. These devices work in extreme conditions and are designed to withstand tumble, drop and temperatures. There are specialized vendors like Honeywell and Intermec who provide these devices
• iPads are not preferred in countries and areas with security issues. An iPad can become reason for mugging and place user in dangerous situation.
• If cost is the only criteria, Android is the choice.
• Mapping of app ideas with devices should be also done to check the feasibility of app on a device. Ex: iOS does not allow access to local file system.

 

Security

Mobility has brought about big disruption in the industry. Data and information behind organization fire walls is now accessible outside firewalls over internet. Detailed plan need to be created to secure this information. There are different facets in security

• Data security on device, ex: device database, files etc.
• Data security on network. Sensitive information is floating around on web.
• Infrastructure Management (IM) has a big play. Firewalls, Mobile Device 
• Management(MDM) and MAM(Mobile Application Management) policies should be defined.
• Application architecture needs to also change and comply to security standards. Ex: Middleware Server in DMZ cannot connect to data sources directly and has to consume Web Service.
• Cloud systems provide security as service which can be leveraged for mobile development.

All these facets should be covered in security strategy. Security team needs to be part of strategy creation.

OWASP(Open Web Application Security Project) has a mobile security specification. All the vulnerabilities in this specification need to be addressed in the security strategy.

Remember, security strategy will make or break your organization’s mobility journey. Any breach of security will lead to privacy, compliance and legal issues.

Mobile Deployment Strategy

• Infrastructure Management (IM) team needs to create deployment Strategy. Important facets are
• Changes required to in-premise and cloud infrastructure to incorporate mobility
• Firewalls, network and system  access.
• MDM (Mobile Device Management) policies.
• MAM (Mobile Application Management) policies.
• BYOD(Bring Your Own Device) and COPE(Corporate Owned Personally Enabled) policies.

Marketing

Marketing team needs to create branding and best practices guidelines for organisation wide mobile apps.

Legal

Data and information behind organization fire walls is accessible outside firewalls over internet due to mobility. This has huge legal implications. All legal facets needs to cover from privacy, terms and conditions point of view.

Conclusion

Important facets of Mobility Road map are covered in this article. More advanced streams like Agile, Dev Ops can be covered in mobility road map.