For the development and release of EzExpense Essentials, I got to try my hand at project managing. During the course of my education, I’ve learned some management theory and even project managed a small group for an assignment, but this was my first time putting those skills to the test in a live environment. The team I was working with was very knowledgeable which made things a bit easier for me.
I had a few different roles throughout the development phase of EzExpense Essentials. Initially I worked on wireframing and ideation back before Christmas. This allowed me to have input on what features we were prioritizing for this release. I also created the development schedule and worked with the developers on the team to ensure that deadlines were reasonable. The app was worked on in phases, which led me into my third role as a QC tester. Every time a new feature or set of features was ready for testing, I made sure that things were working properly or offered my feedback if they weren’t. This led to iterative cycles of testing and improvements where our whole team worked to refine the app before ultimately ending up with a product we were proud to launch.
One of the lessons I learned from this experience was the importance of continuous communication and feedback from all directions. I needed to be clear and consistent in my communications with the development team, and I needed to create a space for them to do the same with me. I also got to experience the reality of development cycles and how flexible a schedule needs to be. You never know how many bugs or feature changes are going to be required before a product is ready to launch, so it’s best to accommodate a flexible project timeline. Overall my first project management experience was very positive, and I look forward to our next big project.
