The Mobile App Development Complexity and Cost Meter

Designed to assess the cost and complexity of building an app for your business use case

Mobility can add great value to the business; however, its true cost can often be underestimated. Many mobile app development projects require more complex integration with back-end systems, adherence to regulatory requirements, and/or compelling user interface design that can drive up the cost of development.

As organizations mature in their approach to mobile strategy they should place more emphasis on calculating the true costs of mobile app development and understanding the business value that can be generated by mobility. Red Hat has created a simple Mobile App Assessment Tool that breaks down the elements associated with developing a business mobile app. This tool is designed to give a high-level overview of the complexity and resource requirements of individual mobile app projects based on responses to 10 questions included in this exercise.

The tool enables lines of business, IT decision-makers, and mobile development managers to explore the use cases for mobile, as well as the elements of development, integration, and deployment that should be considered for each mobile app project they plan. The output is a report that provides a score of the complexity of the front-end development, back-end integration, and deployment, offering an estimation of developer resource requirements. An associated set of recommendations and additional content accompanies the output, which is available as a downloadable PDF file.

As decisions on enterprise mobility initiatives shift from IT to lines of business, we see the responsibility for tracking the success of mobile app projects shifting as well. While the business can provide value in prioritizing mobile use cases and features, determining technical complexity and cost can be challenging for line of business managers. When considering factors that vary from back-end integration to front-end features and how the app is to be deployed, mobile app development becomes more than just a simple touch interface.

The Mobile App Assessment Tool takes three steps and you’re ready to start:

1. Identify your business use cases for mobile
2. Consider each mobile app as a separate project
3. Answer 10 questions in four steps to help discover the scope and complexity of a mobile app project