How to frame a NoCode project?

NoCode is a set of technologies that allow to create digital products without the need to code. I think this definition is well known here!

As for any digital project, however, it is important to frame your project before launching it, whether you have technical skills or not.

Indeed, even if NoCode tools facilitate the creation of applications, key steps must be followed to ensure the success of a digital project.

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The scoping phase: a must

Once you have thought about your idea, organized and structured it and built your business model, you can get down to business.

In other words, you will finally be able to implement the means to make it concrete.

Any project is developed in phases that follow one another until the final point. This is called project management. And yes, a digital project is not only development!

You have to think about everything around it, including the product itself, user needs, testing and technical support.

In general, the project is divided into five phases: scoping, development, technical testing, delivery and finally, retrospective.

The framing phase is the very first one. And it is the one we will develop here.

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Good practices to frame your project

A product work phase

Without working upstream on its product, how can the developer develop it? Mission impossible really...

The first step is to work on the product, often with a first Design Sprint workshop.

The Design Sprint (a practical implementation of the Design Thinking methodology for the curious) brings together different expertises and builds a common vision around a product in the form of timed workshops in which decision-makers, a developer, a designer and any other stakeholder in the project are gathered.

It helps you create your project more efficiently by focusing on the user experience.

Its purpose is to align, frame and secure the project before going further.

At the end of this Product phase, we will have detailed all the functionalities and visuals of your project. We will therefore have :

• User paths: visual paths that your users can take when they interact with your product. All possible paths should be described.
• Functionalities: detailed description of all the functionalities.
• From the graphic model: all the "high-fidelity" screens of your future digital product.

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Choose the right development tools

Once we have defined what our product is going to consist of, we will have to find the appropriate development tools.

There are many NoCode technologies and the list is growing.

Bubble for applications and platforms, Webflow for websites, Make or Zapier for automations, we only quote here the most known.

The goal will be to find the tool or tools that will really serve the project in order to facilitate the development while respecting certain constraints inherent to the project such as: the location of data storage, scalability, SEO, etc...

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Writing a DRP

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The last step in this phase is the writing of the PRD (Product Requirement Document).

This document contains all the detailed information and objectives of the project to be developed. A kind of charter that agrees the parties on what will be done (features, functionalities, etc.).

Much more than a specification, this document generally evolves with the progress of the project, it is regularly updated in accordance with the iterations of the product and proposes a medium-long term vision of the project.

In the end, we obtain a sort of genetic map of the product, allowing the developer to give life to it.

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What's next?

Then we can launch (finally) in the development phase and give life to the v1 of the project.

I hope now that you understand better the necessity of framing your project to develop it well.

A step that can be difficult to consider for project leaders and yet is decisive for the future. So don't neglect it!