Choosing the right tech stack is a critical decision for any product. If you start with something that doesn't fit, you can easily go above budget, outside the timeline. Time will be spent building something that is not what you actually need. It will become a legacy system-to-kill sooner than you’d want. One of the most common mistakes when selecting a tech stack is not doing a proper discovery phase and “CTO work”.
This includes not considering:
⌛️ The long-term product vision and requirements
📱 The complete picture of the customer journey
💰The budget and timeline
👨💻 The required team to build and maintain the new system
📈 The long-term scalability and maintainability of the stack
Another common mistake is selecting a trendy stack not checking if it is the best fit for the project.
There are some steps that help:
1️⃣ Start by clearly defining the product vision and customer journey. Think of how should the product look and function when it’s done. Having a clear view of that is important before discussing specific technologies.
2️⃣ Think of the information architecture in the system. At this point we are not talking about the databases and tech systems yet. We only want to define how different objects would interact with each other.
3️⃣ Go through a proper discovery phase with a CTO. This stage can take several weeks, but it is crucial to define the technical scope of the future project.
As a result of this stage, you should receive:
▶ The system-agnostic architecture of the future platform
▶ Proposal of the tech stack that would fit best in the long-term
▶ Team requirements in terms of the capacity and roles to carry out the development and maintenance.
▶ High-level project plan with a timeline and a budget.
With the output from these steps, you can think separately about the right team. Hire internally, an agency, or manage independent individual contractors. And proceed with the outlined plan.
