What repeatable steps do you use with your no-code projects?
Are there certain steps or processes you do to make your no-code projects more efficient or successful? I'm curious whether you intentionally—or coincidentally—find yourself repeating many steps on your projects.
I find some of the configuration steps a bit repetitive across tools and projects, so I'm curious whether people use systems or frameworks.
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Researching this question today, I found a few good resources here on IH and elsewhere that touch on these topics.
Product building process
@markk discussed the building process the way a product manager would approach it in The Product Management Blueprint. Mark also turned these ideas into a really nice interactive blueprint. I like the Why/What/How concept, and the How section really resonates with the way I've been thinking about this question.
@BryceV wrote a nice post about constantly iterating during the no-code building process. This description of the process is very true:
Tutorials and ideas about how to get started
It probably goes without saying that @bentossell and the crew at Makerpad have a ton (or tonne) of really informative no-code tutorials over on Makerpad.
Here on IH, @twentyfourmillion asked a good question that gathered a lot of great resources about getting started with Webflow, Memberspace, and related technologies. Personally, I find that walking through a variety of tutorials is very helpful and helps to build understanding of how everything fits together, but it can be easy to get distracted. Tutorials are not really a repeatable process since they're often very specific to certain solutions or leave out key steps.
@TruPlum asked for people to share insights about how to create an MVP that resulted in good conversation.
Product Management methodologies
Many of us are probably familiar with some of the product management methodologies used in traditional software development:
While researching product management methodologies that might work for no-code projects, I found 280 Group's Optimal Product Process. The "Phases and Activities" portion of their framework is a good visual diagram of the product lifecycle.
Aha! shared a pretty good overview of product development methodologies as well as general information about product strategy and planning within an engineering organization.
Appcues has a lot of great resources and tutorials about Product Management processes and workflows.
No-code methodologies
I still haven't found anything that answers my questions about repeatable processes specific to no-code. If you have thoughts, I would love to hear your suggestions.
It's really nice when people do the research to attempt to answer their own questions - thanks for putting in that effort, updating this post, and for the mention!
You've asked a powerful question as people are getting into product management for the first time with no-code.
I think there are two parts to your question:
1 how to efficiently build a business with a no-code product?
2 how to efficiently build a no-code product?
Does that sound right?
In either scenario, we need a framework that is centered around rapid iteration. Unlike anything we've seen.
Because speed is the no-code advantage, design, direction, vision, etc. all have to match the speed of building to take advantage of no-code.
I'm not sure what this will look like, but I think @bentossell probably has some really good insight about the new speed limit on building.
@brycev That is exactly right about the two parts to the question. I was initially asking whether people use efficient, repeatable processes in the build phase of no-code projects. As I thought about the question, it became clear that what I was actually asking reflected my belief that a holistic product development methodology greatly increases the likelihood of overall success.
Regardless of whether the end product is intended to be a business, the value created is likely to be greater when intentionally seeking insights from users early and prioritizing objectives.
I really appreciate your assertion that a methodical framework should be an accelerant to value creation from end-to-end. That’s a completely valid point and raises the bar. The methodology needs to be lightweight and rapid.
A systematic approach is probably especially suited to working on nocode projects that are intended to become startups. A repeatable method is useful for any development process, but even more so when launching as a paid product.
Combining product development principles with startup launch techniques, we get a iterative workflow that could be broken down into phases (sometimes overlapping in time) such as this:
When applied to nocode projects, many of these phases can be greatly accelerated by building and launching quickly, and iterating quickly after gathering user feedback. Since speed to execution is valuable, a method like this—combined with the minimal investment required to build on nocode tools—could increase chances of success.
Upon hearing the stories from successful people in NoCode, choose the right tools for you, and build it.
I like it. Nice and simple. Sometimes, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
If you are still figuring out how and where to start, you might want to check out our website https://www.nocodejournal.com/. Hope this helps and looking forward to the product you'll build.
Thanks, @paulinneanne! I appreciate it.
I checked out the site and thought it was very cool.