Advantages of a Proof of Concept Environment in Software Development

A proof of concept (POC) is valuable because it offers more flexibility, scalability, control, and enhanced accessibility for your business. It also allows project managers to identify gaps in processes that may interfere with success. 

For startups, POCs are especially useful to determine if a product is financially viable and future-proof. It’s important to determine any future enhancements (or issues) early on to deploy a successful product. 

Stakeholders need a workable POC to see if a technology, service, or idea is ready for the market. There’s a lot of review and research that occurs for this. The solution to that? Having a proof of concept environment.

A POC needs to be workable. Since Environment as a Service (EaaS) has ephemeral environments, developers can frequently test (and throughout the process) in isolation without interfering with another developer’s work or environments.

By creating proof of concept environments, you’re able to test multiple services or ideas simultaneously (if your team size permits it) without worrying about interference or costly rework.

A POC is not the final project, so plan the time, resources, and effort accordingly. You’ll want to focus on what you need to do within a reasonable timeline, usually no more than two weeks. Additionally, you’ll want to assign two to three developers with the required skills to work on your POC. 

Pro tip: for a more efficient team, get a project manager or a mentor with a mix of technical and business experience, along with developers who can quickly translate an idea into a more tangible project. 

Since an EaaS model is scalable, it allows you to focus only on the resources you need. This applies to proof of concept environments too. And by focusing on only the resources you need, you’re not sacrificing time or money. 

Usually, stakeholders have specific requirements, and developers choose which few to focus on, ultimately solving those requirements with a proof of concept. Since environments can be tested frequently, this allows developers to immediately send the latest functional build to stakeholders, increasing transparency and improving investor relations. When stakeholders see the changes live, as code is developed in the environment, they can provide feedback at any point throughout this process. 

Feedback from everyone involved in a project, whether positive or constructive, can then be applied immediately and efficiently to change the project’s direction, mitigating unforeseen risk. You can use feedback to guide your dev team in the right direction, refine your concept, and decide whether the project is worth pursuing (if feedback was mostly negative, maybe it’s time to come up with a new and improved version). Remember to be flexible and open to feedback; your final product is dependent on it.

POCs are customizable and detail-oriented. So as discoveries are made, and feedback is received, you may need to change your priorities, goals, and budget to have it succeed. This makes a proof of concept environment very cost-effective because it allows you to pre-plan and verify technical assumptions and use cases before further investing in any additional labor, resources, or extra costs that go into a product. 

Also, intended users get a better perception of your application since access to the final product is available sooner, offering you more flexibility to make any future changes.

Unlike on-site environments, POC environments (or any EaaS environment for that matter) can be accessed, updated, and modified from anywhere on any machine since they exist in the cloud. As a result, every participant gets the whole experience without installing or keeping track of new versions of the software. Additionally, stakeholders and intended users can offer feedback from anywhere as they engage with the platform at their own pace. 

Environment as a Service allows you to develop individual software elements, test them, conduct POCs, and make sure you are releasing the best version of your product in an efficient time-to-market strategy. This makes developers’ lives so much easier by having multiple staging environments and the ability to work on different feature branches. 

It’s not just about proof of concept; EaaS environments and their many benefits make the whole team effort more efficient. Are you ready to become more efficient?