The most effective strategy for mobile application development is an iterative and incremental approach. This involves releasing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)—an initial, simple version with core functionality—to the market first. This allows the development team to gather crucial user feedback and real-world data. Subsequent features are then developed and added incrementally based on this validated market demand and user needs. This Agile-aligned method minimizes the risk of building unwanted features, allows for adaptation to market changes, and ensures the final product delivers maximum value to its users.

A. This "big bang" approach is inflexible, costly, and slow, failing to incorporate user feedback until the very end, by which time market needs may have changed.

B. Prioritizing speed over quality by releasing a buggy application leads to poor user experience, negative reviews, and damages brand reputation, often causing project failure.

D. Adding features based on random ideas rather than validated market demand is inefficient and risks wasting resources on functionality that users do not want or need.

1. ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level - Agile Tester Syllabus (Version 2014): Section 1.1.2, "Agile Manifesto," emphasizes "Responding to change over following a plan" and "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation." This supports the principle of developing incrementally based on market feedback (customer demand) rather than a rigid, upfront plan. The syllabus promotes delivering value in small increments.

2. Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. While a book, its principles are foundational in modern software engineering curricula. Chapter 6, "Test," details the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept. The core idea is to "start with a simple product" (the MVP) and "iterate and add features" based on validated learning from real customers, which directly aligns with option C.

3. MIT OpenCourseWare, 6.033 Computer System Engineering, Spring 2018. Lecture 2, "The Software Crisis, and Other Problems," discusses the failures of the Waterfall model (similar to option A) and introduces iterative development as a solution. It highlights the importance of building a simple initial system and evolving it based on experience and feedback to manage complexity and risk.