Software development life cycle (SDLC)

  

What is software product development?

 

It structures the work of the development teams enabling them to meet the project requirements, meet deadlines, and stay within the budget.

Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components.

Each of the stages of the software development life cycle depends on the model of the software development process a company chooses whether it’s agile, waterfall, V-model, RAD (rapid app development) or incremental.

 

The Different Software Product Development Methodologies

There are several software development methodologies in the market today, each offering a different set of benefits: from improved process efficiency to minimized risk, enhanced scalability to continuous iterations. Here’s a look at the three most popular software product development methodologies – waterfall, agile, and scrum – and see which one serves your business needs best.

Waterfall

One of the earliest software development methodologies, the waterfall model incorporates a series of sequential steps: conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, production/implementation, and maintenance. Since the model ensures distinct goals are accomplished, it is ideal for projects where requirements are clear and also for projects where detailed, precise, and accurate documents describe how the system is to be produced.

Agile

The agile method works on an iterative approach, where new releases of the system are created and made available to customers every few weeks. For each stage of the product, more features can be tested, added, and again tested after getting feedback from customers. Since each team works in parallel, checking for product quality all along, agile methodology saves time and ensures the end product meets the intended requirements.

Scrum

Scrum, a subset of Agile, is used to manage the software product development process at the macro level. It deploys an incremental approach and follows the values and principles of agile; also, it covers further definitions and specifications by considering some critical software development practices. Most scrum principles are borrowed from the Agile methodology: especially related to customer feedback and fast increments. This approach is best suitable for products with changing requirements.

Scrum is an agile development methodology used in the development of Software based on an iterative and incremental process. Scrum is an adaptable, fast, flexible, and effective agile framework that is designed to deliver value to the customer throughout the development of the project.

Stages of Software Development 

Stage 1: Idea Generation

It all starts with a great idea. But any idea needs to be carefully thought over to be implemented.
The ideation phase involves an analysis of the problem statement as defined by the customer. By extracting key requirements, developers ideate a proper solution that can fulfill the customer’s needs. Conceptualization involves formulating the idea or concept; once the scope of the project is defined, a list of desired design features and requirements is created.
Your goal should be to generate many worthy ideas that can form the foundation for the New Product Development strategy. The major part of this stage should be to give significance to brainstorming sessions where solving customer problems is given precedence.

 

Stage 2: Requirements and feasibility analysis

During this phase of software development, the project is defined in details and the analysis of the project’s feasibility is carried out. To build an actionable solution, clean code and catchy design is not enough, you first need for the development team to get a deeper understanding of the project goal and collect all the requirements. Feasibility analysis displays all the technical and economical aspects impacting the application development process: time, resources and tasks and involvement estimates from the team members help calculate ROI and determine project cost and profit. Requirements analysis also helps identify the risks at the very start so that risk mitigation strategies can be worked out from the very beginning. Clear structured documentation ensures better cooperation and understanding of both the development team and clients.

Stage 3: Design 

Software design is a preeminent component of software project development. During the design phase, the actual conceptualizing of the solution is created, that is the detailed software architecture meeting specific project requirements is created. Custom-tailored software design by software architects and engineers sets definite workflows and standards and encompasses clear overall solution/product design together with database structure and design. During this phase, the whole structure of the project is built with the final prototype and mockups used for the next stages of the software development process.

The requirements are broken down further to forecast the timeline and estimate efforts; once requirements are clearly detailed, technical resources are identified, specific tasks are assigned to each individual and they are provided with the necessary documentation required to begin the design and development process. Specific designs and workflows for the application as well as the tools and technology on which the solutions will be built are identified.

Based on the development approach, tasks are broken down and the product can be completed within the defined timeline. Several key documents including the design document, the functional requirement specification document, and coding standards that will be followed during the final delivery is created.

Stage 4: Development & coding

The development phase is about writing code and converting design documentation into the actual software within the software development process. This stage of SDLC is generally the longest as it’s the backbone of the whole process and there are a number of vital things to pay attention to. The software engineering team has to make sure their code meets the software requirements specifications, conforms to the stakeholders’ requirements, etc. 

Stage 5: Integration and testing

 

Since quality is key to the success of any software product, the quality assurance stage involves build installation, system testing, bug fixing, user acceptance testing (UAT), and test report generation. After a release has been completed, the development and testing phases are performed iteratively as issues are found, corrected, and verified. At the end of this phase, a stable product with minimal issues is ready for deployment. It is always best to allow time for UAT testing before approving an application for production implementation.

Now that the software is built and completed the next phase involving system testing and integration starts. Depending on the adopted testing processes it might vary. But typically the QA engineers use a whole range of frameworks alongside continuous integration executing unit tests, automation compilation, and testing. The Quality Assurance team conducts a series of tests including functionality testing, systems integration, and interoperability as well as user acceptance testing, etc. in order to ensure the code is clean and business goals of the solution are met. Verification and validation make up a vital part in ensuring the application/solution is completed successfully. Now that the software is bug-free, the implementation phase starts.

Stage 6: Implementation and deployment

It’s done step-by-step according to the implementation plan. The newly built and tested application is moved to production including data and components transfer while during the next releases only the specific changes will be deployed. Depending on the complexity of the project it might be a straightforward release (if the project is simple) or staggered released (in stages) in case of a more complex project. Now system analysts and the end-users can actually see and try out the ready application.

The transfer of product knowledge from the individual, team, department, or organization onto the customer characterizes this phase. During this phase of knowledge transfer, change requests, impact analysis, and all pending documentation is completed. At the end of this phase, the development team hands over all the aspects of the project to the customer including code, documents, and software licenses.

 

Stage 7: Operations and maintenance

The final stage of the software development lifecycle includes maintenance and regular updates. The phase is treated with the utmost attention since during the stage the product is polished, upgraded, enhanced, and fine-tuned according to the real-world feedback on its performance. That’s exactly a perfect timing to robust the application’s functionalities to upgrade its performance and modify according to the actual needs of the end-user add new capabilities or meet additional user requirements.

Sustainability ensures that the software will continue to be available in the future, on new platforms, and meeting new needs. Sustainability ensures the software product is easy to evolve, satisfies its intent over time, survives uncertainty, and supports relevant concerns. The way sustainability is approached will depend on many factors, such as how important the software is, its maturity level, the size of its community, and the resources available for achieving sustainability.

Path to Success

With companies investing considerable time and effort in developing software, yet being at risk of failure, the significance of the software product development process is irrefutable. The major outcome of following a prescribed software development process is that it will give code development and project execution fluency to all of the project stakeholders. It enables system requirements to be tracked to the business needs and provides a solution that best fits needs. By considering the pros and cons of the methodology, choose the model that works best for your organization, and embark on the path to success.