5 Software Development Lifecycle Stages
Developing own software product is an essential part of business nowadays. Startups, small businesses or established brands have to deliver the application that solves some pain of their audience and brings lasting positive customer experience, which results in customer’s loyalty and advocacy for the brand. Thus said, knowing the stages of SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) is important to be able to plan and deliver the software product in a timely and reliable manner.
The SDLC is done either by an internal IT department or by remote specialists and consists of the next stages:
- Forming the list of requirements
- Prototype design and workflow validation
- Development in accordance with SRS (Software Requirement Specification)
- Testing the product for issue and fixing them
- Provisioning and ongoing software maintenance
Below we will describe these stages in more details.
Forming the list of requirements
Every piece of software has to solve some pain of the target audience — call a cab, help navigate in another city or order a pizza in a couple of clicks. To ensure this, the software must have certain functionality and features. Thus said, the SDLC begins with receiving answers to the questions like:
- What problem does the software solve?
- What are the most probable usage scenario and target audience?
- What type of data input is needed?
- What kind of data output will there be?
- Is API integration with other software needed?
- Are any additional features needed?
- Is working offline possible and/or needed?
- Will this application perform operations with sensitive data?
- Will there be any financial transactions?
Once the developers receive answers to these and any other required questions, the SRS is written, which holds all the data on the expected features. It also specifies the testing terms and practices along with the choice of the technology stack involved and the workflow of the development.
Why is it an important choice? Because different models of application development imply different workflow, terms, and managerial complications of the project. As of now, Agile approach and Scrum practice are amongst the most widespread software development models, with Lean, Spiral, V-model, Waterfall, and Prototype models also used, amongst others.
If the customer has to hire a remote team of developers to do the job, this stage also involves choosing the members of the team based on the technology stack used and the model chosen.
Prototype design and workflow validation
After SRS is completed, the designers begin working on producing the design and the interactions in the future application. Using tools like Balsamiq allows producing interactive clickable prototypes that show the look and feel of the future software and help the customers and developers validate the way the future product will work. Such practice helps a ton by providing invaluable feedback and hands-on experience with the product, thus highlighting the possible issues and bottlenecks in the functionality. After all,
Design is not how it looks and feels. Design is how it works. © Steve Jobs.
After this feedback is applied and the prototype is created, the developers begin coding the product.
Development in accordance with SRS
Developing the software and implementing the requirements is obviously the longest and hardest stage of SDLC. The development team works to implement all of the required features from the SRS. Front-end and back-end, server interactions, compliance and security — all of these parts of the software should be properly developed to ensure the software works fine. This is usually done in sprints, and at the end of every sprint the stakeholders receive a minimum viable product (MVP) to allow control of the project direction and possible adjustments.
Testing also begins on this stage to minimize the potential bug damage, because the earlier the bug is found, the easier it is to fix it, obviously. From the other point of view, the business objectives might change amidst the development, so iterative approach is crucial to be able to control the development progress and introduce or discontinue some features if need be.
Testing and fixing the issues found
Once all the features were implemented, the product is considered feature-complete and ready for closed beta testing. Such practice helps check the software completeness and performance under heavy workloads along with detecting issues that might have skipped the attention of a smaller testing team. Closed beta testing is done by a limited group of users and is followed by an open beta testing, where a vast target audience evaluates the software developed.
This stage is essential and might require a significant period of time to be finished. The resulting product should be polished, as shipping a half-ready application is not the thing customers would appreciate in the age of tough competition. Once all the issues found are fixed and all the problems are dealt with, the software is ready to be provisioned to the end users.
Provisioning and ongoing software maintenance
Once the software is ready to be delivered, the SDLC is not actually over. The audience gets their hands on the application and the flow of issues and feedback begins. Huge audiences use literally unlimited combinations of software of different versions, which make for endless use cases that could not have been predicted or emulated by the testing team. This often leads to finding unexpected defects and the need to apply fixes. With time, end user suggests or request additional features, and these should be also implemented to keep the end user satisfaction levels high at all times.
Thus said, the SDLC demands strict planning, a clear vision of the goals and specifics of the development procedures, diligence and dedication during the development and persistence in the ongoing maintenance of any piece of software.
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