Critical Steps to Successful Software Development Life Cycle
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a well-arranged, structured and sequenced process to develop the intended software product. SDLC framework includes the following steps:
1. Initial Communication: This is the first crucial step towards the desired software development. A business owner who wants to develop a software solution for their business operation take the quotation from the software development organization and tries to negotiate the costs and terms.
2. Requirement Gathering: At this stage software development team works to carry on the project. The team continuously communicates with multiple stakeholders from problem domain and tries to bring out as much information as possible on their requirements. The requirements are considered and segregated into user needs, system requirements and functional anticipations. The requirements are accumulated using a large number of practices like studying the existing or obsolete software, scheduling interviews of developers or collecting solutions from the questionnaires.
3. Usefulness: After gathering the basic requirements, the software development team comes up with a blue print of software development process. At this stage the team scrutinizes, the software they are planning to develop, fulfill the requirements of the client or not. It is found out, if the project is financially, practically and technologically well suited for the organization then this is processed on the next step or make the necessary changes before moving to the next step. There are multiple algorithms available, which help the software developers to conclude the feasibility of a software project.
4. System Analysis: At this stage the software experts make a proper road-map of their plan and try their best effort to bring the best software model for the project. It includes an understanding of software product limitations, learning system or necessary changes to be made in existing systems beforehand, identifying and addressing the effect of project on organization and personnel etc.
5. Software Design: The final output of this step comes in the form of logical design or physical design. Developers develop meta-data, logical diagrams, data-flow diagrams and in some exceptional cases pseudo codes.
6. Coding: This step is better known as programming phase. The development of software design starts in terms of writing, programming code and easier understanding programming language that is helpful in the development of error-free executable programs.
7. Testing: Small bugs can ruin your software development objectives. This process is done while coding by the developers and thorough testing is conducted by the testing experts at various stages of code such as module testing, program testing, and product testing. Early removing the existing bugs and their remedy is the key to reliable software.
8. Implementation: Installing software on user machines is its implementation. It is one of the most crucial step where user’s get the benefits of specific software, and able to do work fast and impressively.
9. Support and Maintenance: This step ensures the software operation in terms of more efficiency and bug free. If there is any requirement of the training, then software development organization provides the appropriate training on how to operate the software and how to keep the software operational. The software is maintained timely by updating the existing code according to the changes taking place in technology or user end environment.