What are common software development lifecycle mistakes and how can you avoid them?

The main reason for overlooking requirements gathering and documentation is the sacrifices being made in the name of being "agile". If you do not do just enough analysis, you will soon lose the control of your system and steadily making you slowing down to the point you need to stop and fix the machine. Imagine losing control of you arms and legs, how can you be agile if that happens ? To be in control of the system, you need to understand the requirements of each unit and their interconnected nature.

To gather requirements effectively, a six-step process can be followed, which includes assigning roles, meeting with stakeholders, and documenting the gathered requirements. Additionally, techniques like focus groups, facilitated workshops, and brainstorming can also be valuable for eliciting comprehensive and reliable data.

Think of building software like constructing a house. Before you start, plan thoroughly – this is your requirements gathering. A common mistake is missing vital details. If you don't get everything right, the final software might not meet needs, causing delays. To avoid this, talk to users, create simple prototypes, and double-check with checklists. It's like making a detailed plan for your software. Communicate well, use simple examples, and ensure you cover everything to avoid issues down the line.

Inadequate requirement gathering can result in a misunderstanding of user needs. This may lead to the development of a product that does not align with users' expectations, causing dissatisfaction and potential rejection of the system. Also, poorly defined requirements can contribute to scope creep, where additional features or changes are introduced after the project has started. This can lead to delays, budget overruns, and a loss of focus on the project's original objectives. Avoidance Strategy: Engage stakeholders, including end-users if possible, in the requirement gathering process. Gain a comprehensive understanding of user needs. Use prototypes or mockups to validate and clarify requirements.

Na minha experiência é que requisitos pouco claros ou em constante mudan?a resultam em retrabalho e atrasos nas entregas. N?o podemos sacrificar a qualidade da defini??o dos requisitos em nome da agilidade. Manter contato com as partes interessadas, se colocar na cadeira do cliente e sentir sua dificuldade, é fundamental para que os requisitos estejam alinhados com as suas necessidades.

Having a common language within a team is crucial. In the design phase, this common language includes ERD and UML, while in the execution phase, it encompasses Design Patterns and the 12 Factor methodology. One of the vital design tools is the Sequence Diagram, which should never be underestimated. However, these tools can be taxing for developers. Therefore, it's essential for managers to emphasize their importance within the team.

To improve architecture design, focus on implementing SOLID principles for a robust and maintainable structure. Emphasize creating a Clean Architecture, ensuring separation of concerns for easier testing and maintenance. Incorporate DevOps best practices early in the design process. This includes considering containerization with tools like Docker and Kubernetes for scalability and ease of deployment, ensuring that the architecture is not only efficient but also future-proof.

From my experience at larger clients I see that sometimes the development teams will choose a new programming language but not think about the ops part of it. Questions like is it manageable and supported properly when we run it in production. I think good architecture is also thinking about the question, where will it run and who will run it (for us)? Also, are there other teams in our company that run - chosen technology - and what can we learn from them. Strike a balance in bleeding edge technology and supported known ones is the main point for this aspect of architecture.

In a project, we initially chose a monolithic architecture for a large application, which later struggled with scalability. Realizing a microservices architecture was more appropriate, we had to restructure the entire system. This time-consuming and costly process highlighted the importance of careful architecture design. Adhering to principles like modularity and using tools like UML diagrams early on are crucial to avoid such pitfalls, ensuring the software is scalable, flexible, and maintainable from the start.

Always focus on SOLID principles. Use UML to define architecture, make sure you keep redudancy, fault tolerance, complexity, costs and most importantly performance in mind as well. Complexity can be managed with correct planning, this is where UML is extraordinarily important.

Overestimating tasks and features always lead to certain shortcuts during a sprint. - Ensuring a unified standard for software testing despite difficulties faced is undoubtedly crucial to a successful end result. - Cannot emphasize enough on how crucial it is for customers satisfaction as priority and this is only done through thoroughly testing in multiple phases and regularly with the customers.

- thinking short term making it difficult to extend as software expands with new requirements - considering integration testing or automation testing as optional and not planning well to reduce RtB efforts post launch - not having enough user feedback loop/interactions pre-post launch to validate the flow or behaviours intended to be launched

In my experience for modern software development teams the testing/qa is next to a valuable skillset more of a mindset for the whole team, meaning that the whole team should embrace the sw-quality mindset and try to aim for high quality and quick delivery. Each team member takes their role in QA/testing. If testing skills are lacking they need to be gained in the team. What does help is that the testing approach is formalized within the team or over multiple teams if they are dependent on each other f.e.. Some experience with testing approaches might come in handy there. For example ISTQB is full of testing hints and good practices you could leverage. An other nice resouce is stickyminds.com

One of most common mistake during project scoping is not allocating enough time and resources for thorough testing, that leads to software with bugs and vulnerabilities, which can be costly to fix later and can harm the overall product quality and/or user experience.

In a project with tight deadlines, we prioritized development over testing, leading to a release plagued with bugs and performance issues. This negatively impacted user experience and trust. It was a lesson in the importance of a comprehensive testing strategy, including unit, integration, and usability testing, and employing tools for test automation and bug tracking. Allocating sufficient time and resources for testing is crucial to ensure software reliability, security, and user-friendliness, ultimately saving time and resources by reducing post-launch fixes.

A comunica??o frequente durante todas as etapas do projeto é um fator muito importe para o sucesso. Com uma comunica??o adequada diminuímos retrabalho e garantimos que o que está sendo feito é o que realmente foi solicitado.

Communication is the single most important function in any team environment. Communication is hard! Communication is what led many companies to poor software, such as Rivian releasing an OTA update that bricked infotainment systems. What helps with good communication: - Any meeting over an hour is a failed meeting. - Use JIRA (Or Azure DevOps or whatever) and make sure the tasks and features are clear + well defined (including acceptance criteria). - Open and transparent work culture, this comes from the top (higher-level management) and filters down. Make sure that your employees are incentivized with a balance of 3 things: Purpose, growth, and money. - Trust the team! No Micromanaging! Moral of the story: Employees are the most important.

Overcommunication is key when aligning on requirements of a software development project. Each discipline brings unique value and perspective to the table that will product an effective solution. Make sure to have everyone in the room as needed and communicate broadly to stakeholders to get early feedback.

Poor requirements, architecture, testing etc can ALL be found and mitigated to get at least MVP...IF you have good, trusted and effective team Communication. Obviously you need appropriate supportive tools & process...but they just make it better. This makes it the #1 "App" all of us have built in to achieve an effective product. Keep Calm, Keep Teaming.

The number one(!) pitfall in my opinion is lack of communication especially risky - but not limited to - larger teams. Or better said: lack of really understanding each other. Communication and alignment are key into building the right product (frequently showing stakeholders a working demo always helps a lot in alignment). Communication also helps a lot in building it right. Think of development collaboration sessions like peer-coding that help a lot in sharing skills and understanding each other and the way we work.

A few mistakes that often happening in every team 1.Overlooking Team Communication 2. Ignoring Stakeholder Involvement 3. Scope Creep Acceptance 4. Inadequate Risk Management

Always remember that you also have to effectively manage (not only the development team) : - Business Owner Expectation - User Journey - Time Line - Partners' technicalities concern - Change Management in each Actors' side

Putting as much as possible in source code helps a lot in the field of change management. That may sound a little strange at first but there are many reasons you would want your configuration stored in code (obviously omit all sensitive data like tokens and passcodes). Knowing what changes are deployed where helps a lot in understanding the complex systems we work with. Also automating as much as possible will help preventing man made mistakes and limit shadow administration if pulled from a code repository. You can follow a particular commit and see the status of testing and see it's deployment.

In a project, frequent unassessed changes led to scope creep and delays. Implementing a formal change management process, with clear roles and procedures for handling changes, was crucial. We used tools like change requests and impact analysis to manage changes effectively. This approach helped avoid quality degradation, budget overruns, and schedule slippage, proving that structured change management is essential for maintaining project stability and progress amidst evolving requirements.

To combat poor change management, establish a structured process with tools like JIRA or Trello for managing and tracking change requests. Define clear roles and responsibilities for handling changes, and use impact analysis tools such as FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) to assess potential consequences. Ensure a comprehensive change log is maintained, possibly using configuration management software like Ansible or Chef, to keep a detailed record of changes and their impact on the project. This systematic approach helps in minimizing risks associated with scope creep, quality degradation, and other change-related issues.

User feedback is always a reliable resource to improve your app in many aspects. Collect it, measure it and then analyze it. You probably need some knowledge about data analysis. For that I can recommend the Google Data Analytics course!

Scope creep is one of the disasters to be avoided by all means. Scope creep refers to the tendency of a project's scope to expand beyond its original boundaries. Scope creep can have a number of negative consequences for a project, like increased costs, delayed timelines, reduced quality etc. Scope creep can be avoided by clearly defining the project scope, managing stakeholder expectations & having control over change requests.

In my response for requirements gathering I stated that it is generally believed that some requirements cannot be elicited beforehand ... or rather that it is cost-prohibitive to discover some requirements. (This is a more cautious statement than "some requirements are unknowable.") That's assuming that customers and the markets and the world are unchanging, which we know to be false. If some requirements are undiscovered and the world is constantly changing, it is vital for the software team to get up-to-date and comprehensive feedback on the published product. But just obtaining feedback isn't good enough. The team must be able to convert the feedback to software improvements in a timely manner.

Deliver in small increments and involve users as early as you can. Of course, don't present a patched-up product; make sure your Minimum Viable Product is also the most appealing aspect of your product. Read "The Mom's Test".

Envolver o usuário no processo de valida??o, na minha avalia??o, é fundamental para que o software entregue n?o caia em desuso ou n?o tenha uma boa usabilidade. A participa??o ativa do usuário/cliente é fundamental em todo o ciclo de desenvolvimento.

Brooks’s Law: ” Adding human resources to a late software project makes it later”. A typical evolution of a project that involves software development: 1. Underestimate necessary resources when planning (or underestimate the time needed to complete the project) 2. Project is late - panic 3. Add more resources 4. Randomly adding resources to a late project makes it later, due to communication issues, disorganisation, and lack of collaboration between the "old" team members and the "new" team members.

Estimation is something that a lot of teams do not get right. Estimation is often used to set unfair deadlines that eventually make the project quality suffer. It is imperative to understand that most estimates are ball park and cannot be set in stone. Some buffer/flexibility should always be accorded when estimating. Also capacity planning of resources is essential when doing project estimation. Resource availability must always be considered.

Few of the other basic mistakes can be below - 1. Underestimating time and resource 2. Inadequate documentation 3. Failure to learn from mistakes

Underestimating the importance of UI/UX Underestimating the importance of UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) design in the software development life cycle can have significant negative consequences. Here are some reasons why UI/UX design is crucial in the software development life cycle User Satisfaction: Good UI/UX design enhances user satisfaction. User Adoption: A well-designed UI/UX can positively impact user adoption rates Selection of required hardware Prior definition UI/UX is important for selecting the proper processor, associated hardware and Graphic libraries

1. Always check or validate inputs, never assume inputs are well-formed or complete. Be defensive in handling malformed (potentially malicious) inputs. If validation is performed in some other module, ensure that the validation is part of the requirements and testing of that other module and is complete and comprehensive for the needs of the module under development: Never assume it will be adequate, either check it yourself or add your own verification, even if that seems to mean checking things twice. 2. Open Source does not mean good (or bad). Just because something is open source doesn't mean it has been reviewed by experts or that it is actually fit for your application. Check it yourself, or accept potentially random consequences.