The Stages of the Software Development Life Cycle

What is the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)?

The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a process that produces software with the highest quality and lowest cost in the shortest time possible. SDLC breaks down the entire life cycle of software development to individual parts that serve as checkpoints that can be evaluated by shareholders. It simplifies the workload across the software team by allowing product managers, project managers, developers and clients to work concurrently.

The SDLC can be written out in the following stages:

1. PLANNING This planning stage is the most fundamental part of the SDLC process. In this stage, the product manager works with the client to collect and clarify all software product requirements before sharing them with the development team. The product manager communicates the needs of the client with the development team, and the development team provides feedback on feature requests and user stories to make the development stage run smoothly.
2. ANALYSIS The analysis stage involves defining project goals as functions. The development team then determines what operations the software should have to achieve the desired functionality. Analysis requires gathering and interpreting facts, as well as diagnosing issues with the current system and recommending improvements to the planned software product. After analyzing all requirements, a Software Requirements Specification (SRS) is prepared to be the source of truth for all product requirements. The SRS contains all requirements on software functionality, usability, scalability, security and design.
3. DESIGN During the Design stage, the team uses the SRS from the previous stages to design the product’s wireframes, interactive mockups and optimal architecture, and they prepare a Design Document Specification (DDS), which the stakeholders review before selecting a design approach. The wireframes outline the user-to-product interactions and the internal interactions between software modules, such as database to User Interface (UI). The interactive mockups provide a simulation to a functional app - mockups are clickable and provide a feel for how the product will behave according to user interactions. The software architecture defines the software and hardware infrastructure needed to support a software product that functions according to functionality requirements.
4. IMPLEMENTATION The Implementation stage is the start of the software development. The development team builds the environment where the software will exist and writes code in that environment to create a product that matches the SRS and the client’s goals and objectives. The development team works under standard coding guidelines to provide quality code that is performant, secure and free of repetition. A development team with a strong emphasis on following these guidelines makes future maintenance and support possible.
5. TESTING AND INTEGRATION The Testing and Integration stage involves bringing the separate parts of the project together into a dedicated testing environment to check for errors, bugs and other issues. During this stage, the product is checked to ensure that defects are reported, tracked, fixed, and tested again until the product meets quality standards. Depending on the development team, this stage may not be executed before product release, and will be considered as a subset of maintenance. In these cases, it may be referred to as post-implementation review. Testing involves asking important questions such as:

• Does the new system meet business requirements and objectives?
• Is it reliable?
• Are there any remaining bugs?
• Does it function according to approved functional requirements?

[...Read More]