Top 3 Software Development Methodologies in 2022

Looking to add more structure to your software development lifecycle? Choosing the right methodology for developing software largely depends on team goals, size, and a couple of other factors. Before starting the application development journey, it is essential to understand their uses along with their pros and cons. The manager or development team must choose the software development methodology that will work best for the project at hand. All of them have different strengths and weaknesses and exist for different reasons. Here are some key methodologies with their pros and cons used by expert developers;

The Waterfall Methodology:

The waterfall or traditional methodology is a software development process flowing steadily downwards through the stages of "conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, production, and maintenance". Although one may call this methodology obsolete, it's still widely used among developers. It suits pretty well for a small application with clear-cut instructions which needs about 100 hours for its implementation. But if you suspect that you may have a lot of changes in your product, this methodology becomes very clumsy.

Advantages of Waterfall Methodology:

• Very simple and easy to understand,this methodology is beneficial for the beginner or novice developer.
• Saves time at all the phases processed and completed at a given time.
• Testing can be done easily that refers to the defined scenarios in the earlier functional specification.
• Projects can be managed easily because of the rigidity of the model. Along with this, each phase has an individual review process and specific deliverables.

Disadvantages of Waterfall Methodology:

• The waterfall development method can only be used if the requirements are precise and are available up-front.
• Waterfall method is not applicable to projects that demand continuous maintenance.
• Client feedback cannot be included within the ongoing development phase.
• Requires well-defined and clear requirements, for effective long and on-going projects.

Agile Development Methodology:

This methodology was developed as a response to continuous frustration going on with waterfall and other highly structured, and inflexible methodologies.In the Agile method, development teams usually identify one problem and work together in a time-bound “whizz” to solve the problem, and then move on to the next challenge. Agile development methods comprises different forms including scrum crystal extreme programming and feature-driven development.

Advantages of using Agile Development Method:

• Improves efficiency in identifying and fixing the bugs.
• It reduces the critical and significant errors and aids in delivering the product on time.?
• The large team can easily collaborate and work on application development.
• Helps in maintaining transparency during development.
• Accelerate the product delivery and enhance the quality of the product.

Disadvantages of Agile methodology

• Not Suitable for Beginners (Inexperience developers).
• Agile development methods rely on real-time communication, so new users often lack the documentation they need.
• Necessary to have a team of experienced and skilled developers.
• To get up to speed they require a huge time commitment from users and are labor-intensive, because developers must fully complete each feature within each iteration for user approval.

DevOps Deployment Methodology:

DevOps is not just a methodology, but also a set of practices that support an organizational culture. DevOps is not a replacement for agile or any other methodology. This method aims to bring software development teams and information technology to succeed in the product. This method is based on cross-functional team collaboration to make the project development? effective, smoother,and bugs free.

Advantages of DevOps Methodology:

• DevOps has a significant impact in improving customer satisfaction,minimising disruption, reducing time to market,? increasing high-quality products, and enhancing team productivity and effectiveness.
• Implementing the right method accelerates the delivery time of products in a more useful and accurate way.
• The project development team can achieve Zero Defects in product /service with DevOps.
• Reliability With increasing changes in the infrastructure and the product, resulting in a robust and secure product with a competitive advantage against all the peers.

Disadvantages of DevOps Methodology:

• DevOps demands cultural change and business needs to restart their processes in order to grow efficiently.
• Requires organizational upgradation from conventional methods to dividing into multidisciplinary tasks that will allow them to use multiple skills at the same time.
• Some quality attributes demand human interaction, which slows down the delivery pipeline.
• If different departments use different environments, undetected issues can slip into production.

Final Thoughts:

The software development methodologies are a great way to get started with any project development. The above mentioned methodologies along with their advantages and disadvantages will help choose the best approach that's right for you and your company. All these methodologies work well in certain projects depending on their nature. However, for best results, it is advisable to consult a professional software development company.