Without a defined path for control purposes, any project would spill over and increase production costs and take a longer time. Like any other project, software development is no different. For software developers, the software development life cycle (SDLC) provides guidance and a framework for the development, monitoring, improvement, and maintenance of a software project.
An SDLC seeks to ensure the production of high-quality software applications while managing time and cost. Additionally, a project team can also ensure efficiency and regularity.
In the SLDC, a project team can use various resources to execute their software development processes depending on the end product desired. For example, with cnvrg software developers and the like, the team can access a complete stack of resources they may require for a machine learning software application. Overall, such resources can enable a team to produce software satisfactory to the relevant industry.
How Does An SDLC Work
Due to the increased need for artificial intelligence (AI) and computing, software developers often find themselves under pressure to deliver quality software within a short period and at lower costs. By using SDLC’s outline, they can achieve this while ensuring they meet customer expectations.
SDLC’s outline has phases or stages that help a project team keep their production costs minimal. Using these phases can also help the team measure, fine-tune, and improve. You can look at the stages in detail below.
1. Planning And Requirements
During this stage, you identify the problem and resources necessary to solve it. Additionally, you get to determine the project’s cost and time of delivery. Feedback from end-users, investors, industry experts, and programmers can help identify the problem and measure the feasibility of the application.
Once you get the input of these stakeholders, you can manage to draw up a cost estimate for the project and what resources you’ll require – including labor and materials. During the planning stage, you also outline possible shortfalls you may experience during the development process and their solutions.
You also define the purpose of the software application with its scope. For example, if it’s a transactional application or a networking one like social media. Each requires different algorithms and can affect team composition and cost. While outlining the scope, you can include the course of the project work and boundaries to ensure it stays on the path. If you need to identify sub-project leads, this is also the stage to lay it out.
2. Designing And Prototyping
This stage defines how the software application is going to function. It involves language programming, user interface (UI), and security. Plus, it factors in industry specifics and the platforms on which the software application will run. In essence, this can be the main body of your software development project, as its outcome can determine success or failure.
At the end of the designing stage, you get a prototype software that you can showcase to relevant stakeholders; thus, the prototyping part of this stage. If the early version of the software needs any adjustments, you can know from the prototype and change it where necessary. If it meets the requirements, it can move to the next stage.
3. Development Stage
Once the design passes through, developers can start writing the code and building the software application per the specifications outlined in the previous stage. In short, during this stage, the design documents get transformed into a ready-for-deployment application.
4. Testing And Deployment
In some projects, this can be a two-step process. First, the software undergoes rigorous testing to ensure it meets requirements. If there are any defects, you can ensure they get fixed and retest until it satisfies deployment specifications.
Once tested and retested, the software application is now ready for deployment. Depending on your client’s preference, it can go to a production environment directly, or you can use user acceptance testing (UAT).
If at UAT it is satisfactory, then it can go live. Deployment modes can vary depending on the client, industry, or application – a download link on a website, an install on a smartphone, or an upgrade to the database to accommodate the software version.
5. Operation And Maintenance
This stage is more of a monitoring and updating stage. Software in the field may develop bugs not discovered during testing. Thus, monitoring such occurrences and getting feedback from end-users is vital. You can fix the bugs during this stage or generate updated versions for security or improve features.
Conclusion
To ensure high-quality software, software development teams utilize the SDLC stages for efficiency, feasibility, and cost control. Further, you can incorporate SDLC models and methodologies in these stages for the optimum production process. Overall, SDLC is a crucial guide tool in software development.
