Software Development Process – Step-By-Step Guide

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Software Development Process | Tech debt

A successful software development process is what every business is aiming to achieve. You need to understand the software development process before you begin creating your app.

The software development process involves building and delivering software through Software Development Lifecycle. Since this process covers various steps, each of its phases helps with planning, strategizing, building, testing, and maintaining a software application. Implementing the SDLC can help in developing software in a more strategized manner as it optimizes the strategy by breaking up the key business goal into smaller, simpler, and easier-to-implement units. 

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Software Development Process – Step-By-Step Guide

It is hard to implement the software development process adequately without a thorough understanding of the phases. In this guide, you are going to read up on the detailed phases of the software development process and how they can be followed to provide high-quality products.

Phase 1 – Brainstorming or Planning

Coming up with innovative ideas is often a challenge for businesses as unique IT products and next-gen technological innovations have taken up the market and brought in more competition. Due to a bunch of out-of-the-box solutions already existing in the market, project and product managers along with developers have to think on a global level to create a software application as the market demands and, generally, offer something different. 

Brainstorming is effective in today’s IT environment. It’s a creative method to come up with the best-in-class ideas and solutions appropriate for software implementation during software development. Members involved in the brainstorming process contribute their ideas during the discussion to bring out the best at the table. 

This stage is also referred to as the “planning stage” as it generates the main requirements for the projects and helps build a general roadmap. Software development project plan creation is one of the most important phases of software development. It influences the end-to-end software development process and the path forward. 

Phase 2 – Defining business needs  

This stage in the process is all about taking into account the specific business requirements that the application is expected to meet according to the goals of the consumers. To make sure all bases are covered, developers often create a software requirements specification (SRS) document. This document outlines the software’s expected performance and functionalities in detail.

Once the requirements are laid down, the UI and UX design as well as other elements like the front- and back-end, API, or third-party services become more accessible.

Phase 3 – Cost Analysis

The cost analysis phase of the software development process is a critical step in ensuring that a project stays on track and within budget. This phase involves a detailed analysis of the costs associated with each stage of the project, as well as a comparison of those costs to the budget. This analysis helps to identify any potential cost overruns and provides a basis for making adjustments to the project plan.

Without a thorough cost analysis, it would be difficult to know if a project is on track to stay within budget. This analysis is essential for ensuring that the project does not exceed the allocated budget. 

Phase 4 – Design

Conceptualizing a product is done during the design stage of the software development process. The design is developed as per specifications written in the first two stages of software development. Designers like UI UX designers build the structure of the project and offer the final prototype that is going to be used for the next steps of the software development process. This is done through wireframing and prototyping processes.

Phase 5 – Coding

After the product design phase, the development team moves on to coding and implementation. Once the team has the specification and the design documents in place, software developers kick-start the programming. 

The coding phase generally follows the software design phase. In some cases, coding and design may happen concurrently. Once the code is written, it must be debugged to ensure that there are no errors. The software is then tested to ensure that it meets the specified requirements.

Phase 6 – Integration 

Integrating all modules and features made into one codebase is mandatory to make the program achieve its desired goal. Once the integration is done, the software can perform the functions well and cater to the needs of businesses or consumers well. 

Phase 7 – Testing

This stage comes before releasing the product to users or (in some cases) starts before coding in test-driven development (TDD). The goal in this stage is to make sure that every feature of the software functions as desired.

QA engineers test the quality of the codes written by developers. They use various frameworks and testing to know if there are bugs. Testers build test cases and report bugs to developers for them to fix, helping them figure out how to build a software product accurately. 

Phase 8 – Release 

The first software release will be followed by the releases of the subsequent versions of the same product. It is the ultimate stage of software development that is usually followed by maintenance and support activities. 

Conclusion

Each of the stages of the software development process depends on the model of software development a firm chooses. The five most popular methodologies of a software development process are the Waterfall model, the V-shaped model, the Incremental model, Agile, etc. This blog has listed down a common approach most businesses follow in terms of the software development process to develop software aligning with the goals of the business keeping end users in mind.

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