Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a well-established process to create high-quality, efficient, and robust software to provide the best user experience and customer expectations.

 

There are different phases of the software development life cycle that starts from inception (where we think about software requirements) to maintenance (keeping software updated & bug-free) of the product.

 

SDLC is a detailed plan for building a software product. Each phase in the SDLC is important. Whichever model of software development you use, following are the defined phases;

 

"Requirement gathering, Designing, Coding, Testing, and Maintenance."

 

The software team is established and each member is given a specific role-based upon the development phases, documentation is done, then the development is started. The development should be under budget and proper cost.

 

If any step is done without following guidelines and proper usage of skills, chances to software failure increase and delivering an expected product becomes challenging.

Is Software Development Life Cycle Important?

For any custom software development company in USA SDLC is termed as the software development methodology, which usually begins with determining customers’ needs by placing technical elements and components.

 

The software development process in SDLC is then followed by implementation and testing. Finally, the software development life cycle phases end when all the requirements as per customer needs are fulfilled.

 

Below are some of the reasons that show the importance of making software by the use of SDLC in the app development industry.

- SDLC offer project planning, development schedule, and budget estimating

- It provides a standard framework and activities

- Increased and enhance development speed

- Improve client relations

- Increases the project planning visibility of the development process

- Decrease the project risk and increase the project management plan

 

During software development, if you do not acknowledge the team effort and planning documentation, it becomes impossible to develop software. Remember, to give the best perks while you hire a software development team for your project purposes.

 

Not only this but nowadays there is an ongoing loud debate about the best software development life cycle models. Methodologies like Agile and Waterfall help in software development.

 

Hence, this brings us to one clear rule, “Any software development plan is better than having no plan in our hands.”

Software Development Life Cycle Phases

The software world is now more competitive; thus, companies have to find simpler ways to develop and deliver software on-time. As well as transforming their businesses is also important each time a new software engineering methodology comes into the market.

 

If these transformations are not met properly by changing development models, the failure of business increases. Therefore, it is my suggestion to you to follow the latest development methods. Also, take care of the customer needs from time to time!

 

Following are the software development life cycle stages which one must follow while making software. We have briefed each one to give you exact intel and why the specific phase is important!

Planning

Planning is a fundamental and critical software development life cycle stage where a team of software developers determines the goals to create a high-level plan and establish the foundation of the software project.

 

In the planning phase, there are the following activities that every software development team has to do to make high-quality software.

 

“System Identification, Assessing Feasibility, Creating Project Plan, Allocating Resource, Capacity Planning, Project Scheduling, Budget Planning, and Documentation Of Updates.”

 

Proper planning gives you a clear view of your project’s scope. Also, the planning documentation sets some directives that triggers the project to the next department.

 

Furthermore, you get the chance to anticipate the issues and risks involved in software product development. Here, the developers and your think tanks must be detailed and precise with all requirements so that the development can happen within the timeline.

Design

Among the next phases of the software development life cycle is the Design phase where the designers and technical artists create high-level designs for the software that can deliver each requirement correctly.

 

Designers are responsible for creating HLD - High-Level Designs and LLD - Low-Level Designs keeping UI/UX (User interface and User experience) interactive and attractive at the same time.

 

The final software design must define every component that was planned earlier keeping user flow seamless and smooth. As well as the front-end representation of components shouldn’t put any load on the backend.

 

“Therefore, designers in this phase use the Design Specification Document (DSD) to work without any hassles with fewer changes.”

Software Development

Many people call the software development phase as the implementation phase. Because each planned software feature is now made functional through coding. You can use many types of methodologies and iterative approaches to design and develop the best software product.

 

Following are some of the software development methodologies:

 

“Waterfall Model, V-Shaped Model, Prototype Model, Spiral Model, Iterative Incremental Model, Big Bang Model, and Agile Model.”

 

The output that you get from this software is testable and functional software which you can change as per the requirements and further improvisations.

Testing

Once the coding is completed and you the design and development phase then comes the testing where each module and function is tested thoroughly to find defects and bugs.

 

Testing is an iterative approach where the application is verified to see if it performs as per the expectations or not! This phase is also termed as analysis.

 

Once a defect is found in the software application, testers inform the developers, give them detailed information about the issue such that a new version of the software can be created.

 

The test cycle is repeated a number of times until all requirements are 100% satisfied.

Deployment

The deployment is the release phase where certain manual and automatic approvals are taken from a few large enterprises. The deployment leads to the launch of the application in the real world for the people.

 

My suggestion is to deploy a fully automated continuous deployment model for your software project. For this, you can use Application Release Automation (ARA) tools to get the best fitted working software.

 

You can also call this phase ‘delivery.’

Maintenance

Once you deploy the software for customer usage, replying to customer feedback becomes very important. In the maintenance phase, three things are crucial that the software development team has to do for the customers.

 

“Bug fixing, Upgrade, and Enhancement.”

 

This cycle could not conclude until all the customer requirements are filled. After the deployment, your software product’s life is dependent upon the maintenance, which is a lifelong process.

 

So keep updating your software product and give new things to the users!

Conclusion

All software development begins with ideas to fulfill needs and make daily lives easy. Then the idea is derived into a concept the undergoes these development phases, the developed product is released for our usage.

 

The cycle doesn’t stop here because the developed product keeps getting updated with new features and functionalities. There are severalcustom software development methods practiced in USA.

 

Each method has its own pros and cons! My final suggestion is to choose any development model based upon requirements, software complexity, project cost, and your budget!