Software development life cycle (SDLC) — Guide for Business

Wishing to produce software of top quality at the lowest cost in the shortest time?

How to produce software of top quality to resolve your business problems and meet the requirements of the end-users? For that purpose, you should familiarise yourself with the concept of software development life cycle of SDLC.

We can break the concept down to six parts, walk you through each part with examples and real-life applications that will be beneficial to your intention of enhancing your business’s software system as well as when you can seek professional assistance from Designveloper and what specific assistance you might need.

Do I need to know what SDLC is?

SDLC is a closed cycle consisting of a series of six stages, ranging from planning, analyzing, designing, implementing, testing and integrating, and maintenance. Any successful websites or applications were primarily based on this life cycle.

Stage 1: Planning

Prior to any projects, there comes strategy setting and planning. A business must be aware of its overall goal and an original idea that the whole plan will be based on later on.

• Come up with an idea

In order to come up with a great idea, you — a business owner — must acknowledge current problems that your business has been encountering.

After all, ideas are to wipe out current hurdles. It is highly recommended you start gathering an adequate amount of input — data from the markets you planted your business presence in, statistics from new markets that you find potential and promising for your future business endeavors, feedback from customers and partners who you have cooperated with regarding campaign operations and product development as well as advice from professional coders, developers, and designers who acquired significant experience in your industry.

You can apply the SWOT model — strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and threats — to your current choice of software to identify what needs to be done about your system.

• Define your goal

“What do I want for my business?” is what you should ask yourself at every single decision related to software development. Does it cost reduction, smoother operation management, clearer progress tracking, steady network connection or a more user-friendly interface that you wish to implement in the new system?

Each mini goal requires a series of logically set tasks and competent human resources. However, in reality, every plan can sidetrack and backfire you anytime. As a result, you as a strategy creator, need to set a back-up plan or plan B for every substantial decision of your development scheme.

-> How can we help?

A software development company can help you with consultancy, offering practical yet feasible IT solutions and also planning for your new desired software system thanks to data analytics and information exchanges from you and your team members who will work closely with the new system after the execution is wrapped up.

Stage 2: Analysis

The analyzing stage could be of tremendous significance in software system development. The professionals at Designveloper would often call this stage “the make or break” due to its importance.

• Sketching

The first step of every analysis is to create a sketch of the new system. This is where professional work comes in effect as frequently designers and developers tend to start from scratch with the client’s vague idea about what they want to have for their new system.

A generic idea is perfectly fine as long as business owners and designers work closely together, consistently ask questions that are vital to completing the final sketch of the software system.

-> How can we help?

People at Designveloper highly suggest you as a business owner to seek out for professional assistance as soon as possible. Preferably in the early stage of your software development project since you are very likely to spend an unnecessarily inundating amount of time researching and looking into information that is irrelevant to your project.

• Lay out the flow and features

After brainstorming and bouncing off new ideas with each other, the business analyst (BA) can lay out the primary flow and new features that fit the initial requests and requirements for the new software proposed by business owners.

This should match the business owner’s initial goal — cutting down the budget, minimizing steps to check-out (for retail business and virtual stores) or polishing a more customer-friendly interface that will leave a more positive impression on users.

-> How can we help?

Particularly, in this part, a software development company will offer professional assistance in business analysis and preparing detailed product documents that will later be filed for approval.

This small step is one of the most important hinges of the whole project since it gives your team members more time to adapt to the software mark-up and a better sense of familiarity with the new system.

What is the MVP?

Once you and your team members are introduced to the sketch of the new software system, you should do MVP — minimum viable product. MVP is a technique in software development in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters.

All the known requirements from your initial demand would come in life in this stage since you will be familiarised yourself with what they look like from the perspective of a customer.

Stage 3: Software Design

• System design

Prior to the design stage, you will need to create a customized catalog of prototypes and walk through the wide range of choices in order for you to fully understand the complexities, the concept behind each prototype and possible costs of developing and maintaining a system based on each prototype.

Thanks to this minor step of stage 3, business owners can gain a better awareness of the project’s plausibility and in turn map out a blueprint of specific further steps that are needed to actualize the goal of your project.

• UX design — designing the user experience for your app or website

The design stage would take the road map you and the professionals have crafted in the first two steps into UX design — designing your new software system from the perspective of users.

This will include the three most basic parts — information architecture, wire-framing your website or your application and set up a clickable prototype. Constant feedback from the business owners and designers’ timely adjustments to your initial idea for the new software will be really useful to the progress of the project.

• User interface (UI) design

User interface (UI) design should not only capture potential users’ attention but also function well in all circumstances with the customer-centric mindset.

The aesthetics of your website or application depends solely on this stage. We tend to offer advice in style guide creation, rendered design creation and rendered click-through design creation based on our past experience and project in UI.

-> How can we help?

Broad research into customer interest, marketing trends, trends in visual entertainment, MVP, UI, and UX Design are included in Designveloper’s service offered to your software development project in order to generate the optimal choice of design for your product.

Stage 4: Implementation

Another break or make stage of the project lies in how your application would eventually make users feel. How much effort developers put users in their minds while developing the front-end would generously display in the comparison of Wechat and Telegram.

Smoother transitioning between taps, heavy encryption and a larger variety of customer-friendly features are clearly observed in the UK-based instant messaging application, therefore; Telegram might be preferred over the Chinese texting application fellow.

-> How can we help?

Once those two segments are finalized, implementation and integration of the new system will be conducted. Business owners can outsource a software development company different services such as full-stack development, the information exchanging with your internal technical team.

Stage 5: Testing and integration

In any SDLP, the testing round plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality, reliability, and performance of the new system as well as live-testing the desired features of the new software from the perspective of an actual user. Defects and malfunctions are better found in this stage rather than after the new system have been launched and put into effect.

The stage of testing includes functional testing, performance testing, edge-case testing, and device-specific testing. The mobile-device testing has been recently heavily invested by software companies due to the distinctive characteristics of the three most used operating systems — Android, iOS and Windows.

For instance, a lot of companies encountered massive negative feedback from users over the early days of a new application simply because Android users can gain certain benefits from the promotional program offered by the new application but iOS users cannot attain and vice versa.

-> How can we help?

Regarding the testing stage, product testing, reviewing and fixing is generally offered by most software development companies.

Stage 6: Maintenance

If our car is broken, we have it fixed at a mechanical workshop. If our child catches a cold, we take them to see a doctor. For our peace of mind, we purchase insurance for our vehicles and our health.

The software system is a valuable asset to your business, so having a maintenance plan for your system is no different from buying insurance for your system’s overall health.

-> How can we help?

Timely proposals of updating new features to the system, scaling and security measurements are among the most requested services that Designvelopers have received from our past and current clients in terms of software maintenance and update.

We commit to offer well-rounded services, bearing in mind the perspectives of our clients and their and their desired targeted customers. We can deliver feedback from professionals and continue seeking further enhancements for the sake of your product growth. The success of your product is our mission statement that was set to begin with.