Step by step software development: 7 phases to build a product
The time between the product being initially designed and finally released is called a software development life cycle (SDLC). Software creation is complicated. Usually, it consists of a certain number of phases. Let’s see what steps of development are responsible for, how it works, and what results they give with a guide to step-by-step software development.
How to build a software product most successfully? For one thing, it is crucial to conduct a business analysis. Professional analysts can precisely define your needs and recommend a solution that will bring value to all company stakeholders.
Our business analysts use a set of tasks and techniques that allow developing a strategy to improve processes, incorporate significant changes, and create new policies. Based on their findings, customers get a detailed SRS document. It serves as a basis for further collaboration, legal agreement, and coherent SDLC. Let’s figure out how to develop a software project step by step.
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7 core phases of software development
How to develop software most properly? In what order to go? Here are seven main software development steps in the project life cycle that should be followed by your development team.
Phase 1 – Brainstorming
Coming up with innovative ideas is often challenging because recent years have already brought us so many brand-new IT products and technological innovations. Because of a bunch of out-of-the-box solutions, product and project managers together with developers have to think globally to create a software application demanded in the market and, generally, offer something different.
A technique of brainstorming is effective in the IT environment. It is a creative method to find out the best solutions and ideas appropriate for implementation during the SDLC. All members of the brainstorming process contribute their ideas and offer them during the discussion. This allows everybody to feel useful and responsible for the outcomes.
This stage is also called planning as it generates the main requirements for the projects as well as creates a general roadmap. The software development project plan is one of the most important phases of software development. It influences the whole development process and the ways everything will be done.
Phase 2 – Business analysis
Before investing heavily in the project, the CEO and all team members have to carry out a feasibility analysis. The feasibility study can show how to make your own software profitable in the long run and evaluates all factors including economic and technical that affect the project development. Every member of the team, testers, developers, PMs, and others, must provide a clear estimate of the time they need to complete the specific tasks, efforts, and resources they need to involve. It will help calculate all expenses.
Read more about business analysis or a Discovery Phase offered by DICEUS.
Phase 3 – Design
Conceptualizing the product is made during the design stage of SDLC. Design is developed according to the specifications written during the first two stages of software development. Designers, like any other architects, build the whole structure of the project and provide the final prototype that will be used for the next steps of software development.
Phase 4 – Programming
Here is coding where developers are getting started. Every programmer has his own software development tasks list for coding for which he is responsible. The software build process is controlled by project managers. This phase is the most time-consuming operation.
Phase 5 – Integration
Integrating all sources and environments is a must in figuring out how to create a software program efficiently, as it helps to figure out on time how many issues, conflicts, and bugs there are. Most teams, especially agile ones, use continuous integration. Such teams execute unit tests and use automated compilation and tests.
Phase 6 – Quality assurance
QA engineers test the quality of code written by developers. They use different frameworks and kinds of testing to learn if there are any bugs in the system. Testers write test cases and report the bugs to developers to fix them, also helping to figure out how to build a software product most efficiently.
Phase 7 – Release
The first software release will be followed by the releases of the next versions of the product. It is the final stage of development that can be also followed by maintenance and support.
Each of the stages of the SDLC life cycle depends on the model of software development a company chooses. Let’s figure out what are the main methodologies that could be used in development.
SDLC Example – DICEUS SDLC
5 most popular software development methodologies
A team chooses a certain set of tools and methodologies for design, testing, management, and software product development processes. These decisions depend on the goals that stand before the team and the objectives of a product to be built. Here are the most popular software development models experienced teams use.
Waterfall model
The waterfall model assumes that each stage is completed before the next one starts. For example, QA engineers start testing only after programming has been completely done.
V-shaped model
The V-shaped model is much similar to the waterfall with a slight difference – testing takes place simultaneously with the other major steps of the software development process.
Incremental model
The incremental model is divided into builds. It means that the product is built with separate blocks/parts. In other words, the product is built like a puzzle.
Rapid Application Development
Rapid Application Development is another model that IT companies use. Here, the project development is divided among small teams who work simultaneously.
Agile
Agile is a kind of incremental model where each release is focused on better software quality. This methodology is widely spread among teams and customers as it shows a continuous process and fast results. Time taken for each build can be measured here rather by weeks than by months. This is a popular model that points many entrepreneurs in the right direction of how to create a software product.
No matter what methodology your team uses the entire software development process must include all main stages: determining specifications, design, validation, and maintenance.
Learn more about the factors affecting the software cost:
Top 10+ factors affecting software development costs
Conclusion
Depending on the project needs, our team offers the best-suited methodology so that you feel comfortable collaborating with our developers. Do you have any questions concerning the phases of how to create software most efficiently or other project-related questions?
