What You Should Know Before Developing A Software

Software has become vital for almost 100% of the activities that human beings carry out in their day-to-day lives. Living away from technology is something that in our minds is impossible, since from our appliances to our phones are programmed with a variety of codes that allow them to perform a variety of tasks. The software development process is the basis of our lifestyle and technological tools that we have at hand.

The software process can be defined as the sequence of steps or activities that must be followed to build a series of products, one of which is the program or software to be developed, according to the requirements of a particular client or objective. The main idea of the process is to improve the understanding of the problem to be solved, generate the appropriate communication channels between those involved in the project, the maintenance and feedback of the system. The main objective of the process is:

- Have a guide to the work that is required and what the client needs.
- Determine the cost of development.
- Maintain a level of quality.
- Predict development time.

Fundamental activities of the software process

There is a series of activities that are necessary or common in all software processes, these activities are:

- Software specification: the software to be developed is defined together with the customer.
- Software development: the requested software is designed and developed at this stage.
- Software validation: testing the software developed and making sure that it is what is requested by the client.
- Evolution of the software: here the software is modified to adapt it to the changes required by the client and the market.

Each system needs different development processes and during the execution of the different phases, it will most likely be necessary to adjust or modify them to mitigate any deviations, changes or evolution that may occur during development until the final product is obtained. An example can be the software for an autonomous vehicle. This is able to perceive the environment that surrounds it and navigate accordingly.

Therefore, this software must be fully specified before its development begins, since it would have to be evaluated if the means or technologies are available to be able to materialize the commands or actions requested in the thousands of lines of code. In contrast, the progress of a web query system, specification and development can occur simultaneously.

The correct execution of the software engineer will allow the development process to be carried out successfully and allow a delivering a software that meets the necessary quality requirements, in the estimated time and that adjusts to the budget.

Main roles in the software development process

Each of those involved will contribute to the group. Each role is a part of the total necessary to be successful in software development. The roles are necessary to cover all the necessary specifications in the fulfillment of a process, since not all have the same academic preparation, qualities and professional experiences. In addition, when assigning roles, objectives and activities are defined for each one, avoiding that some activity is not assigned or that two people or teams carry out the same work.

Project manager

His mission is to meet the planned development deadlines, offer risk mitigating solutions or corrections of deviations in planning, carry out the project within the agreed budget, present reports on associated risk factors. In addition, organize the team, carry out the planning and estimate the time of the activities. He is the leader and directly responsible for the project.

Requirements analyst

His objective is to collect, analyze and verify the client's needs for a system. He is in charge of the documentation of the requirements so that the rest of the team can consult it at any time. He must be a person with the capacity for abstraction and analysis.

Software developer or programmer

He is responsible for the design and development of the software, writes the source code, tests what he programs and is in charge of maintaining and improving the code that needs to be carried out.

Tester

He is responsible for designing and executing the necessary tests to validate the different source code routines, in search of critical and non-critical errors that the programmer might have missed and to achieve correct operation on the platforms where they are executed and their interactions with other pre-existing systems. To do this, he need to know the product to be tested, study the functionality of the different processes and routines, as well as generate the necessary tests to try to cause failures in the system. He must also report incidents and provide information on the system quality.

Software architect

He is responsible for studying and determining the application structures and the technologies with which the software will be built, as well as for quality assurance, continually improving the software architecture and updating it. Manages non-functional requirements, assumes technical direction to ensure that all aspects of the architecture are being developed correctly.

Concept conclusion

There really is no ideal process and many companies have developed their own processes for software development. They have evolved to maximize the capabilities of each of the members of the work team. As well as the type of software to be developed.

In some cases, a more flexible and agile process is needed that allows adaptation to the continuous changes of the project since they require a very structured process that allows having an exact guide of the processes and resources that are needed.

Processes may include old techniques or not take advantage of software engineering best practices. In fact, many development companies still do not use software engineering methods in development.

The advantages of using a development process are to avoid the typical errors related to technical resources, economic, duration in time, poor quality and to provide a project execution guide that defines the sequence of tasks that are required. They must develop, improve product quality, lower the severity of defects, improve reusability, improve development stability, and minimize maintenance cost. Hyperlink InfoSystem UK - top app development company can assist you with the development of excellent software and mobile apps.

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