Software Development Life Cycle Fully Explained

by Dot Technologies SEO/PPC/Web Development

What is a software?

A software is nothing but is a set of instructions for the computer to perform a specific task. You probably want to know how a software is designed and developed. For that, you need to read this article that talks about the software development life cycle (SDLC) in detail. The process of developing a software is not an easy affair.

Given below are the steps of the SDLC:

Analyzing the requirements to develop a software
Designing
Coding
Testing
Deployment or Launch
Maintenance

Now we will discuss the above steps in detail:

Analyzing the Requirements to Develop a Software
This is the first step of the SDLC. Like any other process, the first step is planning. For the planning phase, the project managers, stakeholders and software developers will gather to discuss how they can accomplish the job. Below are some questions that will be discussed during the planning phase.
Who will be the users of the software?
What is their purpose of designing the same?
What will they require to input?
What will they need as output of the input?
What skills are required?
Is there any need to hire new personnel?
Finding the answers to all these questions is important as you can't proceed to the next step.

Designing
The second phase is the designing where the documentation prepared in the planning phase is given out a design. From the design, the developers come to know the requirements to complete their new project. The design also defines the system architecture.

Coding
During this phase, the design documents are divided into modules and each developer is assigned a particular module to start their work. Coding is going to be the longest phase among all the phases and requires patience, expertise and focus. These qualities are must because you can't go further without these qualities. Once the coding phase is over, the software developers send their work to the testing team.

Testing
This is the most important phase and the quality of the software product developed is tested. Once the coding phase is over, the software product developed is sent to the software quality assurance department. The testers will closely look at each and every feature and perform testing as per the guidelines mentioned in the requirements document. The testing techniques include integration testing, unit testing, acceptance testing and system testing. If bugs are bound, then the software is sent back to the software development team for rectification of errors. Testing goes until the software contains errors.

Deployment
Once the testing team approves that the software is free from errors and performs what it is meant for. It is made available for the public or sent to the client (in case it is a client project)

Maintenance
Maintenance is necessary for every single product to keep it running condition and a software is no exception. In this phase updation of the software is done.

If you offer software development services always follow the SDLC to get the desired results.