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What is the Systems Development Life Cycle?
The essence of the system development life cycle is to deliver high-quality information systems that meet and/or exceed client expectations as they flow through pre-defined phases, within given timeframes and budget.
The system development life cycle is oftentimes confused with the software development lifecycle, but while they share remarkable similarities, the development of information systems is relatively more complex and robust in its overall architecture.
Given the complexity of the method, there are numerous methodologies out there that help manage and control the system development process. Among these methodologies, we can find Waterfall, Agile, rapid prototyping, incremental, and more.
The system development life cycle helps alleviate the complexity of developing a system information system from scratch, within a framework of structured phases that help shape the project and manage it easily.
It's important to have a system development life cycle in place because it helps transform an idea project into a functional and fully operational system. The SDLC, apart from covering the technical aspects of an information system’s development,also encompasses activities such as process and procedure development, change in management, user experience, policy development, impact, and conformity to security regulations.
Another important reason for leveraging a system development life cycle is to plan ahead of time and analyze the structured phases and goals of a specific software system project. Goal-oriented processes don’t follow a one-size-fits-all methodology; instead, they adapt and are responsive to user needs, which is why it is important to have a well-defined plan to determine costs and staffing decisions, provide goals and deliverables, measure performance, and apply validation points at each phase of the life cycle to improve quality.
Main System Development Life Cycle Phases
As we covered before, the SDLC is used as a conceptual model that includes the procedures and policies necessary to develop or alter a system throughout a life cycle. The end result should be a high-quality system that meets or exceeds customer expectations and is within time and budget constraints. Generally, software development cycle presupposes 7 following steps:
- Planning
- Feasibility analysis
- Product design
- Coding
- Implementation and Integration
- Software Testing
- Installation and Maintenance
1. Planning
It is the phase of brainstorming when specialists gather requirements and analyze all the aspects of a future software product. The developers should understand the clients’ requirements, namely, what exactly they want and what issues can occur in the development process. This stage involves communication between stakeholders, project team, and users.
2. Feasibility analysis
At this step, the project team defines the entire project in details and checks the project’s feasibility. The team divides the workflow into small tasks, so that developers, testers, designers, and project managers can evaluate their tasks. They define whether it’s feasible in terms such of cost, time, functioning, reliability etc.
3. Software Design
The software design is the major aspect of software development services cycle. Design should be creative and clear. It involves overall product design along with data structure and database design. Software designing uses many different strategies.
4. Programming
This is the critical phase of SDLC. A lot of brains work for coding and deliver the desired software. Usually, a company assigns a team of programmers for a particular project. The tasks are subdivided into sub-phases called Task Allocation, so every coder has their own task.
5. Implementation and Integration
Normally software contains a great number of programs, which require careful implementation and step-by-step integration of the software product. During this software stage, the project team checks whether the software product runs on various systems. In case of bugs, testers fix them.
6. Software Testing
After completing of coding, the software is sent to the testing department. The work of testers plays the crucial role for the quality of software and its performance. Quality Analysts test software using various test cases. Before the launch, a product needs verification which includes software testing and debugging done by testers. When testing department ensured that software is error-free, it goes to the next stage.
7. Installation and Maintenance
Finally, the software is handed over to the clients to be installed on their devices. After the installation, if the client needs any modification, the product is to come under the maintenance process.
The featured stages of software development procedure are followed by the majority of IT companies in order to provide high-quality services in the development of all sorts of software. SDLC can be shaped depending on the project requirements. Agile methodologies and Scrum offer the bigger amount of flexibility and cross-functional teams.
- System Development Methodology
There are numerous SDLC methodologies available and the real beauty in this sea of options lies in selecting the best System Development methodology for a unique project. Each system development methodology carries its characteristic set of pros and cons that must be weighed to assertively decide which one will yield the best results for an information system development project.
According to Techopedia, “various SDLC models have been created and can be implemented, including Waterfall, Rapid Prototyping, Incremental, Spiral, Fountain, Build and Fix, Synchronize and Stabilize, and Rapid Application Development (RAD)”. Next, we are going to list some of the most prominent SDLC methodologies available.
- Waterfall: Known by many as the traditional methodology, Waterfall is a sequential and linear flow used to develop a system software application. In Waterfall, the process is outlined by a series of finite stages and each one must be fully completed before moving on to the next one. The Waterfall approach follows this order: requirements, design, execution, testing, and release.
- Rapid application development (RAD): It is an adaptive approach that puts less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on an adaptive process. Oftentimes, prototypes are used in RAD to substitute design specifications. RAD is considered one of the most popular SDLC models for software that is driven by user interface requirements. From its origin, RAD was created as a response to the plan-driven Waterfall methodology that designs and builds things almost as structured as done with a building. RAD is all about fast prototyping and iterative delivery that falls into the parental category of Agile.
- Prototyping: This methodology creates prototypes of the software application to simulate the functioning aspects of a desired final product. Prototyping is mainly used to visualize components of the software solution to ensure the final product meets customer requirements. There are several variants of prototyping but they are mainly categorized into throwaway and evolutionary. Throwaway prototyping creates a model that will eventually be discarded and evolutionary prototyping refers to a robust prototype that will be constantly refined to reach its final version.
- Spiral: The spiral methodology can be thought of as a combination of the Waterfall methodology and the prototyping methodology. It is typically the methodology of choice for large and complex projects because it uses the same stages as the Waterfall methodology but it separates them into planning, risk assessment, and prototype building.
- Agile: The iterative and incremental methodology recognized for excellence, Agile is a framework that evolves through collaboration between teams. It is a dynamic and interactive methodology that works in sprints with a defined duration to produce lightweight deliverables that help reduce the time in which software is released. It advocates for adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and rapid and flexible responsiveness to changes.
- Iterative and incremental: The iterative and incremental methodology is designed to overcome any fault or shortcoming of the Waterfall methodology. The iterative and incremental methodology begins with initial planning and ends with the deployment of the solution, with cyclic interaction in between. In essence, it develops a software application via iterative and repeated cycles that are performed incrementally so developers can learn from the development of previous portions of the software.
- V model: This methodology is considered an extension of the Waterfall methodology, but instead of flowing down in a linear way, the steps are designed upward to form a V shape. In this methodology, the relationships between each phase of the development life cycle are associated with a testing phase. The horizontal and vertical axes display the time or project completeness (left to right) and abstraction level (coarsest-grain abstraction).
These methodologies can be combined to build a hybrid solution that better meets a specific project’s requirements. Usually, organizations rely on the expertise provided by System Analysts to decide and select the best methodology or combination of methodologies to use for a specific project. In the following section, we are going to explore the System Analyst role and how their valuable skill set has become a key component in the success of effective System Development Life Cycle projects.
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