The Software Development Lifecycle: A Step-by-Step Guide(2024) 

Suppose you are journeying to develop a big building with multiple floors. You will not begin by casually placing bricks and waiting for the hopeful outcome, right? Instead, you will maintain a methodical approach with a planned blueprint such as 2-D drawings, building designs, materials requirement, and many others, concentrating on how each step is precise and evaluated. 

Similarly, the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) involves creating a detailed plan to guide the development of a product. This plan breaks down the process into smaller, manageable modules. Importantly, the SDLC provides a structured framework for designing, organizing, developing, and testing software, outlining each step of the software development process in a clear and systematic manner. 

Here, we’ll be outlining a few step-by-step guides that will walk you through the entire process — from the first spark of inspiration to the finished, world-changing product. So, let’s dive deep into the heart of the software development lifecycle and learn about its stages, models, and its importance. 

What is Software Development Lifecycle?  

SDLC is a process maintained to build software systematically. It reduces the risks before launching any of your SaaS products and ensures that they align with the expectations of the customer. Sounds interesting? Then, you are just a few scrolls away to know its importance while developing software. Below are some of its importances: 

• Effective estimating, scheduling, and planning.  
• Inclined visibility of the entire developmental procedure.  
• Delivery of the software in a methodical manner.  
• Cost estimation in addition to improved risk management.  
• Provide a good amount of customer satisfaction. 

From these important points, it can be evaluated that SDLC helps to contour the plan for every stage of software development while performing the task efficiently and handing over the software within the given time frame.  

Stages of Software Development Life Cycle: 7 Key Phases 

The SDLC helps to figure out many tasks required for building a software application. However, the detailed process varies according to the team, yet we break down some common Software Development Life Cycle Phases below:  

1. Planning and Plotting  

This stage might start with brainstorming if you are not yet sure of the scope. Once you develop your understanding of the requirements, you begin to map what needs to be done next. Covering everything in the planning phase will prevent you from any problems in later stages. Thus, planning is the first stage in software development where you have the basic project blueprint ready with all the available information.  

2. Analyzing and Defining Requirements  

Here all the requirements for the planned product are identified. Stakeholders such as market analysts and customers approve the requirements. Moreover, this is being fulfilled by Software Requirement Specification (SRS). Therefore, the information after analysis will help in building the blocks.  

3. Designing Product Architecture  

This phase is where you put your pen to paper. Software engineers evaluate the requirements and come up with the best solutions. The vision and plan are illustrated in a software design document that contains the programming language, system design, platform to leverage, templates, and security measures. Along with that each feature of the software aids in the efficient development of engineers.  Design models including data, architectural, component-level and interface play a vital role in setting design principles for the software you are planning to develop. 

4. Development and Implementation  

Now, it’s time to implement! In this phase, the development team distributes the project into software models and turns its requirements into codes. This stage takes time; hence, it is significant to set a timeframe so that the developers can meet the expectations and accordingly it can be implemented.   

5. Testing  

The development team now requires combining manual and automation testing to cross-check for bugs or any other issues. Similarly, quality analysis includes testing the product for any error and verifying if it meets the customer’s needs. Each stage guarantees systematic validation along with verification of the product that aligns with the quality standards.  So, software testing is mainly used to ensure that the software is reliable, high-quality, and meets the end-users’ requirements. Moreover, a few levels of software testing are provided below which will help your software to work smoothly and seamlessly: 

• Unit Testing: Make a test of individual components for performance and functionality.  
• Integration Testing: Guaranteeing that amalgamated aspects work perfectly.  
• System Testing: Corroborating the performance and usefulness of the whole system.  
• Acceptance Testing: Allowing the system to meet the ultimate need of the business and thus, be prepared for deployment. 

6. Deployment  

After detailed testing, the product is finally released according to the company’s strategy. Later, it is tested in a real industrial environment to ensure its hassle-free performance. So, if it functions well, you are good to go with the product. However, alone is not enough, it needs supervision.  

7. Maintenance  

To supervise flawless performance, the maintenance phase comes into the picture. The team fixes bugs, minimizes customer issues, and adjusts software changes. They even watch user experience, security, and system performance to find fresh approaches to improve the software.   

Software Development Lifecycle Models  

Models for software development are crucial in the development procedure of software. These models emphasize the planned blueprint and architecture of the software, setting the seal on the structure of the system, data flow, and many others. It also provides a framework that serves as a roadmap for the entire development lifecycle.  

There are over 50 accepted SDLC models in use. However, each has advantages and downsides that should be considered for a particular software development project. Below, we provide a few widely used software development models: 

• Waterfall   

This model arranges all stages sequentially to maintain a flow. As it is an easy structure, this model is simple to use and gives tangible outcomes. However, in this model, once a stage seems to be completed, it can never be changed. Due to its less flexibility, this model has not been in practice recently.   

• Agile  

With the team producing small, incremental software transformations in every cycle, this model divides the SDLC stages over many development cycles. Being highly efficient, this software development methodologies help teams identify problems at its early stage; however, overreliance on customer feedback can lead to a huge chance of changes or the project’s termination. Nonetheless, it is best for developing software that needs flexibility and the ability to adapt. 

• Iterative   

Each cycle of the iterative SDLC model yields a partially developed but deployable version; with every cycle, a few requirements are attached to the software. To guarantee project success, iterative development, and ongoing improvement are incorporated into every phase. So, read on to know its four-stage approach!  

• Inception that helps to define the scope and the goals of the project.  
• Elaboration allows you to analyze and strain the requirements.  
• Construction means you are building and testing the system.  
• Transition is the last phase to deploy and check for successful integration. 

Thus, with this, we get the result in the software with complete requirement specifications. 

• Spiral  

The spiral model amalgamates the iterative model’s small and repetitive cycles along with the linear sequential flow of the waterfall model to focus on risk analysis. The phases of the spiral model are represented by each loop in the spiral structure. You can use it to ensure the gradual release of the software and its improvement by developing prototypes at every stage. On the contrary, for smaller projects with a more constrained scope, it could be expensive.  

Why do we need to adapt to SDLC? 

Let’s take the example of an organization that is planning to launch an e-commerce platform. They might have a brilliant business idea but deficit a structured strategy to implement. So, we’ll be listing down a good grasp on how the process of developing this platform proceeds, with or without SDLC: 

• Analysis of Requirements 

Without SDLC, the team might hop into coding with blurred concept of what features they require. However, with SDLC, the company can start market research by collecting information from users and accordingly develop detailed specifications for a variety of features such as product categories, payment gateway, wishlist, cart etc.  

• Designing and Planning 

If they follow SDLC, they might find a detailed project plan with definite architecture, data, technological requirements and design documents. On the contrary, without it, developers will randomly create features that have no consistency and a lot of integration problems. 

• Development and Execution 

There will be a lack of transparent plans, and it might trigger a lot of delays and changes in the software by maximizing cost and time, if SDLC are not followed. Contrarily, with it, the team will face a lot of positive approaches on a structured plan, expected budget constraints and a proper timeframe.  

• Deployment and Supervision 

Without SDLC, once the platform is launched, they might come across many problems which leads to user frustration and downtime. So, with SDLC, you can except a smooth and well-maintained platform with less issues. 

Wrapping Up   

These are just the basics of Software Development Lifecycle which is important for better and more structured software development. In the fast evolution in technology, SDLC plays a pivotal role. Still, if you are in a dilemma of executing a plan to develop software with your team, don’t forget to take the reference of the above-mentioned blog and adapt SDLC principles.