The Software Development Process - The Complete Course

Choosing right model for developing of the software product or application is very important. Based on the model the development and testing processes are carried out

Different companies based on the software application or product, they select the type of development model whichever suits to their application

But these days in market the ‘Agile Methodology‘ is the most used model.

•In simpler words, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the set of processes used to develop and deliver high quality software

•It’s recommended to follow Software Development Life Cycle when an IT project is under development

•Its beneficial to follow SDLC when you need to combine technical and non-technical activities to deliver high quality software

•The Software Development Life Cycle is structured in different stages in the life cycle and can be accomplished using different models

•Software life cycle models describe phases of the software cycle and the order in which those phases are executed

•Each phase produces deliverables required by the next phase in the life cycle

•Requirements are translated into design

•Code is produced according to the design which is called development phase

•The ‘Waterfall Model‘ is the very old model

•It is also referred to as a linear-sequential life cycle model

•In ‘Waterfall Model’ testing starts only after the development is completed

•V- model means Verification and Validation model

•Just like the waterfall model, the V-Shaped life cycle is a sequential path of execution of processes

•Each phase must be completed before the next phase begins

•V-Model is one of the many software development models

•Testing of the product is planned in parallel with a corresponding phase of development in V-model

•In incremental model the whole requirement is divided into various builds. Multiple development cycles take place here, making the life cycle a “multi-waterfall” cycle

•Cycles are divided up into smaller, more easily managed modules. Incremental model is a type of software development model like V-model, Agile model etc.

•In this model, each module passes through the requirements, design, implementation and testing phases

•RAD model is Rapid Application Development model

•It is a type of incremental model

•In RAD model the components or functions are developed in parallel as if they were mini projects

•The developments are time boxed, delivered and then assembled into a working prototype

•This can quickly give the customer something to see and use and to provide feedback regarding the delivery and their requirements

•Agile development model is also a type of Incremental model

•Software is developed in incremental, rapid cycles

•This results in small incremental releases with each release building on previous functionality

•Each release is thoroughly tested to ensure software quality is maintained

•It is used for time critical applications

•An iterative life cycle model does not attempt to start with a full specification of requirements. Instead, development begins by specifying and implementing just part of the software, which can then be reviewed in order to identify further requirements

•This process is then repeated, producing a new version of the software for each cycle of the model

•The spiral model is similar to the incremental model, with more emphasis placed on risk analysis

•The spiral model has four phases: Planning, Risk Analysis, Engineering and Evaluation

•A software project repeatedly passes through these phases in iterations (called Spirals in this model)

•The baseline spiral, starting in the planning phase, requirements are gathered and risk is assessed

•Each subsequent spirals builds on the baseline spiral

•The spiral model is similar to the incremental model, with more emphasis placed on risk analysis

•The spiral model has four phases: Planning, Risk Analysis, Engineering and Evaluation

•A software project repeatedly passes through these phases in iterations (called Spirals in this model)

•The baseline spiral, starting in the planning phase, requirements are gathered and risk is assessed

•Each subsequent spirals builds on the baseline spiral

•The prototype are usually not complete systems and many of the details are not built in the prototype

•The goal is to provide a system with overall functionality

As the Software Development Life Cycle has many models, it is very important and the broader issue to select the right model for the project

This is very challenging and crucial for most of the organizations, as the model selected and the criteria used to select it adds the value to the organization

Development environments have changed drastically in recent years

The development periods are shorter than ever and the number of team has increased

These changes have led to difficulties in controlling the development activities and predicting the end of developments

Cost-effective software project management has the serious need to focus resources on those areas with highest criticality

Critical areas are identified in

• Lack of resources or skills for complex parts

• Uncertainty

• High development/implementation costs

• Tasks on the critical path of a project plan

• Critical points should be managed in Risk Assessment at project management level

The term complexity stands for state of events or things, which have multiple interconnected links and highly complicated structures

In software programming, as the design of software is realized, the number of elements and their interconnections gradually emerge to be huge, which becomes too difficult to understand at once

Software complexity is also a natural byproduct of the functional complexity that the code is attempting to enable

Software design complexity is difficult to assess without using complexity metrics and measures

We will see also:

• how to control complexity

• how to measure complexity

Team Size Can Be the Key to a Successful Software Project

What is an optimum staffing level for a software development project?

How to determine the right size for a specific software development team?

Capacity planning

Identify the key members of a software team

How do you figure out the ideal size of your software development team?

Costs of software development and deployment are decreasing due to numerous open source projects, but competition increases due to lowering entry barriers

The need to bring developers closer to their customer becomes vital for success, especially involving users into the very early stages of software development

This allows detecting flaws of conceptual and design nature, minimize unnecessary development costs, and warrant relevance for customers

In this lesson also:

Customer Involvement Methods

Customer engagement options in software projects

We need to be able to learn from past experiences so we can improve our software processes and products but also our project management methods and activities

Cost estimation is an especially difficult area of software development project management

The impacts of uncertainty in key areas such as product size, productivity, and defect injection rates can dramatically affect a project's cost and schedule

The job of estimating becomes even more difficult when requirements are allowed to evolve throughout a project as is the case for a spiral lifecycle process

The same unknowns of size, productivity, and defect injection rates exist, but there is also the additional unknown of the number of spirals that will need to be completed before an incremental product is delivered

The evolutionary nature of the process allows requirements to change and this makes the job of estimating size even more difficult and uncertain.

Since most software development projects do undergo changes, it is beneficial to consider the impacts on cost and schedule which can be used to develop a more realistic estimate.

Organizational culture forms the context in which systems development takes place

Although there is not much prior research into the relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of Software Development Models (SDMs), there are good a priori reasons to believe in a relationship between the two

Organizational culture includes several levels with a varying degree of awareness on the part of the culture-bearers

Organizational culture should be compatible with the IT effort in question in order to succeed

In order to verify if an organization is ready for a specific software development model we need to clarify the types of culture and verify to which one our organization belong to

In this lesson also:

Types of colture

The Competing values model (CVM)

Organizational Culture and the Deployment of Agile Methods

Organizational culture impact on the selection of the Software Development Model

Other factors that influence the selection of the Software Development Model