How does software development process look like?

The trend of outsourcing software development companies to save costs and reduce the growing work pressure in many businesses increasing every day. If you are a business owner who wants to learn what a software development process looks like and control the entire process, the following article is for you.

Firstly, you need to understand what software development is.

Software development is a collection of computer science activities for all tasks from conceptualization to production distribution for a software project. This is usually done by software developers, software engineers, and programmers.

In particular, there are 3 basic types of software:

- System software: provide the operating system, drive management, etc.

- Programming software: providing tools for creating code, interpreting, debugging, generating code, and so on for programmers.

- Application software: such as data management software, media player, security program, etc.

So, what is the software development process?

Any project needs to be planned, divided into phases, and organized in a logical order. This order is called the development process.

Building a software development process is a complex and challenging task because, for every organization, every business will have a different approach to the project. Most software development processes consist of 4 main activities:

- Specification or requirement: identify the major software functions that the business is planning to build, as well as the limitations they set for the process.

- Design and implementation: the development team deploys software according to predefined specifications.

- Verify and validate: ensure that the software is being developed in accordance with the specification and meet the needs of customers in the business requirements.

- Maintenance and scaling: maintains, modifies, and replicates the software to meet changing consumer and market requirements.

These main activities are flexibly allocated and implemented according to project requirements. Next, let's find out how these activities are often arranged into 7 specific steps!

1. Planning

In the first phase, the software development outsourcing company will work with project managers to discuss human resources, project planning, capacity planning, and cost estimation. This is the biggest step affecting the entire software development process, ensuring the success of the project.

Find out whether your business needs a mobile app here.

2. Request analysis

The software outsourcing company, the business and development team need to clarify the business requirements of the project to help the product reach the right target customers. Product managers, software architects, and software outsourcing companies work together to extract key business processes and decide which cases will be automated or optimized by software.

For example: An online banking system that provides banking services for accounts. The business requirement decided for user A is account summary and money transfer. While for user B business requirements are account summary and bill payment.

With a banking service application, the design and architecture use cases will include: login, invoice details, bill payment etc. A simple specific requirements will be presented as below:

Used case  | Required
Login | Describe how customers can log in to their online bank accounts: via account number or email.
Manage unpaid bills 
| Customers will be able to see the dashboard of unpaid invoices that have been registered for online payment.
Manage invoices | Customers can add, modify and delete invoice details.

3. Software design

Once the project requirements are understood, software developers will design the structure for the application. The design process consists of several stages that are created to compare and produce the best results.

4. Programming

Software developers will code the software according to the architecture discussed. Project owner and software development company need to constantly communicate with each other throughout the process to ensure that the project is on track. The result of this phase is the software is complete and ready to functionally tested.

5. Testing

Testing is the key to every development process because it determines the outcome of the whole project. Software developers check code quality, performance tests, and security checks. Professional software outsourcing companies often experiment with automated integration tools to get the software ready for deployment.

6. Implementation

This is a period of releasing the software that has built into practice to consider the success of the project. In addition, the inspection and recording of problems arising for the next maintenance step are often conducted in parallel.

7. Maintenance

This is the monitoring phase to ensure that the software is working properly. If they occur an error, they will be immediately resolved by the software developer and guaranteed not to cause other problems.

Conclusion

Software development is a complex and challenging process, requiring implementers to equip themselves with an experienced workforce. Through this article, we hope to help you learn more about the software development process and build the knowledge base for effective software development.

Golden Owl provides software solutions with actual processes, tools, and experimental features. Contact us now for advice.