The 5 Most Important Things to Consider When Planning Your Software Development Project

In its development, software goes through the software development life cycle (SDLC), from the conception of the idea to launching.

These phases are;

- identifying required software,

- analyzing software requirements (manpower and capacity),

- specifying tools needed,

- designing the software and programming,

- testing, and

- maintenance.

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There are several Software Development Processes, which depend on factors like your goals, size of the project, and team. Examples are Waterfall (linear sequential model), Agile and Scrum, Incremental and Iterative, V-Shaped and Spiral. Software development companies like Nerdcloud offer expertise on the entire process, eliminating any possible challenges.

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The 5 most important things to consider when planning your software development project are:

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1. Viability Examination and Planning

Software project planning has various requirements to be met to avoid dragging out timing, inevitably driving up the cost, or even frustrating your team.

First, identify if there is a need for something, what exactly is needed, and if the proposed process can deliver desired results. With the team, equipment, time, skills, and budget required, compare the same to available resources, select a process that maximizes resources in the allocated timeline, and best results.

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2. Examining and Choosing the Requirements

Choice of requirements involves interaction with end-users, understanding user documents, and regulations in your line of business.

Have an outline of the project and software requirements from an expert. Infrastructure includes; PCs with advanced, integrated environment suite, a server to track and manage documents, a server to examine, produce and deploy software, a tool to follow requirements, defects, and tasks, an automatic building system, a tool to test regression, and system to report issues.

A comparison of strategies will help you determine the most appropriate one. The template selected should be followed, and actions tracked through selected tools.

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3. Designing

The designer or programmer should have a document demonstrating how the program meets set requirements. Simple wireframes showing interaction with the software or prototypes should be made.

This validates ideas and gives valuable feedback before coding. Tools and indicators for data collection help identify issues on time, and tracking this data over time helps determine release time.

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4. Developing

Executing outlined procedures has 4 phases; Alpha, the first version, tests functionality, Beta for internal examination and testing usability, Release Version is relatively stable but needs some changes, and The Gold Master is ready for release.

Feedback expected is on user experience, speed of task completion, and functionality in general. Automate repetitive tasks (building code, scanning, testing) to eliminate human errors.

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5.  Testing and Integration

This stage pushes the code into production and launching. Features should be listed, scripts for all user actions made available and tested to work, and fix issues detected (bugs and lags). Integration is slow and gradual to increases the chances of approval. Using UX tools, track how users interact with the software.

Automate this using a continuous deployment model or Application Release Automation (ARA) tool.

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Maintenance and Updates

Bugs arise after use, and new features need to be added. Maintenance allows modification and updating of the software to improve efficiency as needs become dynamic.

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There’s a wide range of factors to consider before starting your software development project. NerdCloud is your reliable partner and with our experts on your team, you can scale up or down development depending on your needs!

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