Understanding the SDLC in Software Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide
1. Introduction
The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a process used in software engineering to design, develop, test, and deploy software applications. It is a structured approach to software development that helps organizations to improve the quality of their software products, reduce costs, and minimize risks. The SDLC encompasses several phases with goals, deliverables, and stakeholders.
In this article, we will discuss the various phases of the SDLC, including their benefits and challenges. We will also provide some best practices for implementing the SDLC in your organization.
2. The Seven Phases of the SDLC in Software Engineering
2.1 Phase 1: Planning
The planning phase is the first step in the SDLC. It involves defining the project’s objectives, scope, and requirements. The planning phase is critical because it lays the foundation for the entire project. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
2.2 Phase 2: Analysis
The analysis phase is where the software requirements are analyzed in detail. During this phase, the project team will work with the stakeholders to identify the business requirements, functional requirements, and non-functional requirements. Some of the critical activities in this phase include:
2.3 Phase 3: Design
The design phase is where the software architecture and design are created. During this phase, the project team will create the software design, including the system architecture, database design, user interface design, and program design. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
2.4 Phase 4: Development
The development phase is where the actual software is developed. During this phase, the project team will write the code, perform unit testing, and integrate the components. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
2.5 Phase 5: Testing
The testing phase is where the software is tested for defects and errors. During this phase, the project team will perform various types of testing, such as unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
2.6 Phase 6: Deployment
The deployment phase is where the software is deployed to the production environment. During this phase, the project team will install the software, configure it, and perform any necessary data migration. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
2.7 Phase 7: Maintenance
The maintenance phase is where the software is maintained and updated. During this phase, the project team will fix defects, perform upgrades, and make enhancements to the software. Some of the key activities in this phase include:
3. Benefits of SDLC in Software Engineering
4. Challenges of SDLC in Software Engineering
While the SDLC provides many benefits, it also comes with its own set of challenges. Some of the challenges of the SDLC include:
5. Best Practices for Implementing SDLC in Software Engineering
To ensure the successful implementation of the SDLC in software engineering, it is essential to follow some best practices. Some of these best practices include:
6. FAQs
7. The Software Development Lifecycle — A Deep Dive
7.1 Fundamental Characteristics of the SDLC
The Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) in software engineering is the cornerstone of large software deliveries and is characterized by the following:
The Software Development Lifecycle applies perfectly to both flavours of software projects: systems integration and product development.
7.3 Tools and Techniques
The techniques and methods employed today in software delivery result from a 70-year-old practice and a vast body of knowledge accumulated over the years and embodied in its production processes.
We can only codify a fraction of this knowledge in web articles and an even smaller percentage in one or two paragraphs.
The table below does not exhaustively describe the tools, techniques, and best practices employed at every stage of the SDLC. It will list the essential ones with links to further articles the reader can read.
| Stage | Techniques to Achieve the Best Results |
|---|---|
| 1. Planning | While planning and allocating resources, delivery managers ideally aim for the following targets: A) To create self-sufficient teams, these can perform better if they do not need to go outside their group for approval or advice. B) To keep the group together during future projects (as much as possible) to leverage their shared experiences and mature relationships. C) Spread the load for optimal resource allocation so that projects can be delivered without sacrificing quality to meet demanding deadlines. Optimal resource allocation also means that resources do not idle when work is scarce. D) Manage project risk throughout the implementation. |
| 2. Analysis | Two criteria must be met for this stage to be successful: A) First, the business requirements must be clarified and documented. Remember, unclear requirements are one of the top reasons for IT project failures. B) Second, effort estimation must be precise to ensure the project remains profitable and manage stakeholder expectations well. |
| 3. Design | All architectural documents are produced at this stage describing the concept of operations and main modules and functions of the systems and subsystems. Interface design also occurs at this stage, which is crucial for development and systems integration projects. A Solution Design is completed at different levels for different purposes. A High-Level Design (HLD) gives a bird’s eye view of the solution for major stakeholders, while a low-level solution design (LLD) is a great place to document all the implementation details. |
| 4. Development | Successful developers produce clean code with a unique coding style, look after software architecture, and use Test-Driven Development (TDD) as the backbone of their development processes. Development should also investigate how it uses Unit Tests to understand its benefits and pitfalls. Design and development are the primary producers of business value, while other stages are auxiliary and serve only to support the development effort at an extra cost. |
| 5. Testing | Software Testing is always a great place to start when looking for ways to optimize your delivery. Two significant factors immediately come to mind: automation and Test-Driven Development. Test automation significantly improves your delivery capabilities and boosts the quality of your testing. Agile and DevOps are very difficult, if not impossible, to implement without automation. Automating repetitive testing activities also gives your QA staff more opportunities for growth. Test-Driven Development, or TDD, is an excellent tool for streamlining your activities and allowing developers and testers to work in parallel. To realise its full potential, it must be implemented with automation, unit testing (as space as possible), and Systems Integration Testing. |
| 6. Deployment | Deployment to production has moved to a new level with continuous delivery, automated deployment, and frequent releases. The infrastructure supporting automated and advanced deployment methods (tools and processes) falls under DevOps. DevOps practices allow the fusion of development and operations in a single, streamlined process. |
| 7. Support | Triage, time management, SLA awareness, and customer satisfaction are the hallmark of customer support. |
8. Managing and Improving Development Processes and Lifecycle
The below guidelines (much like everything else in this article) will work as long as no substantial shift occurs in context. They also work best in ordered systems (simple and complicated), but their effectiveness degrades significantly in complex systems.
8.1 Process Standardization
Employees sometimes view standardization as a means for curbing creativity, stifling innovation, limiting personal initiatives, and imposing an alien organizational culture.
While that statement may not be entirely untrue, it is still essential to standardize your production processes across the organization to guarantee minimum variations in outcomes and ensure improvements are applied across the board.
What is essential in the context of standardization is that you pick methods (or, better still, pick time-proven best practices) and use them consistently. You can always run continuous improvement exercises on those methods for optimal results.
If you create bespoke processes for your organization, there will be significant implications. While a customized standard of operations may work better for you in the long run, its initial cost can be pretty high.
Generally speaking, and unless you have the size and influence of Google or Tesla, it is recommended that you communicate via a language that everybody can understand.
8.2 Reducing Non-Value-Adding Work
Taiichi Ohno implemented the following technique for eliminating waste on the shop floor of the Toyota production plants to an astounding degree of perfection.
The process is as follows:
| Stage | Tasks |
|---|---|
| 1. Observation | Spend as much time observing the production processes, preferably with experienced staff. |
| 2. Make a List | List all the repetitive steps required to complete a particular task. |
| 3. Mapping | Find out which ones produce value and which ones don’t. |
| 4. Identify Non-Value-Adding Activities | Work with the team members to identify non-value-adding steps such as overhead, rework, or enabling activities. |
| 5. Eliminate Non-Value-Adding Activities | Enhance internal processes in collaboration with team members to eliminate all forms of waste |
This five-step process should not be confused with scientific management (a.k.a. Taylorism). Scientific management, proposed by Frederick Taylor in the 1880s, was likely to be counter-productive as employees found ways to game the system.
This method is a radical deviation from the statistical analysis of data collected remotely and analysed behind a comfortable desk. Its advantages include gathering firsthand information as seen through experienced eyes. This method is known in Toyota as Genchi Genbutsu.
8.3 Team Structure and Performance
Although it would not make much sense to have a prescription for team size and profiles for its members, some rules of thumb apply in non-complex systems.
Martin Fowler, one of the 17 founders of Agile, describes the most performant team as follows:
Keep the team size small for maximum communication and efficiency. Ideally, the golden number is less than ten people. — Martin Fowler
Another magic number seems to be seven if we believe the results of a paper published in 1956 by George Miller. From experience, managing the interactions of any more than seven people overwhelms our cognitive abilities, and things will start to slip.
Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg published a book in 2014 called How Google Works. In this book, they stated that the maximum number of people a single person can efficiently manage is around seven.
Use the same team across multiple projects so that they can benefit from their shared knowledge of the application. — How Google Works
In the same book, How Google Works, Google focuses on getting teams to work in smaller spaces, without physical barriers, and encourages relationship building. They also have a specific recruitment process that ensures only the right people get on board.
At Google, they strive to hire interesting people. The criterium is as follows: if you get stuck in an airport with a colleague, can you find interesting topics for discussion? — How Google Works
Let’s now turn to the Agile Manifesto for more inspiration.
The best architectures and designs emerge from self-organising teams.
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
— The Agile Manifesto
It is undeniable that kayaking with the team always positively impacts the mood. However, I am convinced that team-building exercises alone are insufficient (or even remotely relevant) to improve the team’s performance.
Emotionally charged traumatic experiences dwarf the positive ones; unfortunately, our brains weigh experiences differently.
Vital as it may be, such team-building exercises should only be an addendum to the real ones:
- Valuing employees’ contributions — However, not through competition-inducing practices such as “Employee of the month”, but through genuine appreciation of the individual’s contribution.
- Maintaining a safe work environment — A healthy organizational culture is the main pillar on which this would rest.
- Offering employees the opportunity to grow professionally and as individuals.
8.4 Tracking Progress
The ideas in this section are probably not the most popular as they go against some of the more modern management styles that have been trending for a while.
Have a look at the below table to compare and contrast.
| Traditional Method | Proposed Method |
|---|---|
| Heavily dependent on lengthy reports and second-hand information to understand the situation. | Go and see for yourself. Use your experience and trained eyes to understand the processes and spot bottlenecks and inefficiencies. |
| Uses complex statistics and KPIs such as Six Sigma and Taylor’s scientific management methods to monitor and improve performance. | Robust, mature, time-proven and simple heuristics focus more on outcomes than results. |
| Unfounded optimism and positive attitude. Ignore negative indicators. | Use visual aids to signal quality problems. Stop and fix the problem before it snowballs. |
| Treat the symptoms as opposed to the root cause. Has a “not my problem” attitude. | Ask “Why” five times until you get to the root cause of the problem. Openly discuss any issue and fix it. |
3.5 Continuous Improvement
As the organization grows and pressure for faster and better deliveries increases, people will find less time to improve what they do. In his timeless classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey describes this phenomenon as “sharpening the saw”.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.
— The Agile Manifesto
Even if individual initiatives were made here and there, these would continue to be local, spurious improvements and cease to suffice.
To maintain software delivery in top shape, continuous improvement methods must be ingrained in the DNA of the system. In addition to that, they also need to be amalgamated into a single, system-wide activity.
Scrum uses retrospectives after each sprint. The double activity of Kaizen and Hansei is slightly different, but the objective is the same.
Such exercises are essential for morale; they convey to the staff that the company is committed to continuously improving its people and processes, not just about the present but also the future.
4. Responding to Change
4.1 Technology Lifecycles
The pace at which software or any other technology-based industry changes is breathtaking. Sometimes, that leaves us with a feeling of helplessness that’s difficult to ignore.
The question then becomes, how do we, as professionals in the software industry, keep producing premium-quality products despite the ever-changing nature of technology, tools, techniques, and methods that come with it?
It might help to look at the software industry’s evolution not as a homogenous, monolithic entity but as four significant sub-fields, each characterised by a predetermined lifetime.
| Subfield | Description | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | Programming languages, frameworks, and database engines. | < 10 years |
| Delivery Methods, Customer Preferences | Project management techniques, project delivery methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, DevOps), business needs (eCommerce, payment methods, IoT, smartwatches, cloud technology…) | 10-20 years |
| Tech Concepts | Personal computers, quantum computing, digitization, internet, smartphones, AI…) | 20-30 years |
| Business Management | Taylorism, The Toyota Way, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Operational Excellence | 30+ years |
The lifetime in this context does not represent an expiration but the average duration before a newer concept arises and challenges the status quo.
Like any other field in science or technology, historical progress seems to happen in jumps, followed by plateaus, rather than monotonic, incremental improvement.
4.2 Measured Responses to Disruptions
What would be an adequate response from your organization for the above four disruption levels? Below are some thoughts.
Level 1: Short-Term Fluctuations
Level 1 entries appear and disappear every day. Use reliable technology, always! The gravest mistake you can commit would be trying to catch up with their destructive pace.
Level 2: Big Changes
Level 2 entries are technological trends that change dramatically every decade or two. Consider the emergence of digital payments, for example. While people still use cash nowadays, but would also like to take advantage of the convenience of mobile phones or watches.
Although embracing those new methods is not strictly vital, not doing so places your business in a less-than-ideal situation vis-a-vis competition.
Level 3: Major Disruptions
Looking at entries from Level 3, we immediately recognize game-changing technological revolutions that put so many giants out of business overnight.
Those past giants have failed to reinvent their value proposition and were replaced swiftly with newcomers who leveraged new technologies to offer innovative solutions.
Level 4: Paradigm Shifts
It is somehow fortunate that the more potent concepts of Level 4, those that make a business successful or otherwise, change exceptionally slowly. There is more than enough time for everyone to master them.
These occur as part of larger sociological, economic, or technological revolutions. Because Level 4 fields, such as Operational Excellence and Complexity Theory, sit at the top of the hierarchy as one of the lot’s most stable concepts, ideas, and mental constructs, it makes sense to consider them and invest time in applying and mastering them thoroughly.
5. Final Words
The SDLC is a structured approach to software development that can help organizations to improve the quality of their software products, reduce costs, and minimize risks.
By following some best practices, such as defining clear project objectives and requirements, identifying and engaging project stakeholders, establishing a clear project plan and schedule, and maintaining open communication and collaboration among project stakeholders, you can ensure the successful implementation of the SDLC in your organization.