Stage 1: Planning and Requirement Analysis :
Requirement analysis is the most important and fundamental stage in SDLC. It is
performed by the senior members of the team with inputs from the customer, the sales
department, market surveys and domain experts in the industry. This information
is then used to plan the basic project approach and to conduct product feasibility
study in the economical, operational, and technical areas. Planning for the quality
assurance requirements and identification of the risks associated with the project
is also done in the planning stage. The outcome of the technical feasibility study
is to define the various technical approaches that can be followed to implement
the project successfully with minimum risks.
Stage 2: Defining Requirements :
Once the requirement analysis is done the next step is to clearly define and document
the product requirements and get them approved from the customer or the market analysts.
This is done through ‘SRS’ – Software Requirement Specification document which consists
of all the product requirements to be designed and developed during the project
life cycle.
Stage 3: Designing the product architecture :
SRS is the reference for product architects to come out with the best architecture
for the product to be developed. Based on the requirements specified in SRS, usually
more than one design approach for the product architecture is proposed and documented
in a DDS - Design Document Specification. This DDS is reviewed by all the important
stakeholders and based on various parameters as risk
Stage 4: Building or Developing the Product :
In this stage of SDLC the actual development starts and the product is built. The
programming code is generated as per DDS during this stage. If the design is performed
in a detailed and organized manner, code generation can be accomplished without
much hassle. Developers have to follow the coding guidelines defined by their organization
and programming tools like compilers, interpreters, debuggers etc are used to generate
the code. Different high level programming languages such as C, C++, Pascal, Java,
and PHP are used for coding. The programming language is chosen with respect to
the type of software being developed.
Stage 5: Testing the Product :
This stage is usually a subset of all the stages as in the modern SDLC models, the
testing activities are mostly involved in all the stages of SDLC. However this stage
refers to the testing only stage of the product where products defects are reported,
tracked, fixed and retested, until the product reaches the quality standards defined
in the SRS.
Stage 6: Deployment in the Market and Maintenance
Once the product is tested and ready to be deployed it is released formally in the
appropriate market. Sometime product deployment happens in stages as per the organizations’
business strategy. The product may first be released in a limited segment and tested
in the real business environment (UAT- User acceptance testing). Then based on the
feedback, the product may be released as it is or with suggested enhancements in
the targeting market segment. After the product is released in the market, its maintenance
is done for the existing customer base.