9 Steps Software Development Process Used To Build Startups
A software development process may yield stupendous results if conducted in the right manner. There are certain steps that you need to follow to gain a game-changing product.
Assessment
All the ideas that you have regarding your software wouldn’t reach a tentative end if you do not assess with the developer team. You determine the availability of product specifications, domain expertise, and relevant experiences to build the product.
Knowing The Team
Software development is a multidisciplinary approach that requires the efforts of more than one just person. It takes an entire team to build digital software and it’s equally impertinent for teams to know each other. The close-knit crew will consist of the following members, each of which works together to develop an efficient digital solution.
Tech Lead:
A tech lead or chief technology officer is the first person who shares your vision and requirement regarding the product. However, you’ll be required to interact with the tech lead often during all stages of the development. A CTO acts as a project manager and creates the protocol according to which the process would begin and proceed. They then overlook the way the strategy is incorporated into the development cycle and detect any irregularities. Their responsibility also includes the identification of ways the team can eradicate the differences. They also maintain effective communication between you and the associated stakeholders.
Delivery Manager:
One may refer to a delivery manager as the supervisor agency that ensures timely submission of deliverables. By doing so, they prevent companies from paying out of the budget during any stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Together, the delivery manager and CTO create standard procedures and observe whether the allocated resources are sufficient to meet the deadline. In an agile model, a delivery manager diligently works to add value to the product by repetitions.
Business Analyst:
A business analyst assures that your product becomes a part of the market as effectively and quickly as possible. They clarify the way you can achieve your goals and insights via your products. At the earliest, they curate information about what your potential audience wants. They then figure out the right balance between problems and solutions and ways to achieve them. In the end, they ensure that all the business requirements are met without any delay.
Development Team:
The last part of the development hierarchy is the development team that you might need to communicate with. It consists of professionals such as UX/UI designers team, frontend/backend developers, and QA engineers who design, develop, and check the software respectively.
Validating The Ideas
Now that you have known and communicated with the team, the next step is idea validation and project estimation.
IDEA VALIDATION:
As the name suggests, idea validation is the process of figuring out whether the product would resonate with the audience. Here, companies run customer reviews and surveys to determine what the consumers are looking for. It gives a clearer picture of the audience’s wants, what they have as an alternative and where the latter lacks. By connecting all the dots, you’re able to run competitive analysis and design a product that’s better than others.
PROJECT ESTIMATION:
Now that you have got an idea of what the product would look like, it’s time to make a rough estimate. Factors that help the process are idea validation, required product figures and resources available, and past experience with similar projects.
The rough estimates act like a general ledger for the BA to create a roadmap. What follows next is a detailed estimate that provides an accurate and clearer picture of where the budget would go to.
Creating Prototype
A prototype is term the preliminary version of a product from which the final version will be develop. It is also describe as a minimum viable product (MVP) that gives the initial research a practical picture. Both prototype or MVP are employed for testing and can be adjusted accordingly through agility and resources.
If you have ideas that are validate and are built on solid ground, you may skip the step and move onwards. However, if you’re still in the process of testing, you may work with a clickable, concierge, or full-fledged MVP.
Designing
Whatever data and feedback that was require in the initial stages are put to visual depiction. Here, the software manages to hit the visual milestone. In the designing stage, the development team looks after information architecture, a strategy that streamlines the designing process. It consists of three elements, notably design brief, user personas, user journey, and user flow. The team uses the information architecture to gather the features, visuals, and other product aspects in one place to determine the future steps.
Another feature that plays an important role is the wireframe and the mockups. This step precedes the initial research findings and IA. The previous stage provides a tangible idea of the layout. The wireframe then interments to visually explain the structural block of what the product would like at completion.
A mockup is a more refined version of the design that renders an unambiguous feel of the final product. It’s a visual depiction of the icons, sliders, and other elements that the client would witness.
UI/UX design is the stage where you would receive the final version of the product. Then follows usability testing, where the software undergoes a final check before the development process begins.
Development
Here’s when the product enters into the lifecycle where the team begins with the technical side. The developer team runs codes that would eventually build up the software. At this stage, the Agile software development professionals will begin working on the infrastructure and its front-end and back-end features.
You will embark on the development stage with a statement of work (SOW) written and provided by the project manager. It explains all the tasks, when they would begin, and why you need to run them. A well-described SOW provides a clear picture of what the product is about and the processes required to achieve it. You will be require to collaborate with the team more often and know about the daily task update.
Testing
Testing makes software development meet perfection. It starts with the first line of code being written and continues till the product goes live. Software development companies usually work with a predefined QA strategy by which the entire QA team abides. It consists of requirement analysis, test planning and execution, defect tracking, and pre-launch regression testing. All of these test cases and strategies help build a flawless product.
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Deployment
After the pre-launch testing approves the software, it is time to produce it. At this step, various actions are orchestrate to ensure that the end solution delivers perfectly to the end user. The development team sets up servers, lays Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipelines, and protects the software from third-party attacks. They also prepare and execute a deployment plan.
Operations and Maintenance
Once the product is built, it’s time to ensure maintenance to improve, update, and prevent any downtime. If you choose to partner with the right team, the entire process will be streamline to yield an impeccable process.
