Having an organized, thought out plan when developing new software will certainly help you with successful software development.
Developing new software can be a frustrating and tricky process if you aren't prepared and don't have a game plan. When you go into it unprepared the chances of finishing the project or having it run smoothly are unlikely.
To help you we have broken down successful software development into specific activities:
- Planning
- Implementation
- Testing
- Re-factoring
- Deployment
- Maintenance
Planning
Planning is first and always should be. Many less experienced developers or clients will want to jump right to the Implementation stage and skip planning. The point of planning is to hash out ideas and come up with a game plan. Think of a professional football team, they take the field with a playbook that they've already hashed out and run several times. If they were to take the field without a plan, they would be slaughtered.
In the case of software development, slaughtered means budget overruns, launch delays and a buggy product that may not be suitable for use.
By planning correctly, you can define the most important aspects of the software that must be there for launch. You can also decide how things should work, in which case it only has to be developed once. That saves time and money.
Implementation
After you've decided on the game plan you go out there and take action. This can take on many different forms but in essence, it means designing the graphics or actually writing code. Regardless of the platform or language, you are building at this stage.
Testing could technically be considered part of the implementation stage because it is done as pieces of the code are completed. There's are various types and stages of testing but the goal is to find defects as early in the process as possible so that they do not make it into future versions of code where they could have a greater impact.
Think of it this way. If you are building a car, you want to find out that there's a problem with the engine before you build out the drive shaft and the transmission, otherwise, there's a possibility that fixing the engine defect may require you to rebuild the transmission and drive shaft. Find it early, fix it early, and continually build on good code.
Refactoring
This is a step that many companies do not use, but the successful ones do. It is essentially going back through the code and cleaning things up. You are making it more efficient and continually improving upon it by making it simpler and simpler. The way it behaves is the same but you may be able to take some code and refactor it down so that it’s easier to extend and maintain. An example of a company that does a lot of refactoring? Facebook.
Deployment
Deployment is the point where the code has been approved, reviewed, and ready to be pushed to the production environment. Otherwise known as "the live site"; This is where everything is pushed live and your clients and customers start to use it.
Maintenance
After deployment, you're at the point where you've learned what's working and what's not and require some updates or changes based on your business needs or client needs. The big project is done and now its upkeep and staying current.
There are many other pieces of the software development process that we left out, this is just a simplistic overview of the process. The end goal though is to partner with a development company that has a refined process that ensures success. You are in good hands if a company has been there and done it.