

#Software development methodology software#
Perhaps the most famous of methodologies, Agile SDLC originated as a response to the traditional waterfall, when software development went fully commercial and hit the changing landscape with dynamically changing requirements. Taking an analogy from a classic sci-fi movie, you aspire to build, say, a space station – plan everything – build it – test it by shooting at a planet – and then hope there is no vulnerability in the central reactor that a certain Luke Skywalker could hit, destroying the station so you’ll have to build another one to “fix the bug”.Īs is obvious, the big drawback is that changes are extremely costly to implement, so this lack of flexibility narrows the application of this otherwise intuitive methodology. This is the most classic methodology one can possibly imagine, simply arranging the SDLC stages one after another – completing a previous stage “unlocks” the following one.

Why, then, is SDLC so important to consider if it’s so fundamental and intuitive? First of all, without it, no methodology can be truly put to use with all its benefits. The different methodologies, such as waterfall, Agile, and so on are essentially ways of arranging these different processes within a project: one by one, in iterative cycles that are shorter or longer, deciding what goes concurrently with what, and so on. Software design (and architecture design).The easiest way to explain SDLC is that it’s the mother of all methodologies, the elemental division of work into stages: Although it is commonly cited as a “methodology”, in fact, it is much more basic than that. What is SDLC and why is it important?Īt the very foundation is the notion of SDLC – software development life cycle. Understanding the various ways software development lifecycle can be organized is valuable not just for developers, but for all stakeholders in a project: it’s a story of interaction, communication, and successful delivery. What does the person launching a project need to know about them, though? We decided to look at some of these with a pragmatic eye – no wordy manifestos, just the business value and considerations about when to use what.

In a world where everyone has at least heard the words “Agile” or “DevOps”, and businesses rely on IT to simply exist, software development methodologies multiply and produce countless buzzwords and abbreviations: SDLC, RAD, FDD, and so on.
