Importance of Software development methodologies
The ultimate objective of software engineering is to produce good quality maintainable software within reasonable time frame and at an affordable cost. This is achievable only if we have matured processes to produce it. For a mature process, it should be possible to determine in advance how much time and effort would be required to produce the final product. Software development organizations follow some method when developing a software product. This methodology refers to the framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing an information system. A wide variety of such frameworks have evolved over the years, each with its own recognized strengths and weaknesses. Common methodologies include waterfall, prototyping, iterative and incremental development, spiral development, rapid application development, and extreme programming. Often, several models are combined into some sort of hybrid methodology. These methods generally promote a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation.
The software development method typically includes a requirements phase, design phase, implementation phase, test phase, operation and maintenance phase. One software development methodology is not necessarily suitable for use by all projects. Each of the available methodologies is best suited to specific kinds of projects, based on various technical, organizational, project and team considerations. The choice of software development method can significantly affect overall costs associated with a software product.
Documentation in a software development method is crucial regardless of the type of model chosen or devised for any ...
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...ll-defined unambiguous and complete policies will lead to the benefits of correct requirements. These requirements then lead to the generation of the correct product which meets the customer's needs preciously. The product therefore will include necessary features that will reduce the post-development cost.
Conclusion
We can conclude that any software project needs to be executed with a formally defined process.
The increased complexities and huge size of the software development projects make them tough to control without formal practices. If the software development process is weak the end product will undoubtedly suffer. Therefore the selection of the right process model is essential in developing a successful product. Also these formally defined development processes are likely to reduce the post-development costs due to early recognition of errors.
This model is most effective for developing business software systems because it is easier to change the process to reflect the updated customer requirements. The basic idea behind incremental method is to develop a system through repeated cycles (iterative) and in smaller portions at a time (incremental), thereby allowing software developers to take advantage of what was learned during development of earlier parts or versions of the system. Learning comes from both the development and use of the system, where possible key steps in the process start with a simple implementation of a subset of the software requirements and iteratively enhance the evolving versions until the full system is implemented. At each iteration, design modifications are made and new functional capabilities are
The Software Development Life Cycle is seldom used at my place of work. Unfortunately, recent developments in its use are deemed confidential. Due to this fact, this paper will examine in general terms one of the projects we are undertaking right now while at the same time attempting to maintain our confidentiality.
SDLC( Software Development Life Cycle) , is a process used by the software industry to design, develop and test high quality software .The SDLC aim to produce good quality software that meets or exceeds the user’s expectation and reaches completion within time and cost estimates.
While developing a software many complex activities are required which in turn have dependencies along them. Large software projects require the involvement of programmers, documentation specialists, program managers, architects, database analysts, system analysts, , and trainers and last but not the least testers. Along with their independent responsibilities these persons are also responsible to maintain and keep a check on the software system quality as well.
Documentation Documentation is a tool to make children's learning visible. It can help practitioners gain greater insight
The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) consists of phases used in developing a piece of software. It is the plan of how to develop and maintain software, and when necessary, replace that software. In 2007 during my hospital’s transition to a new software system, I was fortunate enough to be included in the process. I did not get involved until the implementation phase, but from then on, until now, I remain very active in the process. I decided to highlight the Waterfall Model of SDLC. The Waterfall Model is a “sequential development process” with each phase continuing in a line (McGonigle and Mastrian, 2012, p. 205).
A documentation framework is essential for any large project; hence, RUP describes how to document functionality, constraints, design decisions and business requirements. Use Cases and Scenarios, are examples of artifacts prescribed by the process and have been found to be very effective at both capturing functional requirements and providing coherent threads throughout the development and deployment of the system.
Goknil [6] the requirements of a systems cannot be static they are prone to change and new requirements emerge frequently. New and/or modified requirements are integrated with the existing ones, and adaptations to the architecture and source code of the system are made. The process of integration of the new/modified requirements and adaptations to the software system is called change management. The size and complexity of software systems make change management costly and time consuming. To reduce the cost of changes, it is important to apply change management as early as possible in the software development cycle. Requirements traceability is considered crucial in change management for establishing and maintaining consistency between software development artifacts. It is the ability to link requirements back to stakeholders’ rationales and forward to corresponding design artifacts, code, and test cases. When changes for the requirements of the software system are proposed, the impact of these changes on other requirements, design elements and source code should be traced in order to determine parts of the software system to be
Agile development methods have been gaining acceptance among mainstream software development since the late 1990s, when they were first postulated in the form of Scrum, Crystal, Extreme Programming and the other. Today they were founded to varying degrees in the software development community learning, and professional education. While there is much to be learned from looking at the items that are created by software developers and from developers to measure and failure proneness of software, we can gain great insights through direct interaction with the software developers. We can learn about the development of their activities, their perceptions of the development process, and how the two interact. [1]
The Unified Modeling Language is a standard language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of software systems, as well as for business modeling and other non-software systems. The key is to organize the design process in a way that clients, analysts, programmers and other involved in system development can understand and agree on. The UML provides the organization. The UML was released in 1997 as a method to diagram software design, by some of the best minds in object oriented analysis and design. It is by far the most exciting thin to happen to the software industry in recent years. Every other engineering discipline has a standard method of documentation. Electronic engineers have schematic diagrams; architects and mechanical engineers have blueprints and mechanical diagrams. The software industry now has UML.
Documentation is vital on the grounds that it furnishes data for the staff to take in the new framework. It guarantees progression of frameworks improvement after the framework is conveyed for utilization and the first programmers or designers proceed onward to different activities. Client documentation is required for one to decrease the amount o...
Keywords: Personal Software Process (PSP), Team Software Process (TSP), Small teams, Student final year project teams, Software Process management, Software Process Improvement.
As more companies that are leading technology are transforming from the traditional waterfall development model to an Agile software methodology, requirements engineering provides a process for software engineers to understand the problems they need to solve (Martin, Newkirk, & Koss, 2014). It is of key importance to understand the customer 's wants and needs before beginning designing or building the computer-based solution, as developing a solution that ignores the customer’s needs provides value to none of the parties involved. Thus, the intent of requirements engineering is to produce a written understanding of the customer 's problem (Pressman, 2010). Work products that are available to communicate this understanding include user scenarios, function and feature lists, analysis models, and specifications. This paper provides an evaluation of requirement patterns, an assessment of problem solving techniques most effective, a descriptive explanation of the patterns that includes a visual taxonomy, and an explanation of how the patterns identified are related.
Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
In software development it tends to be inflexible and progress flows in one direction through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment and maintenance. The traditional method sounds much more time consuming compared to the agile system. That is because agile system fails to provide concrete time frames management can work with and give an end date for a finished product. The article by Phillip A. Laplante and Colin J. Neill (2004) called The Demise of the Waterfall Model Is Imminent” and Other Urban Myths describes how traditional methods like the waterfall are still relevant to today’s software development methods. This model of development works best when requirements of the customer are set, stable, and fully evolved before work begins. A phase is revisited only if software created in that phase fails and the next phase cannot be moved to unless everything has been verified. This can become a problem if something fails and a deadline must be met. Uninformed management and incompetent staff, moving targets of requirements, target platforms and technologies changing overtime also create problems for the waterfall technique. Where an agile process is adaptable for those problems based on communication, the waterfall process focuses on documentation. The water fall documentation helps explain and show simple design process phases, so others