Improving SDLC Practices for Seamless Software Development

The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a term describing a software development project from start to finish.

Traditionally, the SDLC consisted of several distinct phases that were performed one after the other. Modern SDLC approaches still have the same phases but use an iterative approach to deliver incremental software improvements throughout a project’s lifetime.

In this blog post, you will learn about the phases of SDLC, key improvements, and best practices.

The following subsections cover the traditional phases of SDLC. Each phase will be described separately, but keep in mind that for modern approaches to SDLC, these phases often overlap and iterate.

1. Planning and requirement gathering

Before starting a new software project, there should be a planning and requirements phase. The plan you end up with after this phase should be as comprehensive as possible, but you should be prepared for the fact that the plan will have to change to adapt to changes in the project context.

A key task in this phase is to identify and interview stakeholders to understand the high-level requirements that the software should fulfill.

Interviews should be reduced to a list of requirements. This list does not have to be complete, but it should cover the main use cases of your software.

Treat both the plan and list of requirements as dynamic. Expect things will change throughout the SDLC. The main objective in this phase is to get a sense of direction for the software project.

2. Design

With the initial planning and requirements gathering taken care of, you should have an idea of where you would like to go.

The plan and requirements should get you started with a high-level design of the main components of your software. As with the plan and requirements gathering, you should expect the initial design to be a draft and that it will need to be revised multiple times throughout the project.

The design should include descriptions of software components and how they fit together, integration points with external systems, and more. The design should be detailed enough that a team of experienced software developers can understand it and build working software from it.

3. Implementation and testing

The implementation and testing phase of the SDLC has traditionally been the most time-consuming phase. In this phase, the software is built according to the design with the goal of fulfilling the requirements of your stakeholders.

Implementing the software simply means writing the source code that makes up the software. The implementation should be guided by the plan, requirements, and the design.

Testing is an important part of the SDLC, and a lot of effort should be put into having a reasonable test coverage of both automated and manual tests. The implementation and testing phases are sometimes discussed in silos, but you should use tests to guide the implementation, so it makes sense to consider the two together.

4. Deployment and release

At some point, you reach the time when the software is ready to be delivered to the end users and stakeholders.

Deployment is technically the process of packaging software in some suitable format and delivering the software artifact to a target destination. Following the deployment is the release; this is where the software is made available for the end users. Deployment and release can be two distinct phases but are often performed in tandem.

5. Maintenance and monitoring

When your software is considered feature complete, it will enter a pure maintenance and monitoring phase. This is where you keep the software in a working state by fixing any reported issues. You are no longer actively working on the software to add new features. You are most likely developing a new version of the software that will eventually replace the current version.

However, since you have a lot of customers actively using your software, you must make sure that it is running as expected.

The maintenance phase depends on you having set up robust monitoring to understand the behavior of your software.

An SDLC methodology is a philosophy of how the work in a project is structured and how the flow of work should proceed. Many SDLC methodologies are used.

The traditional SDLC methodology is the waterfall methodology. With this approach, the SDLC phases are followed in strict order, one after the other. This methodology is still used today, but it is much less common.

Modern SDLC methodologies all belong to the agile class of methodologies. The main characteristic of agile methodologies is that they use an iterative approach to SDLC, where the work is divided into smaller chunks. Each chunk goes through separate phases of the SDLC. Two examples of methodologies in this class are Kanban and Scrum.

There are obvious benefits to following an Agile approach to SDLC, mainly in being responsive to change. If the requirements of the software change, or new ones are added in the middle of the project, then you will be more able to incorporate the changes into your project.

A waterfall approach to SDLC tends to be resistant to change. The initial planning and requirements gathering set the tone for the project, and there is no room for new requirements added in the middle of the project.

The goal of a successful SDLC process is to deliver quality code to your end users in an efficient manner.

There are several areas you can address to improve the SDLC process. In the following subsections, we will focus on three key phases and what you can do to improve your SDLC process in that phase.

Better project planning and ways of working

Improving your project planning starts by selecting an SDLC methodology that will benefit the project. If you work in a highly regulated industry with many checks and balances, the waterfall approach to SDLC could make a great fit. In most other contexts, an Agile approach is recommended.

The methodology you select could influence the project in different ways. It might also require filling new roles (e.g., scrum master) and hiring new talent.

Another key improvement for project planning is selecting a project planning tool that allows you to visualize your work and collaborate with everyone across the project. The project planning should be accessible to anyone who is part of the project, and everyone should have the same vision for what the project goals are.

Apart from improving the structure of the project, you should also improve the way you work. This includes how knowledge is shared between project members, how different teams within the project collaborate, and how you continuously strive to improve the work. Common practices include having daily standup meetings and bi-weekly retrospective meetings to analyze and improve the ways of working.

Streamline the implementation phase with AI assistants

Introducing changes into your codebase is, in a sense, the concrete way in which your software project progresses from inception to reality.

A major change in how code is written today versus a few years ago is the use of large language models (LLMs) as code assistants or AI assistants. This practice is becoming more common, and the number of available tools is growing.

One way of improving the speed and quality of the implementation phase is making an AI assistant available for all developers who are part of the software project. This will improve the productivity of each developer and increase the overall confidence in the source code.

You can utilize your AI assistant to introduce new code, improve old code, write tests, suggest new ways to organize your source code, and more.

Increase confidence with continuous deployment and release

In a waterfall methodology, the deployment and release mark the end of the implementation and testing phases, and it is a special occasion worthy of celebration. However, there are drawbacks to single big-bang deployments that introduce a big set of changes.

Improving the deployment and release phase starts with making your releases smaller. You should go from a few large releases to many smaller releases.

You can also adopt a release method that allows you to minimize the risk associated with each release. Common methods are blue/green deployments and canary deployments. These methods allow you to target subsets of your end users to minimize the impact of a bad release and allow for fast rollback in the case of issues.

The previous section described SDLC phases as silos. This was common in projects following the waterfall method of software development. However, today, it is more common to use Agile methods with short iterative cycles of software development.

In the following subsections, we will cover a few software development practices that will enhance your SDLC experience.

1. Minimize upfront planning

Strive towards minimizing upfront planning. Planning is important, but the reality is that plans will change no matter how carefully you put them together. Embrace this fact and treat the plan as a document to iteratively improve throughout the full project lifecycle.

What is important is to spend some extra time on requirements gathering from stakeholders. However, we understand that these requirements might also change throughout the project’s lifetime.

2. Streamline the software design

Avoid creating intricate hand-drawn architecture diagrams of your software. These will always be out of date. However, you can create high-level diagrams that will resist most changes. These types of diagrams are a good start in the early phases of the project.

Find tools that can draw architectural diagrams from source code and make it a part of your implementation to regenerate these diagrams when needed.

3. Use a version control system

Keep your source code in a version control system (VCS). A VCS allows you to collaborate on code, perform peer reviews, integrate third-party tools for different tasks, and more. Use these features to ensure code quality.

4. Test early and test often

Software testing has traditionally been near the end of the SDLC. This is not sufficient for the demand for modern software. Testing should be essential to the implementation phase.

The extreme version of this is using test-driven development (TDD). With TDD, you first write a test, and then you write the source code to pass the test.

Testing should consist of unit tests, integration tests with related systems, and full end-to-end tests where the whole software and its dependent systems are tested together as if an end user were using the software.

5. Visualize your work

Use a tool that allows you to visualize the work that all team members are working on. This is often some variation of a Kanban board. Visualizing the work that is going on and what is left to do is paramount in keeping the project on track.

With no visualization, it is easy to end up in a situation where you are not getting anywhere because you have no idea what anyone is doing or what is left to do.

6. Prioritize security

Although security is not an explicit part of the SDLC, it should be at the top of everyone’s mind. Integrate security practices like dependency and source code scanning from day one.

Educate your development teams on security. Start a security champions program in your organization to foster a security mindset.

7. Build a robust CI/CD pipeline

You should get a minimum viable product (MVP) into the hands of your end users as soon as possible. This is because the most valuable feedback you can get is from your actual users.

To achieve this, you should set up an automated way to build, test, and release your software. This is often achieved using a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline.

Ideally, you should release each new feature when it is ready to get immediate feedback from your users. The feedback that you gather will often lead to ideas for improvements.

You should also have automation in place to roll back any changes that you release. It is a common occurrence that thousands of end users find bugs in your software faster than your manual and automated testing.

How can you measure the effect of your SDLC process improvements?

First, you need a baseline against which to compare. There is no one right answer for what to measure. One common measurement is the number of board items (or tickets) that your teams complete during a specific timeframe.

A different measurement is the number of pull requests that are completed or the number of lines of code committed to the VCS.

You should also measure the number of reported bugs in your software and the number of failed releases that had to be rolled back. Also, the number of successful releases is a good measure.

You have to decide the best numbers to keep track of in your situation.

In this blog post, we have covered SDLC principles and methodologies and discussed areas for improvement in the SDLC phases. We covered a few SDLC best practices and how to measure if the changes to your SDLC process lead to improvements.

Much more can be said about SDLC and how to approach it. This blog post has given you a start on your journey to improving your take on the SDLC.