Determining how to organize the development of your software product can be challenging. Still, it’s also a necessary step to ensure that you deliver a quality product on time and within budget. The seven stages of software product development outlined in this article will help you organize your project into manageable, practical chunks, leading up to the successful launch of your new software product.
1| Discovery
During software product development, you must first learn everything you can about your project and your audience. The discovery phase is crucial because it includes learning about who will use it and how they’ll use it. What is their pain point that needs to be solved? You want to discover their struggles and your offering’s potential to create a viable solution. For example, when Nike decided to make FuelBand, its team knew people wanted an easy way to track their fitness goals and data. The FuelBand was going to solve that problem through wearable technology.
2| Requirements
As with every other software development stage, making reasonable requirements is crucial to your project’s success. Provisions should be as specific and straightforward as possible. User stories should be actionable and measurable – As a user, I want to…so that… Defining acceptance criteria will help you understand what constitutes a complete piece of work and what doesn’t. Also, clarify if requirements apply only to a single project or are applicable over several iterations. Failure to do so may lead your team to deliver something new for every iteration instead of moving toward your ultimate goal. Finally, discuss with all stakeholders what features they expect before you start building it, so you know whether all their expectations are realistic or not in terms of cost and schedule impact on later phases.
3| Specifications
Great products are iterative. While there are several different methodologies to develop software, each step in a successful project is dependent on what came before it and can change depending on what comes next. This raises two questions: Where do you start? And how do you know when it’s time to move on? Over my career, I’ve found myself working with projects that have had all sorts of starting points. Some began as fully formed ideas, while others were nothing more than a few quick conversations and emails between colleagues. Some began with detailed wireframes, user flows, and many with nothing more than a simple set of requirements.
4| Design
The design stage is what most people think of when they think of product development. It’s where ideas are put on paper, computers are used to layout screens and create a visual brand, and marketing is added to get users excited. When it comes to software products, you need more than just design; you also need engineering resources to build your product once it’s been designed. While that means designers are involved in every stage of product development, they play a more significant role during the design phase than any other time because so much work is going into creating something tangible for engineers to later work with.
5| Build & Test
It’s tempting to push the product out to customers and allow them to start using it as soon as it’s ready. However, many considerations go into launching a successful outcome. Before making your new software available, you need to make sure that you have all your bases covered in support, documentation, training programs, and other onboarding resources for customers. This is where deployment comes in – you can use deployment planning as a formalized way of going through these steps quickly and efficiently so that you can get your new product out there with minimal risk. Then, once you know how your customers are engaging with your software – either through detailed analytics or user feedback – you can determine what features should be built next based on their needs.
6| Deployment
Once you’ve designed and developed your software project, it’s time to deploy your project. The deployment will most likely require you to set up testing environments for both internal and external use. You also may want to provide users with access through a combination of methods such as updating their existing software or providing them with a plug-in or tool that allows them to use your project in various ways. During deployment, you must know how well your product works with other products, including legacy systems; understanding these combinations ahead of time can prevent major problems later in the deployment.
7| Support & Maintenance
According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), a system of services is provided during and after software implementation. Software maintenance is also referred to as software support or software assurance. Maintenance includes correcting errors, usually arising from defects in design or coding, and new features for previously developed systems. Because these processes are time-consuming, often requiring substantial re-coding, they are often performed by third-party contractors. Increasingly maintenance work is carried out remotely through outsourcing rather than on-site at customer locations.
| Final Words
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