Any organization is driven by a certain set of rules, guidelines, tools, and software or hardware to realize its business objective and meet the company goals. The system, in general, refers to the hardware or the software that is used, individually, or collectively, by a company in order to sustain and do business. The process of combining several strategies using the software and hardware to meet the customer’s objective is the process known by the name of Systems Development Lifecycle and is abbreviated as SDLC.
SDLC depends on several factors to be constituted and work according to the business objective. These are critical tomaintaining the proper functioning of SDLC, and to create an environment of sustainable growth. The intrinsic working of the SDLC model is based on the complexity of each of the functions involved, and should be addressed individually in order to optimize them with time.
Critical Steps for adopting SDLC
The steps necessary for adopting or implementing SDLC are completely iterative in manner. Primarily, the SDLC is composed of six keycomponents and has a few derivatives among a few components.
The first stage of SDLC is known as Planning, which is crucial for understanding the strength and weaknesses of the system with respect to the resources available and the problems and limitations of the system.
Planning is followed by Analysis as the second stage of the SDLC. It calls for a feasibility analysis of the system and helps in determining the capacity and the ability of the system to perform certain tasks as undertaken by it.
The third step for SDLC is System Design and defines the scope of the system in order to fulfil the customer requirement. It also designs the expected working of all the resources in order to meet the requirement of the task it undertakes.
After designing the system, SDLC moves to the fourth stage, which is Implementing of SDLC. Therefore, this is the actual phase where SDLC is deployed, and goes live, after going through the initial three phases.
The fifth stage is the extension of the fourth stage and is known as Testing and Integration. It looks to optimize the SDLC to work according to the initial plans, and integrate more features and/or software/hardware in order to meet the customers’ expectations.
The final and the sixth phase of SDLC is called Systems Maintenance and looks to carry out maintenance and periodic checks to ensure that the system does not become obsolete or slow. It includes discarding of outdated processes, software, and hardware, and regular updates of the relevantcomponents.
After the sixth phase, the SDLC goes back to the first phase again to start over the process. It is a never-ending and circular process and looks to optimize the system in order to stay relevant and maintain the standards of the organization.
Role of management
The management plays an important role in carrying out a successful SDLC process by participating at every stage of the SDLC. SDLC cannot begin without the planning phase, and the management plays a crucial role in it by being the decision-making authority in it. The analysis and system design would then be done accordingly. The management decides the implementation of SDLC, and the testing/ integration decisions depend on them too. Moreover, discarding any obsolete system component, and updating the resources needs the approval of the higher management.
Therefore, the management is responsible in a massive way to implement and optimize the SDLC in the organizations, and plays a massive role in determining the success of it.
References
What is software development life cycle (SDLC)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/systems- development-life-cycle
Tutorials Point. (2018, August 12). System Analysis and Design System Development Life Cycle. Retrieved from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/system_analysis_and_design/system_analysis_and_desig n_development_life_cycle.htm
