Systems Development Life Cycle: 7 Stages and 6 Fundamental Approaches

According to Wikipedia, the system development cycle, or SDLC, emerged in the 1960s for the development of large-scale functional business systems and was aimed at intensive data processing. Enough time has passed since then that SDLC is no longer considered an alternative methodology and is perceived as the one practiced by the vast majority of development teams. Below, we will analyze this concept in detail and consider its methodologies.

Defining the Systems Development Life Cycle

So, what is the system development life cycle? In a nutshell, it is a structured approach according to which development teams must follow a specific sequence of stages, each of which leads to the creation of an information system with pre-defined parameters. In particular, it usually starts with the formation of the initial concept and ends with the release of the project and its subsequent support. Using it, in turn, ensures a systematic approach to development, minimizing risks, guaranteeing the high quality of this system, and ensuring the overall efficiency of the process.

Advantages of the SDLC for Organizations

Now that we have explained the system development life cycle, we propose you consider its main advantages:

Well-organized development process

All SDLC components are characterized by specifics, from team members' roles and objectives to criteria describing the stage's completion. Moreover, all of them are documented so the team can track the project's progress and share knowledge. Thus, teams following SDLC obtain comprehensive control over the entire project process and make it more transparent.

Improved product quality

‍SDLC implementation involves regular product testing at each stage of development. This is also aimed at meeting the requirements of the product owner and generally accepted standards and best practices. Ultimately, this approach guarantees the proper quality of the product and reduces the cost of fixing bugs at the post-release system development life cycle stages.

Comprehensive risk management

The systems life cycle model allows teams to identify potential risks in the early phases of the project and take timely measures to reduce their consequences – for example, by developing an action plan in case a key specialist leaves the team or radical changes in the project specifications.

Increased efficiency

It ensures the efficient allocation of resources – both financial, time, and human – through the use of automation tools and other modern solutions for software development. Thanks to this, teams can work as productively as possible, thereby speeding up the product's time to market without compromising its quality.

Better in-team communication

With SDLC, all development team members receive a common understanding of the project's goals and requirements, which are documented in detail. This, in turn, minimizes the likelihood of misunderstandings both within the team and outside it, particularly with product owners.

Possibility of scaling and reuse

SDLC allows teams to develop highly efficient modular solutions that are easy to scale. Moreover, individual components of previously created systems can be reused in new projects, which, in the long term, reduces the time costs of their implementation.

Phases of the Systems Development Life Cycle

In this paragraph, we would like to consider the 7 stages of system development life cycle. What is the correct order of the phases in the SDLC?

Stage 1: Planning

Planning is the only answer to questions like: "What is the first step of the system development life cycle?" or "What is the first phase of most life-cycle models for IT systems?" It consists of identifying the project objectives, analyzing its feasibility, assembling the project team, and defining a specific work plan with milestones and deliverables. Also, during the planning phase in SDLC, the team evaluates the project's technical, economic, and operational aspects and considers potential risks in advance.

Stage 2: Analysis

The main task of this phase is to collect and analyze project requirements. This can be done by examining the pain points and needs of the target audience, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, identifying market trends, and, of course, taking into account the client's requirements. Research methods may include interviews, surveys, workshops, and, if available, analysis of existing documentation. The team documents the collected insights, transforming them into functional specifications, user stories, and other artifacts.

Stage 3: Design

Now everything is ready to start building the system architecture, along with identifying its main components, how they interact, and interfaces. This is implemented through building diagrams, data models, and user interface prototypes. The team also gets the opportunity to detail the project's technical specifications list and pass them on to software engineers.

Stage 4: Development

At this stage of the systems development process, the team can start coding (usually, this lies in creating the codebase for the frontend (the user side) and backend (the server side), as well as queries for databases). As individual functional modules are ready, developers pass them on to QA specialists for testing to prevent the presence of hard-to-fix bugs, which can later lead to a shift in deadlines.

Stage 5: Testing

Once the entire code base is ready, QA specialists cover it with test cases to perform integration, system, load, security, functional, smoke, and other types of testing. Also, after the detected bugs are fixed, the product is transferred for testing on real users – this allows the team to ensure that the product meets their needs.

Stage 6: Deployment

This is the answer to the question, "What is the implementation phase in the SDLC?" (However, this one is also sometimes called the operation phase in SDLC.) It means that the product can now be deployed in a production environment after migrating data from related systems, configuring all components of the existing IT infrastructure, and training end users. After that, the product goes into direct operation.

Stage 7: Maintenance and Support

This is the last phase of the system development life cycle. Specifically, once the product is launched, the team must ensure its smooth operation—that is, fix post-release bugs as they are discovered, make changes according to the client's requirements and feedback from its users, and optimize its performance.

Overview of Systems Development Life Cycle Methodologies

Before we move on to the most popular SDLC methodologies, we would like to point out that the choice of a specific one depends on the size and complexity of the project, budget constraints, the experience of the development team, and, in general, the specifics of the client requirements. Therefore, before settling on a specific one, you should carefully study the features of each of them.

Waterfall Approach

According to this approach, each new project stage begins only after the previous one has been fully completed. This methodology's advantages include its simplicity, while its disadvantages lie in insufficient flexibility and the difficulty of making changes after the start of development. Also, teams often face bugs in the software code at later system life cycle phases. However, it is still considered the optimal choice for projects with clear and transparent requirements.

Agile Approach

This is an iterative approach, the main advantages of which are flexibility and the team's ability to respond quickly to changes. In particular, according to Agile, the team breaks down the process of working on the project into short sprints while ensuring regular communication with the client. This aspect can also be considered a disadvantage since organizing close interaction with the client for large-scale projects can be challenging.

Spiral Approach

This approach combines Waterfall and Agile approaches. According to it, each turn of the spiral is an iteration, including planning, risk analysis, development, and evaluation. This approach to development optimizes risk management and gives teams the ability to adapt to change. However, it should not be used by inexperienced teams or on projects with limited budgets.

Rapid Application Development (RAD)

This approach aims to develop prototypes quickly and refine them further based on user feedback. As its name suggests, its key value is the ability to quickly deliver a ready-to-use solution to the client. However, following this approach can decrease the quality of this solution, especially if the team has not had enough time for testing and planning the architecture.

V-Model (Verification and Validation Model)

This system development life cycle example extends the Waterfall approach but focuses on verification and validation at each stage of development. Thus, the team can ensure high quality due to the increased attention paid to testing the product. At the same time, it, like its prototype, Waterfall, is poorly adapted for projects with frequent changes.

DevOps

DevOps is not a separate SDLC model but a set of practices to improve collaboration between developers and IT specialists and reach comprehensive system development life cycle project management. Key DevOps practices include continuous integration (that is, automated building and testing of code with each change), continuous delivery (i.e., automated deployment of changes to production), adopting an Infrastructure-as-Code approach (to automate its deployment), and implementing microservices.

Conclusion

Now, knowing the definition of SDLC, the main phases of the SDLC, and specific examples, you will be able to make a conscious choice that will bring maximum benefit to your project. You can also save yourself the agony of choice and delegate this task, as well as all subsequent ones related to the implementation of your project, to us.

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