Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Management is a process that aims to develop software with the lowest cost, highest quality, and in the shortest time. It also includes detailed documentation for how to develop, extend, and maintain the software system. A Software Development Life Cycle involves several different stages, including requirements gathering, planning/designing, building, testing, and finally deployment.
What is Software Development Life Cycle Management (SDLC), and what are best practices, tools and templates for teams and organizations?
Definition of Software Development Lifecycle Management
Description of Software Development Life Cycle Management
Some of the most popular Software Development Life Cycle Management methodologies include Spiral Development, Agile, and SCRUM.
Teams following the best practices of the Software Development Life Cycle Management process see more success and have an easier time developing software in stages. The SDLC process applies equally well for Minimum Viable Products which are part of the Lean Startup approach, as well as full blown projects.
The main stages of the Software Development Life Cycle Management process include:
- Identify Requirements – The first stage is about understanding the problems you are trying to solve, and what the software needs to do.
- Plan & Design – Taking into account the requirements, the next step is to plan and prioritize the features that need to be created. This phase can and should include some research to validate technologies and approaches.
- Build / Code – This stage is one of the longest, and where much of the work is done. It should overlap to some degree with the following Documentation and Test phase.
- Test / Debug / Document – Documenting and testing should happen during the build stage as well, but this stage is where the focus turns from developing features to bug fixing and stabilizing the software for launch to customers.
Often Alpha and Beta versions are released in this phase to ensure configuration and other rare or hard to spot bugs are found and fixed. - Deploy – The final deployment stage is where the software is released for customers to use and goes live.
Tools & Templates
Software Development Life Cycle Management tools and templates include many kinds of charting software, spreadsheets, or simply a long, horizontal paper that can be drawn on and updated for each of the stages.
upBOARD's Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Management Tools & Templates
upBOARD provides a strategic view of your software development life cycle (SDLC), a line of sight to your software development strategy, and a complete dashboard for tracking activities and results. Using upBOARD, your software development process becomes a living “board” that’s always on, current, and available on the cloud for everyone to see. Our experts in agile software development have assembled online tools and templates to help guide any software developer, software development manager, team or organization across the software development lifecycle. Use these best practices as standalone processes or mix and match tools and templates to create your own leading-edge collaborative environment, including integrating data from Google Drive, JIRA and other tools.
upBOARD’s flexible platform for managing the software development lifecycle (SDLC) transforms your process into a living “board” that’s always on and available, and that pulls in key metrics from back logs, bug logs, and other data. With your plans, process, and progress metrics in a single place, upBOARD allows you to assign and engage individuals and teams as owners of specific opportunities, metrics, and process steps to ensure accountability. And with “executive dashboard’ views, business leaders can quickly understand implications for product strategies and schedules.
Click here for more information about our full suite of software development online tools and templates or visit the following individual pages:
Bug Log
A Bug Log, also called a Bug Tracking System, is a typically a software application that keeps track of bugs and other issues in software development projects.
Learn More>>
Software Development Planning
Software Development Planning is a process that aims to improve software delivery predictability and includes requirements gathering, planning and designing the product, and often research and development into the areas that are unknowns or risks to the project.
Learn More>>
Software Technology Evaluation
Software Technology Evaluation is a process used to determine the best internal or third party technology to use in a software development project. When conducting a Software Technology Evaluation to determine whether to build or buy technology for a software development project, a best practice is to conduct high level research to explore a wide variety of options, based upon criteria such as: Cost (to develop or purchase/license), Features, Maturity/Stability, and Support.
Learn More>>
Software Engineering Tools
Software Engineering Tools are used to create disciplined software development and include software tools such as version control, coding standards, static code analysis, code reviews, bug tracking, continuous automated build processes, and automated testing.
Learn More>>
JIRA Dashboarding
JIRA Dashboarding provides insight into current development status with development dashboards configured to display many different types of information about a given software product.
Learn More>>
Get free online best practices, tools & templates with upBOARD's team collaboration & dashboard software!
Help your team quiet the chaos and focus on what really matters.
Learn more about upBOARD’s full portfolio of online digital best practice tools and templates for specific topics, including business strategy, marketing, human resources, operations, innovation, project management, change management, and software development.
Learn more about upBOARD’s portfolio of other software development best practice tools and templates, including: Bug Log, Software Development Life Cycle Management, Software Development Planning, Software Technology Evaluation, Software Engineering Tools, and JIRA Dashboarding.