No modern enterprise can survive without reliance and development of high quality software products and software development plan. Without the correct customised software and software development plan the success of any organisation hinges upon that detailed plan.
Software helps develop and automate common and sometimes mundane tasks people do every day. It provides a strategy and as a result helps users save crucial time and allows users to concentrate on solving more important problems. So, software development is the complete total of all actions and processes that leads to creating a valuable software product.
This plan may be very short or very complicated. This planning process can span weeks or even months. Depending on the scope of the software development plan, the complexity of goals set and the amount of tasks the software is required to perform.
The software development life cycle
The plan and development life cycle is a comprehensive, combination of processes that gathers all the information required to manage the project.
It encloses numerous artefacts that are developed during the initial development life cycle inception phase. This is then maintained throughout the entire project ensuring the software development plan is successful.
The software developer and agile requirements
The overall purpose of this plan is to gather all of the information necessary to control the development project. It describes the specific approach to the software development which is generated and used by the managers to direct the software development plan requirements.
Software engineer and who will use it
The project manager will use the software dev plan and agile requirements structured in great detail by the software engineer to direct the project schedule and resources required.
This will assist in the tracking of the software development progress against the schedule. And the project team members will use the development plan to understand what is required of them, when it needs to be done, and what other activities are involved.
The advantages of software development
An effective plan evolves by being updated regularly and is easily understood by the managers and team members.
The development plan is the defining document for the process and progress of the project. In order to create a single development plan that:
- Complies with the companies requirements and standards for the software development
- Complies with any contractual agreements
- Is regularly updated and each update is documented.
Constantly creating new design applications, agile software, or formal methods.
Planning the strategy and developments
A key detrimental factor of a good plan is the lack of focus and attention on the important standards and procedures.
Usually a software development plan begins with planning the product and conducting market research. In addition to the research, the other most important aspect of good software is to implement and understand a set of goals for the project.
This will determine the success of the entire process of the software development. Therefore, the research methods will determine what software currently already exists and if it is possible to modify it to suit the needs of the client, or if a completely new development process is required without agile methods.
Software developers need to address these important aspects for an effective software development plan and formal methods:
Clear goal setting for the entire project. Therefore, by creating a detailed software development plan or design of the future software and begin the development of the project and development life cycle.
The planning of future products, to ensure all the problems the client faces can be solved with the help of the software. To understand and create the basic elements the software requires. The process of coding the software solution and all the many modifications to the original plan need to be implemented with ease.
This re-engineering process, in addition to bug-fixing and other actions require action steps in order to improve and enhance the software.
An agile approach
This is one of the most important steps in the software development plan. It demonstrates the purpose of the software development plan, the process, and performance of the new software. Testing should always be a high priority throughout the entire process of the software development plan.
Project management and 3 key levels of testing the plan
There are three key levels of testing the software development plan to ensure change management can be implemented easily.
- The individual modules – (Unit)
- All Modules – (Program)
- The Integration of modules into the environment – (System)
With the implementation of these 3 key levels of testing, the software development plan can create systems that define the valuable nature of the software product as an asset.
- Change Management and agile software
- Testing the development plan
- Outline the business plan and functional requirements.
- Include the performance requirements of the software.
Each objective requires a specific testable measure. Define specific test plan scripts to ensure mutual acceptance on compliance and performance of the software. List this information within the software development plan and check these with the business requirements.
A test script should be created for each level of testing. Update all progress activities. Should there be a system outage and also to allow for implementation of any further systems.
Obtain a testing software. Great testing software can assist in recording the test scripts, and assembles the information of current and pending test activities, this will also detail any defects or discrepancies.
Summary
It is advisable to perform a positive and negative test. It is advantageous to create new functions. Therefore the system knows how to respond to information that is incorrect, missing and irregular to ensure the software is running at its optimum.
By implementing a structured agile software development plan and setting a desired end result. This valuable solution will be regarded as an asset, and as a successful project.
