Summary: The Software Development Life Cycle Process

Before a software or a program is created, there are a few stages that the software development team need to follow to build a good software. To build that, they need to follow the software development life cycle (SDLC) process. According to Justin (2003), the SDLC is a process to ensure a high quality software that is build to meets the customers’ requirements and also to reaches completion within the cost and time estimation in the project development process. SDLC is a framework that defines all the tasks or works to be performed at each stages. There are five stages in developing a software namely the planning, analysis, design, implementation and maintenance of the software (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

The first stage in the SDLC

Analysis stage is done after the planning stage is completed. According to McMurtrey (2013), during analysis stage, a lot of effort are taken to ensure that the proposed system meets the objectives and this is being done by meeting with various stakeholders to determine the requirements needed for the proposed system. This phase is important for project manager and also the internal stakeholders of the project. Gathering information is the main activity in analysis phase. McMurtey, (2013) mentions that the process of gathering information is a repeated process which involve various methods such as capture information like who will use the system, document all the data that they have gather, communicate with all the people involved and manage all those requirements from customers. In this stage, customers state their expectation of the product. The customers meet the project manager and analyst to gives their requirements Sommerville (2011). Project team need to gather information from customers as this information is critical to develop the product based on the customer’s request. After the customers gives the feedback, the project manager and the development team will begin to analyze the requirements. The project manager will analyze each requirement by the customers to ensure the requirement can be included in the system without causing any problem. After that, the development team proceed with requirement needed for management

The implementation stage involves writing the coding and programming skill is needed to produce actual product. Kay (2002) mentions that the implementation stage is the longest phase in SDLC process. The developer or programmer need to focus more on this stage because written code need to be handle accurately and precisely to avoid error. According to Chai & Stu (1988), software implementation is the time where the implementation stage receives overall parts and information from design stage and continue with composed and writing the code to produce real product that can interact with customers. After the code is developed, it is tested to make sure that the product or program can run smoothly without error. (Harter & Slaughter, 2003). According to Sommerville (2011), two main parts of the testing are conducted during the process namely, unit testing, which focus on every detail part of the whole project and system testing, where overall of the system and software is tested. Testing process is important to detect any error occur before the program can be deliver to the