Top 3 Software Development Methodologies: Pros & Cons

Top 3 Software Development Methodologies: Pros & Cons

In today’s highly digitized ecosystem, technology is evolving at a fast pace. And it is pushing software organizations to compete and work in a highly competitive environment. Software development methodologies are one of the vital factors that form the backbone of the software industry, that efficiently binds employees, processes, technology, and tools. IDC research reveals that the global information technology industry is headed at full pace to reach $5.2 trillion by the end of this year, which is also employing millions of people who build, design, grow and sell computer software and services.

There are numerous software development methodologies suited to building different types of software and applications. Picking up the correct one is crucial for delivering the project with the best results and within the specified timeframe.

Thus, getting acquainted with popular software development methodologies, along with their pros and cons is essential before embarking upon the software development journey.

Types of Software Development Methodologies This article offers the top software development methodologies comparison that will help you make a grounded decision on what methodology fits your business and functional requirements.

1. Waterfall Model Though less common these days, when your end product’s requirements are fixed, yet time and money are variable, choose the waterfall method.

–Patrick Rockwell

Introduced by Dr. Winston W. Royce in a paper published in 1970, the Waterfall Methodology is a sequential, linear software development process of project management.

The Waterfall Approach focuses on the logical progression of all the steps involved in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The structure of phases it follows is simple—each stage cascades down to the next level of development. In short, it is

not one big Niagara Falls; rather it is a series of cascading waterfalls in which the pools (phases of development) do not overlap.

Stages Involved in the Waterfall Methodology

A Waterfall Model passes through several individual phases, which amalgamate to result in the desired product. The stages are explained briefly with an example to understand the core of the Waterfall model better.

Assume that a renowned bank is planning to build a new banking application in the 90s. So the ideal approach to develop the software is: 

Requirements: In this phase, the client’s detailed requirements are gathered, followed by defining the expectations and goals of the project and analyzing the risks. As the team goes through the list, some more questions

are

revealed

by

the

dedicated project team, which may not

be

mentioned

requirements

in

document.

the For

instance: o

How many countries will use this banking application?

o

Is there a need to support multiple languages?

o

What is the number of users expected application?

to

use

this



Design: Identifying the goals of the project is followed by the designing phase of the product, which involves drawing the blueprint for coders to meet the desired requirements. In this case, the architect of the project works

to

design

the

application’s software

banking

architecture.

For instance, it is decided that the application is required to have redundant

backup

and

failover

capabilities so that the system is accessible all the time. Thus, the architect designs documents and creates an architecture diagram for the same. 

Construction: This

phase

is

also

known as development, coding, or implementation. In this stage, the development team works on writing the software for the project. They follow the design documents to ensure their solution follows the design as finalized by the architect.

Being a banking application, the

highest priority is given to the security of the application. Thus, developers implement various security checks and audit logging features in the app. 

Testing and Debugging: In this phase of

the

process,

the

software

undergoes the stress-test and is combed over for errors to ensure that the

final

product

meets

the

customer’s requirements. If there is any

defect

in

the

application,

developers fix the same, and the testing team tests the fixes to make sure the error is fixed. They also perform regression testing of the app to see if any new defects were introduced. 

Deployment: After

testing

and

debugging are complete, the code is deployed

to

a

production

environment as per the agreed-upon requirements. Another set of testing and verification often follows after implementation. In the case of a banking application, the team builds

and installs the application on the servers. Some of the high-level activities involve installing the OS on the

servers,

patches,

installing

hardening

the

security servers,

installing web servers and application servers, installing the database, etc.

In this phase, the team also ensures that the application runs smoothly on the servers without downtime.

Pros and Cons of the Waterfall Methodology A majority of the organizations, these days, use an assortment of software methodologies. A survey conducted on manufacturing companies points out that 57% of its respondents use a combination of methodologies, while 25.5% of companies rely entirely on the Waterfall methodology.

2. Agile Software Development Methodology If you adopt only one #agile practice, let it be retrospectives. Everything else will follow. –Woody Zuill On one bright sunny day, a few people with varied software development methodologies backgrounds sat on a round table to brainstorm a possible alternative solution to software development. The aim was to achieve faster software development time with less documentation. The result of the meeting is what we call today the Agile Software Development process, which has grown to become one of the most popular software development methodologies.

The main aim of this approach is to – “learn quickly and often enough that you don’t simply plow on and exacerbate any issues. Progress iteratively with a retrospective after each cycle, and you will improve.”

An Agile Development Process is an innovative approach used for articulating a well-organized project management procedure to minimize the perils by building software in short boxes, called iterations, which exist from one week to one month.

What is Agile Methodology in Software Development: Stages Involved

The Agile Methodology Process also goes through its own life cycle. There are 6 phases in this approach, which are explained, followed by an example of a mobile app development project named Coach. 

Concept: In this step of the agile development process, the

team

envisions and prioritizes projects according to their importance. Some teams may work on more than one project simultaneously, depending on the organization’s departments. 

Inception: Once the project has been identified, team members work with stakeholders

to

determine

and

discuss requirements. Here, with the help of flow diagrams, it is easy to understand how the new feature will function and fit into the existing system. 

Iteration/Construction: Once

the

requirements have been defined for the initial sprint based on the stakeholders’ feedback, the real work starts—the project team begins to work on development. UX designers and

developers

start

work

on

their user

design and

the

first

iteration of the project. 

Release: At this stage, you are very close to release the product into the real world. Quality testing and training, both internal and external and documentation and reporting, are put into production.



Production: This

stage

involves

ongoing support for the software release. The Agile method helps keep track of your project and make sure it is continuously optimized and ready to bounce back from any sudden changes or uncertainties. 

Retirement: At

this

stage,

you

remove the system release from production. In short, it is the end of the life of these activities.

Coach and its Successful Agile Journey with Net Solutions IsaiX approached Net Solutions to redo their flagship web-based product, Coach TechnologyÂŽ, that helps managers with training, targeting, planning, tracking, evaluating, and encouraging employee performance.

We followed the Agile Development Process for this project with Team Foundation Server (TFS) that managed our sprint planning, tracking, and team velocity. Using a system like Coach5 that has three sites under its umbrella, we devised a custom automated deployment process consisting of all our environments: development, staging, QC-testing, and operations. For example, pulling the latest from the repository as per the applied code-label and building the solutions after that. The

deployment component was built as a group of batch files from batch programming.

Pros and Cons of the Agile Methodology

3. DevOps Software Development Methodology DevOps is not a goal, but a never-ending process of continual improvement. –Jez Humble DevOps is the offspring of the Agile Software Development process, which came into existence to match the increased software velocity. Over the past few years, advancements in the agile culture have paved the way for the need for more

holistic software development approaches to the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle. This approach acts as an ideal bridge between the development and operational phases of a company.

When the teams used to work separately: 

Dev was often oblivious of QA and Ops roadblocks that prevent the program from working as anticipated.



QA and Ops were typically working across many features and had a little context of the business purpose and value of the software.

Each group working in this ecosystem would have opposing goals that could open doors of inefficiency and finger-pointing when something went wrong. To address these challenges, DevOps took birth intending to establish collaborative crossfunctional teams.

Stages Involved in the DevOps Methodology



Continuous

Development

(Plan,

Code, and Build): In this phase, all software deliverables are divided into multiple sprints of short and lean development cycles. These are then passed on to the Ops in a very short duration of time. 

Continuous Testing (Test): Here, the built application is tested by QA team

time and again to look for the bugs.

This constant monitoring helps find the shortcomings of a code right when they are built. 

Continuous Integration (Release): In this stage, the existing code gets integrated with the code supporting new functionality.



Continuous Deployment (Deploy and Operate): In this stage, the code is handed over to the production ecosystem, which makes sure that the code gets deployed correctly on all the servers.



Continuous Monitoring (monitor and provide feedback): Being a very important stage in the DevOps software development process, it is aimed at achieving a high quality of the software because of incessant monitoring of its performance.

Software Development Methodologies – Final Thoughts In a digital landscape that demands continuous innovation and customer-centric approach, the first step being with putting together the right process and team in place. The above-mentioned list constitutes the most commonly used software development methodologies suited for various types of situations and solutions.

All these work well, depending upon the nature of the project. None of these are foolproof, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages developers/project owners must have a thorough understanding of all these methodologies for software development.

Source - https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/top-3-software-development-methodologies-proscons/