How To Improve the Software Development Life Cycle Process

The software development life cycle (SDLC) is a structured process that developers follow to produce high-quality software quickly and in a cost-effective way. The SDLC, sometimes referred to as the software development process, is important because it helps teams more efficiently manage software projects while balancing customer needs, timelines, and budgets.

Many teams implement different SDLC methodologies – such as Agile, Waterfall, or DevSecOps – to customize the SDLC to better accommodate company needs. For example, teams working on well-defined projects might follow the Waterfall approach; whereas teams that prioritize flexibility and deliverable software might follow the more iterative Agile approach.

When defining and standardizing the software development process at your company, it’s important to consider several SDLC best practices around coding standards, documentation and version control, security, and more to make sure your team delivers high-quality software and secure systems. Following best practices helps your team mitigate security risks early, identify issues before they become costly fixes, and generally collaborate better during the development process.

Phases of the SDLC Process

There is no one “right” way to implement the software development process. Companies may consolidate or add steps in the SDLC process depending on their needs and preferences. However, most teams base the phases of the SDLC on the following:

1. Planning: When the team establishes the goal and full scope of the project. This includes defining what the software needs to do, estimating costs, establishing schedules, and more. The team will also talk to stakeholders to understand what the software does (and does not) need to achieve so they can create a very detailed list of software requirements.
2. Software Design: If planning is about determining the “what,” then the design stage is about defining the “how.” During this step, teams establish the software’s architecture, choose which programming language to use, and identify necessary team resources and budgets.
3. Development: This is when the bulk of work is done. Developers write code to build the software according to the established requirements.
4. Testing: After the software is built, it’s tested to see if it works correctly, if it meets all requirements set in planning, and if there are any bugs or flaws that must be addressed. Teams might use several testing methods, such as security testing, integration testing, and code quality testing.
5. Deployment: After all testing is satisfied, the software is released to customers.
6. Maintenance: Teams monitor the software to fix bugs that appear, improve user experience, and update features.

With the SDLC, teams can iterate on software by recycling through the steps in the process. This allows for continuous improvement and software that evolves with user needs.

Establishing Development Processes

There are usually two categories of people involved in the software development process: development teams and stakeholders. Everyone must understand their role and how to work together to ensure projects get done in a timely, efficient way.

Generally, stakeholders can be anyone with a vested interest in the final product. This could be people who are internal or external to your company, customers, or end-users. Stakeholder feedback is critical throughout the software development process –  not just during the planning stage – to flag issues or risks early, to validate design and functionality, and to ensure software is successfully implemented and adopted.

The development team will include a mix of individuals with technical, managerial, and creative skills. Development team members and their responsibilities might include:

• Product Owner: Defines the project vision and priorities, and helps the development team meet client needs and expectations.
• Business Analyst: Translates business needs into requirements during the planning stage of the SDLC.
• Project Manager: Dives into the nitty gritty of processes, managing timelines and resources.
• Software Architect: Defines the overall structure and components of the project.
• Developer: Writes code and builds the product.
• Quality Assurance Engineer: Plans and executes tests to ensure projects meet quality, functionality, and security standards. 
• User Experience/User Interface Designers: Determine what the user experience and user interface will be like.

Smaller teams may have individuals perform a few different roles. Conversely, larger teams may add more specialized roles to the development team roster, such as Scrum master, DevOps engineer, or tech lead.

Project Management Strategies To Manage Teams Effectively

You need a motivated, effective team to produce high-quality software. However, leading a team to success requires more than technical know-how and hard skills. It requires a delicate dance that balances individual developer wants and business needs.

To manage high-performing teams, engineering managers (EMs) should prioritize critical leadership skills. This includes sound decision-making: EMs must think independently and consider a range of inputs, such as tactical factors (e.g., delivery timelines), team health, business needs, and even company core values.

Good managers also have a coaching mindset. Rather than simply telling teams what to do, a good EM works closely with individual team members to level up their skills and promote strategic thinking.

SDLC Best Practices for Software Engineering

There are best practices that development teams can follow to produce high-quality, secure software. Some of these best practices include the following:

• Implement coding standards early to enhance code quality and encourage consistency, readability, and maintainability. Coding standards might include rules around industry-specific coding standards, naming conventions, readability, indentation, and more.
• Hold regular code reviews throughout development. Code reviews should analyze code for quality, functionality, and secure coding.  These reviews can also serve as opportunities for developers to share their knowledge and expertise with their peers and junior developers.
• Practice source code management (SCM) to track any changes to a source code repository. SCM safeguards against lost work due to conflict overwriting, keeps a historical project record, aids in release velocity, and more.
• Leverage automation and automated testing for quality assurance. Developers can leverage tools to automate manual tasks in coding, code reviews, and testing. Adding automation to your SDLC processes can reduce human error, enable better scalability, and free developers from tedious manual work.

The Importance of Documentation and Version Control

Maintaining proper documentation and version control throughout the software development life cycle is critical for ensuring clarity, consistency, and traceability. Here are a few benefits of implementing documentation and version control practices with your development team:

• Consistency: Documentation ensures consistency across the project by standardizing the language, processes, and methodologies used.
• Knowledge Sharing: Proper documentation facilitates knowledge transfer within the team and beyond, reducing any dependency on specific team members.
• Clear Communication: Documentation allows for better communication among team members, especially when changes are proposed, ensuring everyone understands the system and the rationale behind decisions.

Effective change management, living documentation techniques, and version control systems like Git enable development teams to manage software evolution efficiently, collaborate seamlessly, and avoid costly errors.

Developer Workflow and Change Management

Change management ensures that modifications to the software are well-planned, documented, and controlled. This helps teams maintain software quality and reduce the risk of introducing bugs or regressions when new features or bug fixes are implemented.

Key elements of change management include:

• Tracking Changes: Every change to the codebase, including bug fixes, feature additions, or refactoring, is recorded and documented to maintain transparency.
• Impact Analysis: Before making changes, an analysis is conducted to determine how the change might affect other parts of the system.
• Approval Processes: Formal review processes are established for approving changes, ensuring that they align with project goals and don’t negatively affect stability.

Living Documentation Techniques

Unlike static documentation, which can become outdated as code changes, living documentation is a dynamic approach where documentation evolves alongside the software. It ensures that documentation remains current and relevant as the project progresses.

Techniques include:

• Auto-Generated Documentation: Tools like Swagger for APIs or Javadoc for Java can automatically generate documentation based on the code, ensuring that documentation reflects the current state of the system.
• Continuous Integration (CI): Integrating documentation updates as part of the CI process ensures that changes in code trigger automatic updates to documentation.
• Inline Code Comments: Developers are encouraged to document code logic and purpose directly within the codebase. These comments are tied to the actual code, ensuring that explanations stay relevant to the code as it changes.

Version Control Systems

Version control systems (VCS) like Git play a vital role in managing code changes over time, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively, revert to previous versions if necessary, and track the entire history of the project.

Key advantages of using VCS like Git:

• History Tracking: Git keeps a record of every change made to the codebase, allowing teams to track the who, what, and when of every modification.
• Branching and Merging: Git allows developers to work in isolated branches without affecting the main codebase. Once changes are approved, they can be merged back, making collaboration seamless.
• Collaboration: Git enables multiple developers to work on the same project simultaneously, managing conflicts and ensuring that no work is overwritten.
• Reverting Changes: In case of an error or bug, Git allows teams to revert to previous versions of the code, minimizing the risk of major downtime or disruption.

Combining Documentation and Version Control

Proper documentation integrated with version control is essential for a reliable development process. Versioning documentation itself, alongside code, ensures that as the code changes, the corresponding documentation also evolves. Developers can track changes not just in the code, but in the explanations and justifications provided for those changes.

Integrating DevOps and DevSecOps into the SDLC

Siloed teams are a stumbling block to effective software development. That’s why many companies integrate DevOps and DevSecOps approaches into the SDLC.

DevOps is an approach to software development that brings together development (dev) and operations (ops) for more efficient software development. DevOps emphasizes regular collaboration, communication, and flexibility through automation.

DevSecOps takes DevOps one step further by adding security to the equation. With a DevSecOps approach to software development, security is a shared responsibility that’s considered throughout the entire development process.

Both DevOps and DevSecOps emphasize a more streamlined and flexible SDLC. As a result, continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are key practices in DevOps and DevSecOps approaches to software development. CI/CD works by automating key activities or tasks – such as building and testing code – to accelerate the software development lifecycle.

While there are many similarities, many consider DevSecOps the next evolution of DevOps. Some best practices around DevSecOps workflows include:

• Implement Proactive, Robust Security: Security should be a key consideration at every stage of the SDLC. Adopt “shift left” testing to identify and mitigate security issues early. Other practices, such as implementing infrastructure as Code (IaC), can reduce human error and ensure security standards.
• Adopt Automation: Automation can help implement security practices throughout the software development process. For example, teams might automate security testing, compliance checks, or security documentation.
• Embrace Collaboration: Remind team members that security is a shared responsibility, not just the purview of the security team. Establish feedback loops so teams can learn from security incidents and continuously improve.

Cybersecurity Best Practices in the SDLC

Ensuring a secure SDLC is essential for overall software security. Developers should be aware of various cybersecurity risks they may encounter during development. These risks include data breaches, unauthorized access, and malware attacks.

By incorporating security into every phase of the software development process, teams can identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities and security risks to ensure their software is resilient to the evolving threat landscape.

Security best practices in the SDLC include:

• Implement Defense in Depth: Layer security testing throughout the SDLC to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities early. Application security testing methods might include SAST, DAST, and penetration testing.
• Practice Secure Design: Designing software with security in mind from the get-go is key to avoiding security flaws. Implement practices such as least privilege or early and frequent testing.
• Have a Remediation Plan: It’s critical to have a plan in place when security issues do arise. Prioritize prompt patching, updates, and client communications.
• Incorporate Software Composition Analysis (SCA): Manage the security risks associated with open-source components and dependencies with SCA tools.

Software development teams should work with security teams to identify additional security requirements or security tools needed in the development process to defend against malicious hackers.

Threat Modeling and Risk Management

Risk management involves identifying potential risks, evaluating their risk impact, and implementing mitigation strategies to prevent exploitation. Teaching developers how to assess and address these risks helps in building more resilient systems.

Threat modeling is a proactive approach to identifying potential risks and security vulnerabilities early in the SDLC. Development teams use hypothetical scenarios, system diagrams, automated testing, and more to build secure software from the start.

To evaluate the effectiveness of security efforts and improve processes, it’s important to establishmetrics that provide insight into an organization’s security posture. Development teams might track common security metrics such as vulnerability discovery rate, time to resolve vulnerabilities, and security incident rate.

Secure Coding Practices

Teams can prioritize writing secure code to reduce security vulnerabilities and make software more resilient to outside threats. Secure coding is the practice of following different techniques and principles in software development to guard against vulnerabilities and common security flaws.

When implementing secure coding practices, teams should prioritize security measures and coding practices such as:

• Input validation.
• Authentication and password management.
• Access controls.
• Cryptographic practices.
• System configuration.
• Data protection.
• Threat modeling.
• Output encoding.
• Error handling and logging.
• Secure code reviews.

Performance and Continuous Improvement in the SDLC

Continuous improvement refers to ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency, productivity, and quality within the SDLC tools, processes, and teams. Encouraging a culture of continuous improvement can help teams reduce bottlenecks, see downtime reduction, more proactively detect issues, and overall ship a higher-performing product. This is especially important for teams trying to balance the speed of new feature development with a secure software development lifecycle.

Continuous improvement often works well in tandem with Agile, as a more iterative development approach makes it easier for teams to track and assess performance and security at each step of the SDLC process.

Teams looking to optimize performance in the SDLC might conduct performance testing, such as stress testing and load assessments, to see if there’s room to improve system stability or scalability.

Education and Training for Software Development Teams

Educating developers on best coding practices, tools, and frameworks is essential for creating robust, secure, and maintainable software. It ensures that developers not only write efficient code but also follow guidelines that minimize cybersecurity risks.

Providing ongoing security training and awareness programs helps developers stay updated on the latest security issues and attack vectors, equipping them to address potential threats.

Modern Coding Best Practices

Developers must follow coding best practices to write clean, efficient, and maintainable code. These practices include using meaningful naming conventions, writing modular code, avoiding code duplication, and ensuring readability. Well-structured code makes it easier to detect vulnerabilities and is essential for long-term maintenance.

Cybersecurity and Secure Coding Techniques

With the increasing complexity of software systems, cybersecurity is a top priority. Developers need to be trained in secure coding techniques, such as input validation, error handling, and session management, to mitigate common vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflows. Adopting secure design principles, such as “least privilege” and “fail-safe defaults,” helps minimize the attack surface.

Encryption and Secure Communication

Encryption is a fundamental aspect of cybersecurity. Developers should understand how to implement encryption to protect sensitive data both at rest and in transit. Educating developers on the proper use of encryption libraries and protocols (e.g., TLS/SSL) ensures that sensitive information, such as passwords and personal data, is secure against eavesdropping and tampering.

Security Frameworks and Standards

Security frameworks, such as OWASP, NIST, and ISO 27001, provide guidelines and best practices for maintaining software security. Developers should be familiar with these frameworks to ensure compliance and to integrate security measures into their development process. Awareness of such frameworks helps in systematically addressing security issues throughout the software development lifecycle.

Ongoing Security Training

Cybersecurity threats evolve quickly, and developers need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in attacks and defenses. Ongoing security training and awareness programs ensure that developers can recognize and mitigate new vulnerabilities. Regular training in topics such as secure authentication, cryptography, and secure design principles prepares developers to create software that resists modern attack techniques.

By educating developers on best coding practices, secure coding techniques, and using tools like security frameworks, organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood of security breaches. The integration of security into every step of the development process creates software that is both high-quality and resistant to potential threats.

Appendix: Key Terms and Tools

• Agile: An iterative approach to the software development process that breaks work into shorter phases or “sprints” for better team collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Application Security Testing: The process of identifying and mitigating security vulnerabilities within the SDLC. Common application security testing includes SAST, DAST, and penetration testing.
• Coding Standards: The set of best practices and rules a development team follows when writing code. These might include rules around industry-specific coding standards, naming conventions, readability, indentation, and more.
• Code Review: A peer review that assesses code for quality, functionality, and secure coding.
• DevOps: An approach to software development that combines development (dev) and operations (ops) for more efficient software development. DevOps emphasizes regular collaboration, communication, and flexibility through automation.
• DevSecOps: An approach to software development that combines development (dev), security (sec), and operations (ops). With a DevSecOps approach to software development, security is a shared responsibility that’s considered throughout the entire development process.
• Penetration Testing: A type of application security testing that simulates a cyberattack to help teams identify potential security vulnerabilities. If resources are not available internally, there are plenty of penetration testing firms on the market to partner with.
• Risk Management:The security practice of identifying potential security risks, evaluating their risk impact, and implementing mitigation strategies to prevent exploitation.
• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): A type of application security testing that analyzes an application’s source code for security vulnerabilities.
• Software Composition Analysis (SCA): A security practice that analyzes open-source components and third-party dependencies within a software application for potential security vulnerabilities.
• Threat Modeling: A proactive approach to identifying potential risks and security vulnerabilities by using hypothetical scenarios, system diagrams, automated testing, and more to build secure software.
• Waterfall: A sequential approach to software development where each phase (e.g., development, testing) must be complete before moving on to the next. 

Software Development Life Cycle FAQs

What are some Agile and iterative development best practices?

Adaptable Agile methods in software development focus on flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. The following concepts are key to building a productive Agile environment:

1. Accept Iterative Development: Agile emphasizes iterative progress where the product evolves through small, incremental changes. Teams can adapt based on feedback and continuously improve functionality after each iteration.
2. Interdepartmental Teams: Collaboration across departments (e.g., engineering, marketing, design) ensures that input from different areas of expertise is considered, fostering innovation and preventing siloed thinking.
3. Sprint Reviews: At the end of each sprint (a time-boxed iteration), teams hold sprint reviews to showcase their progress to stakeholders, gather feedback, and adjust future goals accordingly.
4. Agile Tools: Agile teams rely on various project management and collaboration tools like Trello, Jira, or Monday.com to track progress, assign tasks, and visualize workflows.
5. Kanban: Kanban is a visual framework used to manage workflow. Teams can use Kanban boards (physical or digital) to track work items, prioritize tasks, and maintain a continuous flow of work.
6. Scrum: Scrum is a popular Agile framework that structures work into fixed-length sprints, typically one to four weeks long. Teams commit to delivering specific features during each sprint and hold regular meetings to stay aligned.
7. Asynchronous Communication: Agile methods encourage asynchronous communication, especially for remote teams. Tools like Slack, Teams, and email allow for continuous communication without needing real-time interactions.
8. Cross-Functional Teams: Agile thrives on teams with diverse skill sets (e.g., developers, designers, QA) working together. Cross-functional teams are empowered to deliver end-to-end functionality without waiting on external dependencies.
9. Daily Stand-Ups: Short, daily meetings where team members share updates on their work, highlight blockers, and synchronize efforts. This helps maintain momentum and ensures everyone is aligned.
10. Data-Driven Workflows: Agile teams often make decisions based on real-time data. Agile metrics like velocity, burn-down charts, and lead time help teams optimize their processes and measure their performance.
11. Iterative Model: In the iterative model, each development cycle builds on the previous one, incorporating feedback from stakeholders. This ensures that the project stays aligned with user needs and that adjustments can be made throughout the process.

How can development teams maintain high standards for code review and quality assurance?

Code reviews involve the systematic examination of code by peers to ensure it meets project standards and is free of errors before being merged into the main codebase. It helps catch issues early, improving overall code quality.

1. Code Quality Metrics: These metrics assess various aspects of code, such as complexity, maintainability, and readability. They guide the evaluation of code during reviews to ensure long-term stability and performance.
2. Code Review Checklist: A checklist provides standardized criteria for evaluating the code, such as ensuring proper naming conventions, following best practices, checking for performance optimizations, and ensuring security measures are in place.
3. Standardize Code Review Process: Establishing a consistent, well-defined process for code reviews ensures that all code passes through the same quality filters, resulting in higher quality and more maintainable software.
4. Static Code Analysis Tools: These tools, such as SonarQube or ESLint, automatically analyze the code to detect potential issues (e.g., bugs, security vulnerabilities, or style violations) before the code is even run, making them an essential part of code reviews.
5. Technical Debt: Code reviews help reduce technical debt by enforcing coding standards and catching suboptimal or “quick fix” solutions that could lead to larger issues in the future. Regular reviews ensure that code quality remains high over time.

Quality assurance (QA) ensures that the software behaves as expected and meets functional and non-functional requirements by systematically testing and validating the code.

6. Integration Testing: This type of testing checks how different modules or components work together. After code review, integration tests ensure that new code integrates smoothly with the existing system without introducing bugs.
7. Quality Checks: QA teams perform quality checks at various stages of development to confirm that software meets predefined standards. This includes reviewing both functional and non-functional aspects, such as performance and security.
8. Regression Testing: After changes are made to the code, regression testing ensures that new features or bug fixes haven’t inadvertently broken existing functionality. Automated regression testing tools are often used to speed up this process.
9. Testing Automation: Automated testing tools run repetitive tests quickly, ensuring that the code works as expected after every change. This is especially useful in continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
10. Unit Testing: Unit tests focus on testing individual components or functions in isolation to ensure they work correctly. Developers typically write unit tests as part of the development process, and they form the foundation of automated testing.

Together, code review and quality assurance form a feedback loop that ensures continuous improvement throughout the software development process. Code reviews focus on identifying potential problems early in the development phase, while QA validates that the integrated system functions as expected through thorough testing.