Software Development Cycles for Agencies


Software Development Cycles for Agencies

It is a tricky thing to outsource your project to an agency since you are handing over the control of your work to a third party. But software development is a complicated and time-consuming process, and it often requires coordinating and managing diverse teams like Brights agency hence many companies feel it convenient to give a significant chunk of the job to someone who has the manpower and expertise in this department.

Most of the experienced software agencies have a transparent mode of working that keeps all stakeholders in the loop. They maintain a constant communication channel for resolving issues promptly.

Though each agency might have its own methodologies, most of them work on generally accepted Agile principles. The agency is equipped with specialists who provide tasks at each stage of the project lifecycle.

There are broadly two ways of carrying a project:

  • Waterfall of the cascading model – In this model teams strictly adhere to each stage of development. They need to finish one stage before starting the next one.
  • Agile – This is a more flexible model where the project is carried out in small sprints or steps. These sprints are repeated at each stage of the work. Large projects widely make use of this model since many changes might be involved in the project lifecycle and the agile method allows changes to be incorporated smoothly into its flow.

For either of the models, the fundamental steps involved are:

  • Planning – This is the preparatory phase where the project manager and client work closely with the team to decide on the budget, form a team, decide on initial work stages, and coordinating deadlines. The strategic decisions made in this phase are critical to optimizing the project workflow.
  • Assessing business requirement – User requests and market conditions are the two most important factors which decide the success of a project. This can be achieved by having business analysts understand the functional requirements of the product. Agency experts and business stakeholders have briefings to determine obvious as well a hidden needs of the project after doing comprehensive analysis.
  • Software Development – Once requirements are finalized and approved, the development team starts building the physical architecture of the product. This phase also involves architects making several prototypes so that optimal choice can be made as far as the design of the software is concerned. These steps also help the team identify weaknesses and make adjustments to reduce the risk of errors in the final product.
  • Programming – The methodology selected in the planning process decides how the coding proceeds. If the waterfall model is selected, then programming is carried out in one block, and if the team is working in agile fashion then the coding is divided into several chunks of sprints that have predefined outcomes and timelines. The team maintains continuous communication with the client to get the work reviewed.
  • Testing – In this stage, testing experts evaluate the functional characteristics of the project in real operating conditions. The product is verified at many levels like performance, functionality, code quality, security, etc. The bugs coming out of the process are then fixed by the agency.
  • Deployment – This process is the release of the working software into production. Most agencies automate this process by using a continuous integration model like Jenkins. It ensures a fast and streamlined process.
  • Maintenance – In this stage, agencies have a smaller team of developers who monitor the software in production for any errors. In case bugs or defects come up they are addressed instantly by the team. Changes are incorporated in a way that doesn’t affect the working code in production, hence the team follows an abbreviated software development process for deploying bug fixes.

Conclusion

Software development can have many different types of cycles like a waterfall, Agile, Spiral, etc. The agency chooses a model that is best suited for the kind of project they are dealing with.

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