A Concise Guide to Software Application Development

When developing applications in small medium business (SMB) IT environments it is all very easy to just get on with the coding without putting into place any development or project plans. After all those system development life cycle methodologies are only for the large scale development projects that take years and cost millions in cash. We don’t have time or any need for all that planning and documentation as the deadline is tight enough as it is. So let’s just get on with it!

Is it little wonder most IT software development projects fail miserably or do not meet their requirements? In this document we will show you how to apply standard SDLC and Project Management techniques so that your IT software development projects will succeed.

Table of Contents

1. Developing Software Applications
2. Planning to Fail
3. The Principles of Successful System Development
4. The Need for a Software Development Plan
5. Reasons Why Development Projects Fail
6. Planning to Avoid Failure
7. What are Development Methodologies?
8. Project Management Life Cycle v SDLC
9. What are The Project Management Processes?
10. The SDLC’s Complementary Nature
11. The SDLC
12. Which SDLC Methodology to Use?
13. Waterfall Method
14. Agile Method
15. The Advantages of Agile
16. The Disadvantages of Agile
17. Getting the Project started
18. Gathering Requirements and Objectives
19. Producing the Software Requirement and Specification (SRS) Document
20. What Should the SRS Address?
21. What shouldn’t go in the SRS?
22. The Software Design Document
23. Monitoring & Controlling the Project
24. Review & Test Periods
25. Reinforcing the Scope Statement
26. Handling Change Control