Consistently developing a quality embedded system within budgetary and timing constraints is a challenging endeavor for many teams. The reasons can be quite varied but from my conversations with clients and teams all around the world from start-ups to huge semiconductor companies, an immature Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is one of the leading culprits. In this post, I am kicking off a series that will not just review the major phases in the SDLC but will also dive into each phase and provide expert techniques that can be used to tune-up your own SDLC.
Defining the software development life cycle
The Software Development Life Cycle can be defined as:
“The processes used to consistently achieve the desired software quality for a system within reasonable budgetary and timing constraints”.
The SDLC defines processes and procedures that help teams to avoid common pitfalls that would otherwise result in software rework and debugging. We all know that rework and debugging can have significant business ramifications such as being late to market, budget overages and customer backlash just to name a few. The SLDC is meant to help teams go faster not slow them down!
Software development life cycle phases
The SDLC defines processes that fall across several different development phases. These phases have traditionally consisted of the following:
- Requirements
- Design
- Construction
- Testing
- Deployment
An SDLC does not require that these phases be followed in a strictly waterfall manner but instead, many modern and successful development teams blend these phases together and then repeat them often. For example, the testing phase has become blended in with the software construction phase. Teams that utilize continuous integration servers and unit testing frameworks are able to test their code while it is under construction so that defects are discovered immediately rather than at the end of the development cycle. This blending has helped dramatically increase embedded software quality.
Slowing down to go faster
Companies tend to want to go as fast as humanly possible. They all have shareholders who want to see profit and growth whether it’s a single owner of a small business or a board of directors and shareholders of a publicly traded company. There is always the dynamic where there isn’t enough time to do everything that is needed to be done and teams under pressure start to cut corners. They start to throw processes out the window! The very SDLC processes that are meant to be guardrails against common pitfalls that will be encountered. The result is then lower quality and a longer development cycle. The trick of course, is to balance the processes in the SDLC so that they do not become overbearing and cost prohibitive which I will be discussing in upcoming posts.
Conclusions
Every team that develops embedded software needs to have a defined software development life cycle that has buy-in from development teams and management. The life cycle has to include requirements, design, construction, testing and deployment. Skipping or minimizing any of these phases will result in an ineffective life cycle that will cost not just money but time and quality. How much are you wasting with SDLC?
Jacob’s Expert Tip of the Week
Take a few minutes this week, even if it’s only 10 minutes, to evaluate your software development life cycle. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do we have a defined software development life cycle or are we ad-hoc developing our products?
- If we have a SDLC, do we actually follow it? When was the last time it was updated? Has it become too cumbersome?
- If we don’t have a SDLC, how much money are we wasting each year doing rework? How much time? How is that affecting our business and customers?
Most importantly, use these questions to help guide you to identify the next steps your organization needs to take. If I can be of assistance, please feel to reach out to me at [email protected].
