Evaluating Development Processes

I read an interesting entry here about the software development process and it gave me a reminder of how simple, in fact, it can be. I was reminded of some of the common aspects of the software development life cycle and that they are all important for success, to varying degrees. The key thing is that variability.

Analysis, design, implementation, and testing seems to be the common factor in any aspect of the development process. Realistically, one can't create software without crossing each of these phases at least once. They all must occur, ideally longer than just briefly. But whatever the development process that is chosen by a given team, each of these phases is going to need evaluation in terms of time investment.

This is the part that comes even before a given project comes into existence for a software development team. This is where it is important to set a consistent time to be spent for each phase. But this isn't going to happen for the first project that is hammered out by a team. Trying to set an appropriate amount of time for each development phase is completely pointless. The first project is going to be trial and error. What is important is that once the team is able to find some time allotment that works, stay consistent. Consistency makes all stakeholders involved happy when it comes to timing. This includes the customers.