Intext Citations. Thanks First, There Are Several

¶ … intext citations. Thanks First, there are several software development techniques that can be used in the development process. The waterfall approach proposes a sequence of phase whereby one phase is determined by the completion of the previous phase (CMS, 2008). This would mean, for example, that the design phase needs to be completed before the actual development phase begins, which needs to be completed before the testing phase starts. Certainly, there are occasional overlaps, but the project evolves over a strict period of time, following a strict schedule, with pre-determined deliveries at certain moments.

Another alternative is the rapid application development (RAD). As the name shows, this technique aims to provide the best and fastest development solution, where the emphasis is not necessarily on developing the highest quality software, but rather a functional software, in exchange for higher efficiencies and for being able to deliver at a lower price.

A third technique for software development that could be taken into consideration is the spiral development technique. This technique focuses on minimizing the risk of the project and proposes four main categories (analysis, evaluation, development and planning) during which the interests of the stakeholders are analyzed, taking into consideration the best solution in each of these categories to move the development process forward (Boehm, 1986).

In all these different techniques, the most important element is the relationship that develops between the different phases of the project and the approach of the management towards those. In the end, it is also a matter of how the dependencies between these phases are handled. In some cases, as in the first technique, each phase is dependent on the previous one and cannot be started without that being completed. In other cases, the dependencies are much looser.

Depending on the approach (in detail vs. A more flexible approach), there are several documents that need to be included in the software development process. The general common denominator is that there are five main documents that necessarily need to be included: requirements, architecture and design, technical, end-user and marketing, each directed towards a particular phase of the process.

The requirements should be developed in close cooperation with the client, since the client is the entity best able to present what he or she needs. The issue with this is that the requirements of the client will need to be translated into an actually feasible process and the client needs to be informed on whether a certain requirement is feasible or not (assuming that the client usually comes from the business world and does not have a direct and precise understanding of the development process).

Following this, the architecture and design documentations will ensure that all the different components of the application will interact with one another, as well as what components actually need to be developed for a functional product.

The technical documentation is the documentation that explain the coding of the development process, commenting on how each part of the code links to the rest of the development. The technical document is extremely important from a medium and long-term perspective: if change is needed in the future, developers will be able to look through the code and understand what the person who had worked on the product before them meant to do at a certain point or other.

The end-user document is an explanatory document for the client, a manual that tells him how to use the various art of the application and how to obtain the most out of it. It is also an explanatory document, but this time it is for the end-user rather than for other programmers. As a consequence, this is not a technical document, it is a document that can be read and understood by someone who is not a programming expert.

Finally, the marketing document places the software product in a larger market context, explaining and presenting to the user the alternative products on the market and what this particular product has extra in terms of functionality.

Two supporting activities need to be briefly touched upon here: configuration management and quality assurance. The configuration management activity deals with ensuring that the software product will continue to retain the same functionality and characteristics as originally intended throughout its entire life and also for handling changes throughout the life of the software.