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Initial phase of the SDLC process that sets out to discover, identify, and define the scope of the project to decide the course of action and specifically address the issues that are going to be solved by the new system solution. This crucial phase sets the tone for the overall success of the project, which is why it is during this phase that thorough research is performed to determine resources, budget, personnel, technical aspects, and more.

The purpose of this phase is to understand the business and processing needs of the information system project. Here, the development team considers the functional requirements of the system to assess how the solution will meet the end user’s expectations. The end user requirements are determined and documented and a feasibility study is typically performed to determine if the project is feasible from a financial, organizational, social, and technological standpoint.

After a comprehensive analysis phase, the design phase surfaces. In this third phase, the elements, components, security levels, modules, architecture, interfaces and data of the system are defined and designed to evaluate how the finished system will work and what it will look like. The system design is produced in detail to ensure the system will include the necessary features to meet all functional and operational aspects of the project.

An approved design phase is the catalyst for the next and fourth phase: the development of the information system. In this phase, the development team is hard at work writing code and constructing and fine-tuning the technical and physical configurations necessary to build the overall information system. This is considered by many as the most robust phase in the life cycle as all the labor-intensive efforts are made here, signifying the real start of software production and installation of hardware as necessary.

This phase involves the Quality Assurance (QA) team who is in charge of performing the overall system testing to determine if the system solution meets the set of business goals and if it performs as expected. Additionally, in this phase, all the different components and subsystems of the solution are brought together to bring the whole integrated system alive. As we’ve discussed in previous articles, testing is becoming increasingly important as it helps ensure customer satisfaction by establishing that the system is fault-free.

After the system is given a green light from the QA team, it is brought into a production environment. In essence, during this phase, the project is released to be used and/or installed by end users.

In this final phase, end users can fine-tune the system as necessary to increase performance, add new features and capabilities, or meet new requirements brought to the table by the client. This phase ensures the system remains relevant and usable by replacing old hardware, improving the software, evaluating performance, and applying new updates to make sure it meets all necessary standards and includes the latest technologies to face cybersecurity threats.