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Posts about Software Development

Software Development Methodology

I feel that it’s important to have a comprehensive approach to software development. It’s not enough to be good at coding, or testing, or writing documentation. It’s far better to excel at managing every step of the development process in order to ensure the quality and consistency of the end-to-end work as well as of the final product. I aim to do just that in my work. Here I briefly outline my methodology for achieving that aim.

First, good software development starts with good planning and research. I strive to attain a thorough understanding of what I’m developing by listening to the people to whom it matters most: the users. By gaining insight into how people in the target market think about the problem space, and by strategizing about how technology can address that space, a picture of the product takes shape. This research coalesces into a set of pragmatic requirements and goals that balance the demands of a realistic development schedule with the needs and desires of the target market.

Once the requirements have been identified, it’s time for prototyping. Task flow diagrams of user interactions model the entire system. Evaluations from the target market refine these schematics, shaping the look and feel of the final product. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of seeking market feedback to build solid and meaningful metaphors into the design. These concepts drive the user experience and make or break the success of the final product. The outcome of this feedback loop will be a UI, terminology, and object design grounded on intuitive concepts, scalable technologies, and a reliable architecture.

Next, a talented development team must be assembled and backed by a dependable, project management-oriented implementation infrastructure. Team-building is crucial for the success of any product, and in software development, a diverse set of engineers and specialists with complementary talents must come together and work as an efficient whole. As a result, I consider it extremely important to create a working culture of which team members want to be a part. Such an environment doesn’t foster a sense of entitlement, but rather of conviviality and excitement. If team members believe in what they’re doing, and they enjoy doing it, then they’re likely to do it well.

And what they’ll do is actually create the software. Each element of the product design must be broken down into its basic parts, fit into a generalizable design, and built back up into meaningful objects. I further require detailed documentation of every interface and implementation, as well as thorough unit testing. In fact, the tests are often written before the interfaces are written, ensuring that they will work as expected throughout the remainder of the development process. All aspects of the application must be implemented according to a scalable, maintainable methodology that emphasizes consistency, quality, and efficiency.

The emphasis on quality naturally continues into the quality assurance phase of the development process. The feature set is locked so that development engineers can work closely with QA engineers to test edge conditions, identify bugs, fix them, and ensure that they remain fixed. I prefer to have QA engineers punish nightly builds with suites of tests while development engineers fix the problems identified by previous days’ tests. QA is considered complete when the product passes all the tests we can dream up.

And finally, once all of the QA issues have been addressed, the final product is delivered. Naturally, the process doesn’t stop there, but starts over – in fact, it likely has already started over. New features must be schematically tested with likely users, and new interfaces designed to implement them. The idea is to end up with a solid product that can grow with the needs of the target market.

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