Building Digital Foundations: An Overview of the SDLC Process

SDLC and its Stages

SDLC is described as a procedure which is followed by a software organization to achieve a software project (Radack, 2009). It contains details on how a proposed software project will be developed, maintained, replaced, altered or enhanced. The SDLC clearly states the methodology for upgrading the usability of the software and processes involved in achieving it. It is, therefore, a clear framework which defines the tasks to be carried out at every step in the process of software development.

A typical standard SDLC contains six stages. The first stage is planning which involves the gathering of the requirements from the client which is usually done by the most trusted and skilled engineers in the organization. Requirements are analyzed in this stage. Implementation is the second stage of SDLC; this is the point where software developers start coding the software according to how the client specified. After deployment we get into the testing stage where debugging of the software is done. Documentation stage is the fourth stage. Each step involved in the software project is documented and preserved for future reference which is important for upgrading the software in the future. The software gets released for use after approval. This is the stage of deployment and maintenance. The final step which completes the SDLC is the maintaining stage where new requirements are put into consideration as they arise (Radack, 2009).

Home Health Care Software and SDLC

In the 21st century health facilities have always been a challenge in many countries across the world. The biggest problem is usually on inpatients due to lack of enough requirements such as beddings. An efficient home health care software can be developed using the SDLC where some patients who undergo regular procedures such as taking blood pressure, heart rate, glucose level among others can do it at their places of residence to reduce these health challenges. The results are then transmitted to the hospital electronically. Then doctors analyze them and give the appropriate prescription. This kind of a system will reduce the population of inpatients and also reduce the number of trips made by the regular outpatients who go for routine procedures in the hospitals.

Challenges in Requirement Gathering

In the requirement gathering stage, communication with the stakeholders is very vital. Interviews are one of the methods used in this process (Zhang et al., 2004). Organizing a meeting with members of the hospital staff could be a challenge especially the ones who are not emulating the project. Sometimes inexperienced employees may be given the post of project manager as a result of leveraging the relationship with the management which may lead into unrealistic time frames due to wrong time estimation and low budgeting leading to budget constraints. Integration of the software to the old system may also get subjected to very nasty surprises such as technical failures, rejection from the users and lack of experts from the client firm who can maintain the new software.

Mitigating Challenges in SDLC

The software development team can mitigate the challenges by employing smart methods in the SDLC process. In the requirement stage, other techniques such as the use of questionnaires instead of interviews can record better outcomes (Zhang et al., 2004). The software development engineers can also have their budget and time frame to compare with the clients' proposals so that together they can formulate a realistic time and budget plan. Training of users and the hospital staff on how to use the future technology should take place before the implementation stage where the software gets integrated into the system.

References

Radack, S. (2009). The system development life cycle (SDLC). Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Zhang, P., Carey, J., Te'eni, D., & Tremaine, M. (2004). Integrating human-computer interaction development into SDLC: A methodology. AMCIS 2004 Proceedings, 574.