Software development best practices checklist

It helps narrow down issues quicker when you deploy in smaller sets and it helps with more accurate testing. I have a drive and passion for development, project management, social media and music with career backgrounds in those fields.

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Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Consider this software deployment best practices checklist: It starts with your development process A good development workflow from the start should help you setup your deployment process.

Build and package your application for deployment once Before you deploy, you will need to build and package your application for deployment. Always deploy the same way everywhere You should follow the same steps of deployment on all your environments for development, test, staging and production.

You need to talk to them and get their feedback. This can be done through surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Understanding user needs is essential in creating software that meets their needs and expectations. Every good software starts with a great idea. Before you can begin development, you must have an initial concept or thought on what the program should be able to accomplish. This can be done in a number of ways — mind mapping, sketches, flowcharts. The goal is to come up with as many potential solutions as possible and then narrow them down to the best one.

This is more difficult than it sounds and requires experience and expertise in order to properly identify which solution will accomplish business needs while also meeting user needs. Not all ideas are good ones, and sometimes the best option is to start from scratch.

The best way to do this is by creating a mind map — basically putting all of your ideas in one place and then connecting them together. When creating this document, ask yourself what will be needed for each function or feature?

What are the steps that the user will need to take in order to accomplish what they want? What are the project restraints — limitations that will affect the development of the software? This can be anything from budget and time constraints to hardware limitations. After the constraints have been identified, you can start identifying project requirements. What exactly do we need to create? These should be very specific and not vague or open-ended questions.

Having a list of requirements will help keep development on track and prevent scope creep from occurring — which happens when new features are added without letting anyone know beforehand. Having a list of requirements is great, but it can be difficult to know which ones are the most important. You should also consider putting timeframes around each requirement — how soon do we need this by?

It may seem counterintuitive at first, but not all requirements are created equal. This is where things can start to get a little hairy.

In order for your software to function as intended, you need the correct technologies and level of expertise. This will help keep development on track and ensure that everything is completed by the desired deadline. You can leverage the power of checklists in different aspects of your daily life, and software development is no exception.

We use checklists all the time as they make it easier for our project managers and developers to organize the workload, minimize deviations from the course, reduce time and cost of changes, and just make the work process more convenient to track and manage. Though it might sound somewhat complicated, the basic goal of compiling a checklist is rather simple — just to check out whether every step of the development process is being followed and if nothing is forgotten along the way.

It also helps with the delegation of tasks to the individual member of the team. The development process often consists of repetitive tasks like regular testing or coding, and the checklists help in keeping track of those tasks. It allows you to move from one milestone to another while accumulating results and transferring those results to the following steps of the process. Of course, you should not go beyond any reasonable measures, so try to make your checklist as concise and as informative as possible.

Of course, you can look at the scope of your project right now and estimate like 10 points for your checklist, but once you contact your vendor, some of those points might fall off and other points might add up. It is best to compile that checklist in cooperation with your vendor because they have the necessary experience on how to implement agile software development methodology, and thus can offer an exhaustive list of steps to follow.

As you see, checklists are paramount for keeping your agile project together and helping you manage the performance of the team. Agility does not mean you can just leave your project going without any clear sense of direction or let your dedicated team do whatever they want as long as they do something.

In fact, the agile approach would require a much higher degree of control and discipline than the classic waterfall model, which is exactly where the checklists come in handy. You need the power of the agile model, especially if you work in a volatile industry and a dynamic market. To combat that issue, what you need is an agile approach that allows you to adapt and modify your development process on the go.

That is why agile software development is the key to success in many projects, and hopefully, you can achieve great things and build a truly stunning product with a comprehensive checklist for agile software development. Custom Software Leverage our software development expertise to build custom applications, modernize legacy systems, and build powerful API integrations. Learn More. IT Strategy. Check out a related article:.

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