Question

1. Research and discuss why project management is important for the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Answer 1

When asked to give an example of a project, most of us think of a construction project or an industrial set up which has several stages and steps. Each of these stages would have a prerequisite task to be completed or have a dependency on a set of other tasks being completed.

This is an ideal scenario for project management set up where we can define and differentiate stages and have fixed set of outputs required from each stage. We then use project management methodologies for Initiation, Planning, Execution and close out of these stages.

Now, if we have a look at Software Development Life Cycle we would find that it can be very well differentiated into stages and steps with bottlenecks and a fixed set of deliverables from each stage. This makes it an Ideal candidate for application of Project Management Methodologies

Let us first have a look at what Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) entails:

SDLC has many different process models that follow a particular life cycle of events to reach to culmination of the desired software design. Example: Sequential/waterfall model, V- model , agile etc.

Like an assembly line each of the methodologies aim to deliver a high quality system that agrees with the customer requirements and even aim to exceed customer expectations.

This can only be done if each of the stages are delivered within scheduled timeframes and does not exceed the estimated costs.

The major Phases of every SDLC model are:

• System analysis & requirement gathering
• Systems Design
• Development
• Integration and testing
• Acceptance, installation & deployment
• Maintenance:

If we are to expect a good result from an SDLC it is therefore empirical that Each of these stages are subject to project management methodologies. Deviation of any one of the stages can result in destabilization of the entire project. This makes Project management very important for SDLC.