How to streamline your SDLC: Best practices, tools, and methodologies

Best practices:

• Conduct a needs assessment: Use techniques like interviews, surveys, and workshops to gather detailed requirements.
• Support your analysis with a Feasibility Study: Assess the technical, operational, and financial feasibility of your project.
• Create SRS document: Develop a Software Requirements Specification (SRS) to outline all requirements clearly.

The tools you'll need:

Leverage mind mapping, word processing, and spreadsheet tools for effective requirement gathering and documentation.

• Requirement management tools: IBM DOORS or Jama Software can help manage and trace requirements.
• Modeling tools: Use UML diagrams to visualise system requirements and interactions.

Best practices:

• Select your optimal architecture: Choose the right architecture (e.g., microservices, monolithic) based on project needs.
• Create and test prototypes: Develop prototypes to validate design choices and gather feedback.
• Implement effective design patterns: Utilise design patterns to solve common problems efficiently.

The tools you'll need:

Use our recommended planning and modelling tools to capture requirements and design expectations accurately.

• Design tools: Adobe’s Creative Cloud offers a vast array of design tools including Adobe XD for UI/UX design
• Architecture tools: Enterprise Architect or Visual Paradigm for system design.

Best practices:

• Enforce coding standards: Establish and adhere to coding standards to ensure consistency and maintainability.
• Manage code with version control: Use Git for version control to manage code changes effectively.
• Automate builds with CI/CD: Implement CI/CD pipelines to automate builds and deployments.

The tools you'll need:

We offer IDEs and third-party tools that cover the entire lifecycle, providing everything you need to build modern applications.

• IDE: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, RAD Studio, or Eclipse for coding.
• CI/CD tools: Azure DevOps Pipelines, GitHub Actions, JetBrains, GitLab CI, or CircleCI for continuous integration and deployment.

All these tools and more are available with Grey Matter. Get in touch today and we'll get you started. 

Best practices:

• Implement automated testing: Use automated tests to ensure code quality and reduce manual testing effort.
• Maximise test coverage: Aim for high test coverage to catch potential issues early.
• Conduct performance testing: Conduct performance tests to ensure your application can handle expected loads.

The tools you'll need:

Utilise our testing tools to correct or fine-tune code and improve its logic and performance.

• Testing frameworks: Azure DevOps Test Manager for manual testing.
• Performance testing tools: Apache JMeter or LoadRunner for performance testing.

Best Practices:

• Deployment strategy: Choose the right deployment strategy (e.g., blue-green, canary) to minimise downtime.
• Implement robust monitoring: Track application performance and detect issues early.
• Prepare rollback plans: Have a rollback plan in case of deployment failures.

The tools you'll need:

• Containerisation: Docker for containerising applications.
• Orchestration: Azure DevOps Pipelines, GitHub Actions for automation, Kubernetes for managing containerised applications.

Best practices:

• Schedule regular updates: GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) and GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps (GHASADO) is a suite of security features built into GitHub to help developers secure their code throughout the software development lifecycle. It’s especially useful for organizations that want to integrate security directly into their DevOps workflows.
• Track and resolve bugs: Use bug tracking systems to manage and resolve your issues promptly.
• Gather user feedback: Continuously gather user feedback to improve your application.

The tools you'll need:

• Bug tracking tools: Bugzilla or Jira for tracking issues.
• Feedback tools: UserVoice or SurveyMonkey for collecting user feedback.