IT: The Development Life Cycle

There are seven phases in the systems development life cycle: planning, systems analysis, systems design, development, testing, implementation, and maintenance.

The first phase is the planning phase, which will organize and develop a strategy that focuses on an overall outline, financial plan, and detailed schedule. At this stage, a determination is made to see if a product needs to be created or updated. Companies will implement analysis of technical, economic, operational, and schedule which in return can save a great deal of time and money. From this point a systems analysis will be conducted using a set of tools, such as computer software and requirements gathering to detect the problem and establish a method that can be used to correct the issue. This stage provides a more in-depth look into the problem.

The third stage is a system design which can be both logical and physical. Here a discussion of how the new system will be built, the materials needed, and the functions the design will have. Thereafter, development of the project will begin and the hiring of engineers, programmers, database developers and anyone else needed to complete the task at hand will occur. Once completed programmers will test the components modules in order to ensure what parts are working correctly and what errors exist.

After the initial testing, a team of individuals will install the systems components and implement the system by putting the new product to work. Implementing, such as direct cut-overs, parallel conversion, pilot testing, and staged conversion can take place. The last phase is the maintenance phase which is said to cost approximately 80% of the total cost of each system. The maintenance include troubleshooting and correcting errors, data recovery, data backup, end user support, and upgrading the system.