Modern Software Development Landscape: What You Need to Know
The technology landscape is continuously evolving day-by-day, and in order to gain a competitive edge in the industry, top software companies must have the expertise in the latest software development methodologies and just several that work best for them.
You might have heard names like DevOps, Agile, or Waterfall when it comes to development methodologies, these are the approaches helping software teams add more structure to their software building processes.
In this article, we would like to share with you several modern software development methodologies that you must know in 2021 - 2022!
Let’s delve right in!
A basic guideline to Software Development Outsourcing
For any business with mobile app and web app development needs, software development is one of the essentials that allow businesses to scale, innovate, and gain an advantage in the market.
Software development processes include planning, designing, implementing, deploying, and maintaining.
For any software building process, the software methodology is a must! Although it doesn’t have much to do with the technical aspect, it helps with the organization. Software development methodologies are frameworks being applied to the development process to add structure and control throughout the entire development lifecycle.
Outsourcing is basically seeking out a third party to help you with your development needs. But the question is, “to outsource or not to?”
The technology industry is massive, and there is no limitation. It continuously changes, therefore, by having a fixed framework, we can add structure to the development process, making it easier for all team members.
It is predicted that by the end of this year 2021, the value of IT-related tasks that companies outsource to software outsourcing companies will exceed $413.72 billion. Simultaneously, IT outsourcing marketing will grow by 5 percent each year till 2024.
In addition, custom software development services and outsourcing will be in high demand since they provide:
- The access to the global talents pool - if you can cut costs while obtaining highly skilled software engineers, then why not? Vietnam software outsourcing market is currently on the rise.
- Save time and money - although it might not always be the “bylaw” practices, most of the time offshore development centers can help you reduce expenses significantly. When reaching out to the outsourcing centers, you’ll find yourself (business) have more time to focus on other important things.
- Mitigate the risk - by delegating tasks to the pros with a well-established workflow, not only you can mitigate the risk but also boost the time-to-market!
Some of the popular software development methodologies to dominate the market
Agile
Can it be any more obvious? The Agile development model has always been the top methodology that is widely used by top software companies in the world. The concept is not new, but since it brings back so many benefits, it is expected to be the dominant model in the IT outsourcing market. According to the statistics, 71 percent of companies use the Agile approach nowadays.
The first advantage it brings to the table is flexibility and adaptability. Agile allows project management processes well-organized and recurrent alterations.
You’ll often hear the word “iterations” when it comes to Agile. This means that the Agile team must release each feature of software or the software in short iterations, which often takes place from one week to one month. In each iteration, the team adds mini increments of new functions. These whole “iterations” create transparency in an adaptive process, boost efficiency, and maintain motivation.
Agile methodologies also enable the software team to minimize risks since they often include changing requirements, bugs, or even cost overrun.
Agile comes in many different forms, you might have heard of: Scrum, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development.
DevOps
DevOps, as mentioned in other articles, can be deemed as a “working culture” now. For many years, DevOps has been highly adopted by many offshore outsourcing companies. This is because DevOps contributes significantly to the overall company culture.
If other development methodologies bring structure to the project, DevOps, on the other hand, delivers organizational chances that enhance the collaboration amongst different departments, some of which are operations, quality assurance, and development.
By adopting DevOps, the software developing team can boost the time-to-market since it opens up to effective collaboration, lower the failure rate, shorter lead time between each fix, maximize the trust, and minimize the disruption.
As controversial as it is, DevOps allows shorter time-to-market but brings higher employee efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
Lean
Another software development methodology that not many of us know of, is Lean. Lean is quite similar to Agile since it also enables flexibility. But the biggest difference is that when using the Lean model, developers need to create the bare-minimum version of the product first based on the fundamental requirements, and then implement changes based on the feedback received.
When adopting Lean, the software development team can deliver the product fast without compromising on the quality, minimize resource waste, delay some important decisions until there is a clearer vision of the product as well as feedback from the users.
Lean is expected to be among the dominant development models in the upcoming years since it reduces waste, ensures quality, allows fast delivery. Lean is preferable among startups. This is because startups often lack a complete vision of the end result/product. By utilizing the capabilities of Lean, startup companies can launch their “bare” version and continuously improve it in updates.
Conclusion
Over the past 10 years, software development models have been changing, with more and more options. Today having too many different options make us confused about is the best model to use. The answer lies in the project you’re working on, whether it’s a mobile app project or a web app development one.
Also, different companies apply different models to their projects, having clear communication is the key. If you want to know more about which model fits your project the most, contact our experts now to get some insights!
