Your team's software development lifecycle (SDLC) is a critical process that guides developers in creating more reliable, high-quality software. But is your team doing everything possible to encourage the best outcome? We'll examine 11 SDLC best practices to ensure your developers see optimal results from their hard work.

By focusing on SDLC best practices, your developers can enhance team communication, increase work efficiency, and reduce project risks, improving both the developer and end-user experience. These best practices apply across various SDLC methodologies, including waterfall, Agile, and spiral, adapting to multiple team approaches.

Table of contents

• 1. Set clear development requirements
• 2. Break development into parts
• 3. Set code standards and guidelines
• 4. Use version control systems
• 5. Conduct regular code reviews
• 6. Perform integration testing
• 7. Involve end users in testing
• 8. Identify potential security risks
• 9. Track performance and log
• 10. Develop a rollback plan
• 11. Inject AI into the coding process
• SDLC phases and their importance
• Popular SDLC methodologies
• FAQ

Communication is king, and that applies to your team’s SDLC, too. Before your developers progress toward a goal, they need to know their objective, and it starts with software planning. Begin by gathering requirements from project stakeholders via surveys and 1:1 interviews. Then, analyze your collected data for key takeaways, prioritizing critical needs.

Create a document or other core resource for developers to reference when they have requirements-related questions. To help make this process easier, consider using user story templates to gauge requirements from an end-user perspective or create basic prototypes to obtain early feedback and help understand particular needs.

Example: If your team is designing an e-commerce website, requirements might include the ability to list available products, accept orders, and provide basic user accounts for order tracking.

Even for a seasoned engineer, the development process can occasionally feel overwhelming, hindering developer productivity. Create a more efficient development environment by breaking down complex tasks into smaller, approachable parts. This technique makes projects easier to manage and allows for small wins when your team completes an objective.

In addition to breaking down tasks for easier management, consider modularizing your software project. Dividing your project into well-defined modules can create a smoother workflow and enable easier troubleshooting in the future. Remember to prioritize your project's critical or dependent aspects when breaking down tasks.

Example: If your team is developing a complex security solution, breaking down the service's various functions into modules can help with focus. That way, if an issue arises in the future, you have simplified troubleshooting thanks to the more modular code design.

This best practice is vital if your team sees quality variation throughout the SDLC process. Establishing clear coding quality guidelines is critical to keeping code uniform across your team. By encouraging your team to code in a similar, guided style, you can work to improve readability and reduce potential errors.

Create a central document that outlines coding standards and best practices; this can include details such as naming conventions and general formatting rules. By enacting these standards, your team will be able to work on each other's code more easily, increasing code quality and heightening a sense of overall teamwork.

Example: Set simple coding standards such as similar naming conventions. For example, using camelCase for variables and PascalCase for methods and classes. Another shared convention may be the number of spaces for code indentation (i.e., four or five).

With multiple developers working on code projects simultaneously, things can quickly become outdated without using a version control system (VCS). Integrating a VCS into your process, such as Git, can help your team track code changes and allow for more seamless collaboration. Those details will let you see who changed what code sections and when for greater control.

In addition to better code tracking, VCS can allow teams to revert to earlier project versions if needed. Your team can also create separate project branches when introducing new features or bug fixes to reduce interference with other developers, then later merge branches into the main project if necessary.

Example: Your team chooses to use Git as its VCS; as a result, when a new feature is requested, a new project branch is created. Along the way, you can view what developers contributed to the project and where.

Conducting code reviews is an essential process that helps simultaneously create higher-quality software and increase your team's overall knowledge. The key to effective code reviews is regularity—doing them daily makes it possible to monitor potential changes before they become unmanageable.

Through the code review process, team members can better understand fellow developers' code and provide feedback along the way. Code reviews are an excellent way for developers to share their best practices while reviewing one another’s work for potential bugs or coding standard slips. Consider using a code review checklist to help guide your team.

Example: When a team member submits a pull request via their VCS, other developers must review the code and suggest potential improvements before merging it to ensure consistent quality and enhance understanding.

Integration testing allows your team to ensure that different parts of a software solution work together correctly. By separating your code into modules, your team can test each section to see how it performs. If a section operates poorly in isolation, it could cause an issue when fully integrated. This process can help your team avoid introducing bugs into their codebase.

When adopting integration testing, consider your team's approach, such as top-down, bottom-up, or Big Bang integration. Once selected, consider using automated integration tests to help with the testing process; you can generally incorporate these tools into your integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline for increased efficiency.

Example: If your team is designing a complex mobile shopping app, breaking its functions into modules will allow you to test different sections of the app's code, such as the user authentication process or the product database.

Your team's goal should be to design software that meets the requirements of its end users. Involving end users in your software's testing phase enables your team to collect invaluable feedback, focusing their energy on user-selected priorities and features.

To involve your end users, consider conducting usability studies so you can observe how users interact with your software; this is also a great time to highlight potential UX issues. Through beta testing, you can release your software to a limited number of users, obtaining more data on recent code adjustments and stability.

Example: Before launching a new video application, your team chooses to beta test it with a subset of users on its release waitlist. As a result, you gain insights into bugs that occurred and receive feedback on desired features.

Security is a part of the SDLC process your team should consider from the moment a project is conceptualized. Some teams follow an enhanced version of the SDLC process to create more secure software products known as the secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC). But your team doesn't have to dive into SSDLC to create a safe product offering.

Have your team create a threat model at the beginning of the development cycle to identify potential vulnerabilities. Next, make sure your team conducts security assessments throughout the coding process to identify potential issues before they occur. Teams should always be trained on secure coding practices to avoid common vulnerabilities.

Example: If your development team is creating a new social media website, you might host a workshop on common web vulnerabilities and how to best protect against them, including SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

By creating an ongoing log of your team's software development, you can better understand when potential issues began to occur. Using tools such as Pluralsight Flow to track software engineering metrics can allow you to see problems like low deployment frequency or a high change failure rate. You can also get a better understanding of when bug tickets began to accumulate.

In addition to logging your team's software development journey, tools like Flow can provide you with detailed analysis to identify issues and better understand user behavior. With a firm grasp on your software's development journey, you can handle bottlenecks and increase end-user satisfaction before they have a more widespread negative effect.

Example: Your team logs development with Pluralsight Flow, so when a sudden performance bottleneck appears, you can trace it back to a particular code submit event earlier in the week.

Even the best software development teams make mistakes; however, the difference between a good and a great development team is how prepared they are to correct their mistakes when they occur. As such, it’s critically important to develop a rollback plan that your team can follow when something goes wrong. Think of it as your code safety net.

During your SDLC, ensure your team continually backs up the current version of code so it can perform a reversion if needed. And don't wait until something happens to have a plan; create a rollback procedure with step-by-step instructions. Don't be afraid to test the rollback plan, using it to roll back occasionally and ensure everything operates as expected.

Example: Your development team is performing routine code maintenance and is ready to push an update. But before they do, they double-check that the codebase is backed up and a rollback procedure is in place for any potential emergencies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that has already begun to transform the world of coding. AI in software development isn’t replacing developers; instead, it can help ensure a more efficient, error-free process, resulting in higher-quality software for users and lower operational costs for development teams.

Use generative AI code generation tools to help create snippets of code or automate more repetitive tasks. Some AI platforms offer bug detection or code optimization features that ensure your software performs as it should. Don't fear integrating AI into your development process, from coding to testing—it can help your team produce their greatest work.

Example: Your team is working on a complex project with repetitive code sections. Rather than expending human time on a simple task, your team does the work faster using a generative AI code tool, such as GitHub Copilot or Tabnine.

The SDLC comprises several phases that help guide development teams toward creating better, higher-quality software for their end user. By focusing on each phase, development teams can deliver needed project requirements and achieve all goals.

• Planning: During this phase, your team outlines your software's objectives based on user needs and available resources.
• Analysis: This phase analyzes the information you gathered in the previous phase for additional system requirements.
• Design: You outline your software's overall modules and components, determining how they interact.
• Development: This is when your team writes code, conducts code reviews, and begins testing.
• Testing: In this phase, your team conducts additional testing for integration, performance, and security.
• Deployment: Your team deploys software to the production environment and prepares for rollbacks.
• Maintenance: This final phase is ongoing and involves continuously testing and fixing bugs or security vulnerabilities.

Different teams have varying project requirements, which means there are several types of SDLC methodologies. Selecting the best SDLC allows your team to achieve its goals more efficiently based on overall complexity, team structure, needs, and resource constraints. Here are some of the most common SDLC methodologies your team might follow:

• Agile: This methodology focuses on flexible, iterative development. It’s best for teams with constantly changing requirements and high uncertainty.
• Big Bang: This methodology is high risk and focuses on the development phase with minimal planning. It’s best for small, low-risk projects.
• DevOps: This methodology aims to automate and integrate the work between development and IT teams. It’s best for fast-paced teams with quick delivery needs and can be tracked with dedicated DevOps metrics.
• Kanban: This methodology uses a visual system to help developers manage the progress of their work. It’s best for teams who need a simple, manageable workflow.
• Spiral: This methodology is a combination of waterfall and iterative development. It’s best for complex projects with high risks and uncertainties.
• Waterfall: This methodology is a traditional linear approach, where each stage must be completed before moving on. It’s best for teams with precise requirements and stable development workflows.

SDLC best practices can help your team achieve a more stable, reliable workflow. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive from development teams.

The most effective SDLC model depends on your team's needs and available resources. For example, Agile may be the best choice if your team gauges effectiveness by the ability to move fast and adapt. 

On the flip side, if your team requires a structured and more stable approach, the classic waterfall method may be a better choice. Research all SDLC methodologies before choosing the best option for your team.

The recommended practice for application security within an SDLC is to ensure that security is considered throughout the process rather than at specific stages. 

One common technique is shifting left; this means integrating security practices from the very beginning of your SDLC. Following this method, you can identify vulnerabilities and prevent potential rework later. For more information, learn about the benefits of SSDLC in your workflow.

Continuous testing is the greatest practice your team can apply across all SDLC methodologies when developing your application. It focuses on integrating continuous testing activities throughout your entire SDLC. By implementing continuous testing, your team can find bugs earlier in the development cycle, reduce potential risks, improve overall software quality, and enable continuous delivery.

When focusing on your team's overall engineering efficiency and ability to deliver high-quality software, starting with SDLC best practices is a powerful approach. But how do you track your team's gains? Using Pluralsight Flow, you can observe software engineering KPIs and metrics to better identify bottlenecks and other potential efficiency issues.

Book a demo today and discover how Pluralsight Flow can give your team an efficiency upgrade.