How to build a software – Step-by-Step Guide

Creating software from the ground up demands precision and thoughtful planning at each stage of the Agile development process. This lays the foundation to meet both software requirements and business objectives. It involves gathering requirements, identifying the target audience, and designing a robust architecture.

The right set of strategies helps to simplify the development process. This also ensures the software not only meets expectations but also empowers organizations to stay competitive with top market players.

Explore our comprehensive guide to achieving the best outcomes in software development.

What is Software Development?

Software development is the framework that covers everything necessary, from ideation to the launch of digital solutions. This includes designing, writing code, testing, and maintaining software applications or systems. It involves transforming a concept or idea into a functional software product through well-defined stages.

Here are 7 Simple Steps for Successful Software Development

Analyzing how to create software, the process begins with an in depth-research defining the business goals. A software development company can use agile models like Lean, Scrum, or Kanban for building flexible solutions of premium quality. The right model is selected after assessing project requirements, complexity of the solutions, team size, and expertise.

The agency considers the level of client involvement, time and budget constraints, and risk management needs. For software development projects with distinct requirements, we suggest Waterfall or V-model are suitable. However, for evolving requirements, agile, scrum, or iterative models are better.

Step1: Validate Ideas and Study Project Feasibility

Creating a successful software is not limited to delivering functional applications. Rather the focus is on fulfilling your users’ needs. This is where idea validation comes in. It’s an important step in the software development process that marks up the chances of your product’s success. 

The partner agency defines the target market and its needs. Further, they explore potential solutions with competitor analysis. For software built on user feedback, you may start with a prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP). This helps to gear the software products towards success with the best market fit.

Step2: Build a Detailed SRS Document

What is the software requirements specification (SRS) document?
This is a formal document that details the requirements for a software system. It outlines what the software should do and how it should perform. In simple abc, it acts as a blueprint or roadmap for the development team. The SRS document ensures everyone understands and aligns towards common project’s goals and requirements. It has a mix of functional and non-functional requirements.

Functional Requirements of SRS	Non-Functional Requirements of SRS
This describes what the software should do.	This specifies how the software should perform.
Outlines specific features and functionalities.	Cover aspects like performance, security, usability, and reliability.
It is simple to specify and tested first.	It is difficult to specify and tested later
Test Cases: End-to-end testing, API testing, Integration testing, etc.	Test Cases: Usability, Security, Performance, and Stress Testing.

Follow the 4Ds of Writing an SRS

• Define your product’s purpose: Clearly articulate the problem your product will solve and the value it will deliver.
• Describe what you’re building: Outline the core features, functionality, and user experience you aim to create.
• Detail the requirements: Specify technical, business, and user requirements to guide development.
• Deliver it for approval: Present your plan to stakeholders for feedback and alignment before moving forward.

Step3: Decide the technology stack for the software

Once you have the detailed SRS, it is time to select suitable technologies for building the software product. Review your SRS carefully to understand key elements and application types (web, mobile, desktop).

Selecting the right technologies delivers scalability, performance expectations, and security requirements.

• Check for any specific constraints mentioned in the SRS, like required integration with existing systems, third-party services, or legacy technologies.
• Focus on must-have features and system priorities (speed, real-time processing, data handling, etc.), as these will heavily influence the technology choices.
• Determine whether the solution must handle rapid growth or fluctuating user loads. Choose scalable technologies that align with the growth projections outlined in the SRS.
• Shortlist frameworks, programming languages, databases, and hosting environments that best fit your specific functional and non-functional requirements.

The infographic below explains the flow for choosing suitable technologies.

Step4: Create Software UI/UX Design

At this phase of software development, designers create wireframes, prototypes, and visual mockups that represent the structure and look of the application.

Key deliverables of this phase include using any approach from the following:

• Wireframes: Low-fidelity layouts showing page structure for software solution
• Mockups: High-fidelity, visually styled representations of the interface
• Prototypes: Interactive simulations to demonstrate user flow for custom software solutions
• UI Kits & Style Guides: Standardized design components to maintain consistency for app

Step5: Develop Application Code

During development, UI components are implemented based on the finalized designs. This involves close collaboration between designers and developers. It is crucial and ensures fidelity to the design vision. They use various software development tools and project management tools to ensure smooth collaboration.

Programmers, while writing server-side code, focus on the security of the software program. They manage servers, select software monitoring tools for the project and production environment, and develop continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. Similarly, build tools like Jenkins and Gradle allow developers to write code in different languages and Integrate development environments like Visual Studio or IntelliJ.

This is the longest phase in developing software or software products. Software developers should implement the best practices for building the application code. This ensures the software is modular and has reusable code. DRY (Don’t repeat yourself) conventions, using helper modules and services, lays the foundation for a robust code.

Step6: Testing & QA (Quality Analysis)

Software developers and testers evaluate the software to ensure it meets requirements and functions as expected. This involves identifying and addressing defects, bugs, and issues to improve software quality and reliability. The testing phase begins with a plan for analyzing how the software will be tested. The software development team actively uses automated test scripts in this phase.

• Test Case Design: Creating specific tests to evaluate different aspects of the software.
• Test Execution: Running the test cases and recording the results.
• Defect Reporting: Documenting and communicating any identified defects to developers.
• Re-testing: Ensuring that the defects are fixed and the software continues to meet requirements.

Standard methods involved in this phase are unit testing, integration testing, system testing, acceptance testing, functional testing, performance testing, and security testing.

Step7: Software Launch and Maintenance

At this phase the software is made available to the users. This means deploying it on servers, app stores, and through other distribution channels. Providing support to users during the initial stages of using the software is important to address any early issues or questions.

However, the job is not over with the launch. This is where an ever-going phase of software maintenance kicks in. It has ongoing activities to keep the software functioning correctly, efficiently, and securely after it has been released. Standard maintenance methods are Corrective, Adaptive, Perfective, and Preventive Maintenance.

Conclusion

This article is focused on explaining how to build software in simple steps. While the process is similar for all technical solutions, it is essential to make amendments for building adaptive and flexible software.

Custom software developments services at Nethues Technologies are focused at delivering unique solutions as per key business requirements. We implement agile or DevOps based on the specific project demands to ensure seamless solutions that streamlines processes and drives ROI.