How to Develop Successful Software

 How to Develop Successful Software

 

Computers Developing successful software is incredibly important in today's world for a lot of reasons. For one reason, software development is a key operation to the success of the modern day business, but another reason is that failed projects tend to cost businesses billions of dollars a year throughout the world. Typically, agile development techniques tend to be far more successful than traditional software development techniques, such as the waterfall technique. One of the first key steps to developing successful software is to slash the budget. If you only have a limited budget for a project, you are forcing developers to focus only on what is essential to the project. This is also better, because if the project is going south, you have wasted much less on the project, and the decision to "kill" the project is made much

 easier. Using this methodology, you'd be much less likely to invest more money to keep a project afloat, which will probably end up failing anyway, causing the company to lose even more money on the project. This leads me to the next key to developing successful software. If the project isn't working, kill it. Bringing all key stakeholders together into a meeting and deciding if the project is working, and if it's worthwhile to the organization is a key part of project development. It's important to find out if it's doing what the business wants, or if it is doing what was originally the purpose of the project. It is usually best to eliminate any components of the software that are not critical or useful to the

 organization or meeting the expectations of the business. This can help cut down on significant losses and waste of company money. Keeping requirements to a minimum is similar to what I was discussing earlier, which is starting each project with what the software must absolutely do, and ignoring everything the software should do. The organization must keep a close eye on the scope of the project, to maintain the proper amount of features to the project, to save time and money for the organization. Testing the projects is key to developing software, and should be done much more often that you

 probably realize. Testing as often as once a week can help cut down on costs and maintenance and mistakes made by the software developed. The software needs to be bug free and working efficiently for the organization to continue to be running smoothly. John Stone recommends Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, Second Edition , found here