9 Strategies to Improve Your Software Development Process

Are you looking to beat your competitors and win the race in today's market? Well, the ultimate solution would be fast software development. Whether your company is small or big, having fast software development will always keep you ahead of the competition. Concerning fast development, you should never compromise the quality of the software. It will possess a high threat to the company's growth.

The process involved in software development is long and endless. Even achieving the market-ready status requires proper and consistent improvement and maintenance. With new fixes and improvements, the software needs updates regularly.

According to the report released by Statista, software development revenue reached USD 271 billion as of the end of the year 2021. Well, the revenue growth of the software development industry has increased by 14% and 25% when compared to 2016 and 2017. 

This blog briefs the possible ways you can speed up the software development process.

Factors Determining Software Development Pace

Before getting into the core, let’s brush up on some basic factors which play a crucial role in determining the pace of the software development process.

• Complexity involved in the development: Well, it is the foremost thing that determines the speed of the software development process. The more complexity is involved in the development process, the more project completion delays will happen. 
• Size of the development team: Like complexity, the number of developers involved in the software development process also influences the completion speed of the project. For a better and speedy process, the entire development team should be in the same degree of talent.
• Code quality: Having high-quality codes determines the software quality, but it will also take more time to write. If the project is large, writing high-quality code will surely slow down the project completion speed.
• The human factor: The influence of the human factor in the software development process will play a significant role in project turnaround time. Unlike machines, a team of developers will not produce the same accurate results every time.

Possible Ways to Speed Up a Software Development Project

1. Establish Clear Objectives and Demands From the Start

It is the foremost and most basic step that every software development company should follow. As a developer, you need to be more precise in finding the objectives and demands of the project by the client. Failure to find the right objectives may lead to confusion and diversions. Furthermore, it may cause more delays to the project.

Moreover, defining appropriate project goals right from the beginning will save time rather than rectifying the mistakes later. So, before starting the development process, make sure all the team members are aware of the project goals and objectives to avoid mishaps/confusion.

2. Have the Right People for the Development

If you plan to build a great product, hire the right quality people for your development team because having the right team will always push boundaries compared to the one-man army task.

Hiring a talented software development team for your company is the most challenging task and critical investment. At the same time, you need to be aware that your company can’t achieve overnight success without world-class software developers capable of developing excellent software products.

3. Follow the Industry’s Best Practices

To build better and higher-quality software products, you need to ensure your development team follows the industry’s best practices. Apart from that, you need to set your internal standards for your company and make sure the entire development team follows them.

The projects your company handles or is going to handle should adhere to the standards and terms set by your company. By doing so, you can make sure all employees of your company are on the same page.  

4. Consider Dividing Projects Into Small Components

Breaking your whole project into smaller portions will make things easier for the developers to manage. Assigning small tasks to a small team with a shorter deadline will enable you to complete the project in a quick time.

5. Adopt DevOps and Agile Methodology for Building Quality Software Easier and Faster 

Companies utilizing the power of DevOps and Agile methodologies for their software development process will gain many benefits and a competitive advantage in today’s market. These methodologies will enable you to deliver high-quality software to improve customer satisfaction.

By leveraging these benefits, your company reaps all the benefits by increasing its revenue. In addition, these methodologies will help your products to reach the marketplace much faster and improve the communication between the stakeholders.

6. Use Test-Driven Development

Test-driven development (TDD) is commonly referred to as writing tests, and it plays an ideal role in speeding up the software development process. If the TDD is implemented perfectly, it will pay off quickly by dramatically improving productivity and enabling developers/testers to fix the bugs at the early development stage.

7. Use the Right Tools for Development

Identifying the right set of development tools for your project will greatly impact your daily work schedule. Tools must be chosen based on the requirements, whether you need full-featured or advanced capabilities or the project requires simpler functions.

Also, it would help if you considered the factor of which business partner will be involved with you during the project development. Because every team member of the project should feel comfortable while working, this will increase productivity and avoid frustration among the team.  

8. Automate to Save Cost and Time

While building software, introducing automation will increase productivity significantly. Automating the software development process will limit human interference. And it allows business stakeholders to focus more on productivity rather than finding bugs/quality.

According to the experts’ point of view, 90% of the cost of software is associated with maintenance and enhancement. The automated software development process produces more efficiency along with high payback. Apart from that, automation reduces the time delay and the human role in the development process. 

9. Leverage the Benefits of Open-Source Technologies

Utilizing open-source software could solve many technical problems, including control and cost savings. Many top enterprises use the power of open-source software and make the most out of them. There may be some debate on how much open-source software can save instead of developing custom software from scratch.

However, there is no question about open-source software empowering software development by providing robust functionality. In recent years, the revenue of the open-source software market has been experiencing steep growth. This clearly shows how much impact open-source software created on the software development industry.

Bottom Line

The software development process will never be complicated with the right guidelines and good preparation. Always stay agile, be flexible, have a good work culture, explore future-proof technologies, and implement successful software development strategies for quickly building better and higher-quality software.

At the same time, it is important to note that there are several ways to develop software other than the list mentioned above. However, there is no guarantee that the same strategies will deliver the same results for all software companies.