Typical steps in software development life cycle are requirements gathering and analysis, detailed design and specification, coding, testing, implementation and documentation. All the steps should be carried out in the proper order and with care so that re-doing the steps can be avoided.

Requirements gathering can be said to be the most challenging step in the software development life cycle. It involves at the high level, the understanding of the client?s business goals and at the low level involves extracting information regarding all that the software is expected to do from the future user of the software. A software engineer needs to be very methodical and patient in bringing out the requirements. He has to analyze the requirements thus gathered and sift them to remove/resolve contradicting requirements. Then, he has to prepare a detailed requirements document to be signed off by the client.

Software Design is the process of putting down in detail the software solution that will satisfy the requirements gathered. Software specification is the minute description of the software to be written. It is almost like a well written algorithm or pseudo code. Specifications, in practice, are also written for existing applications to understand its flow. Software architecture will give an abstract representation of a system, helping to make sure that the system can support the interfaces and also meet current and future requirements.

Coding is translating the specifications into software. The overall specifications are broken down into modules and then the coding is carried out. Then the developed code is tested against the specification and the requirements. Later all the code pieces are integrated into an overall system and then tested for usability, stability etc. Documenting each stage of the software development cycle is very useful for future maintenance of the system. A user manual helps any new user to the system to understand the system?s capabilities.

There are different models used in software development like the often used waterfall model which follows the above steps one after the other in the same order. This is preferred when the user is very clear about the requirements. Another popular model is the iterative model, used when the user is unable to define his requirements in one shot. In this model, all the steps are done for a small portion initially and after that much iteration of the steps take place till finally all the requirements are built into the system. Extreme programming (XP) and agile methodology are off shoots of this iterative process. XP involves extremely small iterations to be carried out. agile software development process uses feedback from all the concerned users of the system to control rather than planning.

custom software development is building a software system developed solely for the client?s requirements instead of taking an already developed product and customizing for the client. Many IT consulting companies have in-house software development teams that can service their clients.

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