The phases of the System Development Life Cycle are planning, system analysis, system design, development, testing, implementation and maintenance. The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process applies to information system development projects ensuring that all functional and user requirements and agency strategic goals and objectives are met.
Planning involves determining what the goal is and how best to accomplish that goal. It establishes a high level view of the intended project and determines its goals. Different factors must be considered including equipment types, costs, employee willingness to learn, and employee knowledge. System analysis follows planning, after the scope of the project has been determined in planning it is necessary to determine the exact source of the problem that is being solved. It refines project goals into defined functions and operation of the intended application. System design occurs when any problems have been identified it is possible to design a system to solve those problems. It describes desired features and operations including screen layouts, business rules and other documentation. System Design leads to Development where the information system is built and programmed Implementation the real code is here. Several approaches can be taken to begin actual use of the new system; these range from direct cut over where the company using the system immediately stops using the old system in favor of the new one, to staged conversion Implementation the real code is here. Testing can be performed after the system is built. It brings all the pieces together into a special testing environment then checks for errors and bugs. Maintenance the system becomes operational during this phase. The emphasis during this phase is to ensure that sponsor needs continue to be met and that the system
