Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the release of a movie. In software, product organizations large or small
are unable to disclose software release dates. We remain vague — “second
half of next year” — to say the least. One reason could be that movie
making has almost become a science, although software development is
still an art. Furthermore, we should also have backups for our team players
if we want to have a flawless (software) production. There are many roles
in software that remain unrepresented, and we may just need to recognize
the efforts of each and every person in the life cycle a little more.
Summary
The “input-process-output” paradigm is the seminal life cycle of all infor-
mation processing. A life cycle is a coarse-grained process model. It allows
one to get a good picture of the entire process but does not itself get lost
in details. There are many software development life cycles. One needs
to understand the benefits and shortcomings of each before using it. There
is an art to selecting a life cycle that will work in a particular environment.
A life cycle provides a good way to figure out where one is on one's
way to completion. A life cycle is rarely detailed enough to constitute a
plan. Understanding the life cycle is not a substitute for planning — yet
planning without understanding the life cycle is not advisable either.
Planning requires an understanding of both life cycles and the pro-
cesses involved at a more detailed level.
