A software development workflow is a fundamental component of many software development projects. It equally affects team performance, quality of the final product, and project development timeline. Once well-optimized, it can bring significant benefits to the product owners – minimize development expenses, effectively distribute resources, improve team productivity, and much more. Therefore, it’s essential to continuously track and improve the software development workflow during the product development process.
In this article, we’ll have a look at the components of a solid software development workflow and explain how to optimize it effectively.
What Is a Workflow in Software Development?
A workflow works as a glue for the software development project. It links together the software development stages, also known as the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and allows software developers to build their applications more effectively.
Being a looped process, a software development workflow determines the actions that should be taken at each stage and provides forward-looking guidance for further product development steps. This way, with a well-established workflow, a software development team can:
- See a bigger picture of the project
- Clearly determine each team member’s responsibilities
- Understand how their work contributes to the entire project
- Foresee any project bottlenecks
- Effectively prevent and overcome any challenges that may appear during app development
- More evenly spread the resources
- Improve their performance on the current project and further app-building projects
Key Stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
There are no firmly set stages in a software development workflow. The number of elements depends on the classification and usually varies from 5 to 7. We’ll have a look at the software development workflow that includes 5 stages. It doesn’t mean that a 7-stage development workflow is better than one that has 5 elements. A 5-stage workflow offers everything software developers need to build high-quality software with minimum resources and time.
Step 1: Planning and Requirement Analysis
Planning and analysis are the first steps in the SDLC loop. It determines many project parameters that will influence further software development. At this stage, the software development team defines the business and technical project requirements.
- Product requirements – the software development team defines the scope of the product, which features, functionalities, and services should be included in the developed application, its architecture, tech stack, and more.
- Business requirements involve client requirements for the developed product, its objectives and aims, any specific branding guidelines the app should be aligned with, and more.
- Project requirements include determining software development life cycle (SDLC) roles in the team, project scheduling, resource allocation, possible risks and problems, and ways to prevent them.
This stage involves much communication between business analysts, project managers, stakeholders, and the development team. The outcome of the Planning and Analysis stage should be elaborated project documentation and a well-defined project plan.
The project documentation can include specifications, user stories, user scenarios, visual application design, and more. Meanwhile, the project plan should include a description of the development process, timelines and milestones, outcomes, and deliverables.
Step 2: UI/UX Design
During this phase, UI/UX designers create the visual part of the requested solution. For this, they build wireframes and prototypes to test the application for its usability and implement any changes if needed. Often, UI/UX developers have to adjust the application interfaces to the guidelines provided by their client so that the final solution matches the client’s company style.
The UI/UX stage involves much experimenting and changes. A good UI/UX design eliminates any user difficulties, making user interfaces intuitive and simple to navigate, and is always adapted to the user’s requirements.
Step 3: Development and Coding
At this stage, software developers get down to the product-building process. The steps software developers take during the development process are largely determined by the chosen methodology.
There are a number of development methodologies, though the most popular are Waterfall and Agile. The Waterfall is commonly chosen for creating niche-specific software that involves unchangeable, clear project requirements, such as medical software, aviation, and other niches that require much precision. Agile development workflow is more popular for building software for various business niches when end-user requirements heavily influence the development process. This way, with Agile, software developers can quickly adjust to new demands and add or remove certain features, quickly change the final product elements, and more.
Step 4: Testing
The testing phase largely depends on the methodology used. In Agile, testing and code reviewing phases happen throughout the building process with each new development iteration. The Waterfall method involves the testing phase after the software is built. Nevertheless, the Quality Assurance (QA) team has to perform the final product testing before releasing it to the market.
Often, companies release the final product to a small group of beta testers. Beta testers are the end-users of the product who try the product first and report to the company if they find any possible errors. Meanwhile, the software development provider implements various tools for tracking and analyzing how end-users interact with the resulting digital solution.
Testing can be a rather lengthy process, especially if the developed solution has many complex features. Nevertheless, it’s an essential part of the SDLC process. Poorly tested software can result in a reputation crisis and significantly reduce the ROI of the client company.
Step 5: Deployment and Maintenance
Once the product is built and tested, it can be released to the market. Many companies use various tools to automate this process and ensure a continuous deployment model.
Although the implementation stage is often understood as the final stage of the software development project, the SDLC process doesn’t stop here. After software developers present the final product to the end-users, they should maintain the developed solution up-to-date, ensure that it meets customer requirements, and have minimal downtime. Also, at this stage, they continue testing their digital solutions to guarantee that all their features work properly and effectively.
How Agile Software Development Connects All Stages of the Development Lifecycle
In traditional approaches to software engineering, the stages of the software development process are often treated as a linear sequence: analysis, design, development, testing, and release. Agile software development fundamentally changes this model. Instead of isolated phases, it establishes an agile workflow where all stages of the development lifecycle are closely interconnected and continuously influence one another.
The core principle of agile methodologies is iterative development built around short development cycles. Each sprint combines planning, development, testing, and partial validation of results. This structure not only accelerates delivery but also helps streamline interactions between stages, eliminating the handoff gaps typical of rigid, sequential models.
This interconnectedness starts at the planning stage. In an agile workflow, requirements are not defined once and locked upfront. Instead, they are continuously refined based on business priorities and real product feedback. An agile team focuses on value-driven prioritization rather than a fixed feature list, which makes it easier to adapt to changing conditions and significantly reduces the risk of scope creep. As a result, project planning becomes an ongoing activity embedded in every sprint rather than a standalone phase.
Design and development are also tightly coupled. Architectural decisions, user experience considerations, and implementation choices are made with direct input from previous iterations. This approach is especially important for complex systems, where early technical missteps can lead to costly rework later. Agile software development enables teams to identify issues early, before they evolve into structural or architectural problems.
A collaborative development model further strengthens the connection between stages. The use of version control systems ensures transparency of changes, simplifies teamwork, and allows software developers to track how the codebase evolves throughout the entire development lifecycle. Version control becomes more than a repository; it acts as a central mechanism that links development, testing, and maintenance activities.
Testing in an agile workflow is not postponed until the end of the software development process. Instead, it is integrated into every iteration and closely tied to continuous integration practices. Automated builds, tests, and quality checks provide rapid feedback and help maintain a stable product state. This approach supports a smooth workflow and significantly lowers the cost of fixing defects at later stages.
Continuous integration also has a direct impact on user experience. Delivering small, validated changes on a regular basis allows teams to respond quickly to user behavior and real-world usage patterns. Rather than relying on assumptions, teams can enhance their software development efforts based on measurable feedback, improving both product quality and user satisfaction.
The final stages of release and maintenance do not represent an endpoint in agile software development. Instead, they complete a feedback loop that drives continuous improvement. Sprint reviews, technical metrics, and user feedback are analyzed to refine processes, tools, and even the development environment. This makes an efficient App development workflow resilient, adaptive, and capable of evolving alongside business needs.
Overall, agile software development connects all stages of the development lifecycle into a single, continuous process. Through short iterations, collaborative practices, version control, and continuous integration, teams can optimize their software development workflow while maintaining control over quality, timelines, and long-term product value.
Best Practices to Optimize Software Development Workflow
There are a variety of ways companies can improve their SDLC workflows. Many of them can be obtained when working with multiple software development projects.
According to industry research, companies that implement formal process management models can increase software development productivity by up to 62%, while also improving quality, delivery timelines, and overall project predictability.
We’ve analyzed our long working experience in the international software development market and have come up with the software development workflow best practices. Let’s have a closer look at them.
Emphasize Code Quality Over Documentation
Surely, well-established and clear steps on how to develop a product are the key to solid software. However, most often, time-to-market is a much more important aspect of the application release than elaborated documentation. It’s essential to present your product to customers as quickly as possible and ensure that it effectively attracts potential users.
To prevent over-documenting and wastage of resources, time, and money, software developers:
- Add more product-testing activities to the development process
- Regularly hold code review meetings
- Keep up with the coding standards throughout the development process
- Build a product MVP.
Carefully Select Your Project Management Tools
Having the right project management tools at hand is as important as selecting the proper tech stack for the requested solution. While there is a wide range of various tools in the market, project managers select the ones that perfectly suit the development team’s needs and use them from project to project. For example:
- GitHub is a VCS that is extremely popular among many software developers worldwide. It allows for storing and sharing application versions, effectively reviewing code, tracking the history of code changes, and much more
- Docker and Kubernetes are widely used at the implementation and deployment stage to ensure consistent environments and reliable application delivery. Docker helps package applications and their dependencies into containers, while Kubernetes is used to orchestrate these containers, automate deployments, manage scaling, and maintain application stability.
- Redmine is a project management tool that suits perfectly for small and large software development projects. It allows tracking issues, creating roadmaps and highlighting milestones, using team charts, and performing many other tasks in Redmine.
- Jira is a popular tool used for bug tracking and Agile project management. It is used to track code issues, monitor app development stages, manage software testing procedures, and more.
Ensure Transparency and Strong Communication
For effective software development, each team member should be deeply engaged in the process, stay up to date with the latest project changes, and report in a timely manner about these changes to customers.
Hold Retrospective Meetings After Each Project Completion
Retrospective meetings are meetings that are usually held after releasing a piece of software. It helps team members to identify and improve team performance. For this, team participants need to answer several questions, such as:
- What has the team accomplished?
- What were the main bottlenecks and obstacles the team encountered?
- How can team participants improve the development process?
How Software Developers Adapt to Changing Requirements Using Agile Methodology
In practice, agile methodology is one of the most effective ways to handle changing requirements, especially in projects with evolving business needs. However, the choice of methodology always depends on the product context, regulatory constraints, and project goals.
A key role in adaptation is played by an agile workflow built around short sprints. This format allows software developers to regularly reassess priorities and incorporate changes at early stages rather than at the end of the development lifecycle, when adjustments become costly and risky. As a result, teams can maintain productivity while keeping scope creep under control.
Effective adaptation also depends on close collaboration within the agile team. Ongoing interaction between developers and the product owner helps clarify requirements faster and supports timely technical decisions without slowing down development cycles.
From a technical standpoint, resilience to change is supported by version control, automation, and continuous integration. These practices make it possible to introduce new requirements safely, identify issues early, and maintain a stable product state. Regular retrospectives further reinforce continuous improvement by helping teams refine processes and adjust the development environment based on real project challenges.
In real-world projects, no single methodology works equally well for every product. Factors such as project complexity, industry regulations, system criticality, and long-term maintenance requirements all influence how the software project workflow should be structured. This is why experienced teams focus not on promoting a single methodology, but on selecting and adapting the approach that best fits each specific case.
SCAND Best Practices
At SCAND, we pay much attention to establishing a transparent process of software development and project management, as well as smooth collaboration between the customer and the outsourcing team.
We offer the following process of software development:
- Requirements Analysis
We carefully analyze customer requirements and business goals to provide the best resources. After in-depth project requirements analysis, we suggest the best team members and the roadmap for the entire project realization.
- Delivery
We perform both front-end and back-end development, generating the programming code in the previously chosen language or technology.
We provide the customer with reports on each stage of the project development, ensuring everything goes as planned.
- Testing
Our QA specialists run testing on every development stage, detecting defects, reporting, bug tracking, fixing, retesting, and providing suggestions on enhancements.
We guarantee mature processes and complete team management. All of our processes and dev workflows are ultimately transparent. You have utter visibility through communication and project management tools, in addition to report documentation that examines all project activities in detail.
We provide access to our project management system, which has a lot of management, tracing, and monitoring capabilities, and we can use any project management system suggested by the customer.
We use a long-reputable Waterfall method of software development as well as cutting-edge Agile, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies.
At SCAND, we have a standard set of reports we usually use to update clients about project progress, problems that need resolution, available defects, etc.
We provide all means of communication to our clients in English: in-person meetings, phone calls, email messages, instant messages via Teams, or otherwise.
- E-mail;
- Instant Messengers (Microsoft Teams, Viber, Telegram, WhatsApp);
- Project Management Systems (JIRA, Basecamp, Redmine, etc.);
- Versioning Systems (Subversion, git, Mercurial, even CVS – whatever you like);
- Bug Tracking Systems (Bugzilla, etc.);
- Reporting Systems (for keeping track of what is going on and for billing purposes);
Conclusion
The software development workflow is an integral part of any application-building process. Once well-optimized, it allows teams to accurately determine their actions at each development stage, effectively assign roles on the project, evenly spread the resources, and prevent major bottlenecks. Those companies that have much experience in various software development projects can better optimize their software development workflows based on that experience.
Our teams have over 25+ experience in providing custom software development services for various industries. They create smooth and effective software development workflows for each application-building project they work on. If you’re thinking of building your own software solution, then don’t hesitate to contact us.
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