Systems Life Cycle

The system life cycle is a series of stages that are worked through during the development of a new information system.

A lot of time and money can be wasted if a system is developed that doesn’t work properly or do exactly what is required of it. A new system is much more likely to be successful if it is carefully planned and developed.

In this video, you’ll learn about two of the most popular life cycle models for application development; waterfall and agile.

Key stages of the Systems Life Cycle

1. Requirements - also known as the analysis stage. This is the first step, when the team decide what the software needs to do. 
2. Design - the team work out the details of the program by breaking it down into smaller chunks. The team will use visual prompts, pseudocode and diagrams to work out how the program should go.
3. Implementation - the program code is written. Good pseudocode allows the implementation stage to be relatively easy. The code is normally written in a high-level language.
4. Testing - this involves testing the program under various conditions to make sure it is going to work. 
5. Evolution - the software is ready to be launched, but after it has been launched you will need to think about how the software evolves. Software needs to be maintained to ensure it works on new systems.