Review of System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Models for Effective Application Delivery

Abstract

There are different system development models, tools, and applications that have been designed and developed before the use of computers for processing of information, and there is an increase in demand of software with cheaper cost, having more functionality, faster delivery, and of high quality than how it was previously. Therefore, there is need to know the methods and their applications that would conform to the organizational requirements for successful system deployment. Each method has constructive criticisms with various advantages and disadvantages to the system that are of importance for deploying software in a manner such that it helps in good decision making on a chosen method for delivery within deadline and proper quality. This paper explained four commonly used system development methods namely; waterfall, iterative, agile, and rapid application development (RAD). It thereafter categorically assesses these methods on a comprehensive set of features and made an alternative analysis of the applicability of the methods based on system development life cycle tools which are requirement, design, implementation, and testing. This paper describes the system development life cycle (SDLC) tools and applications for successful system deployment and the constructive comparison that should serve as a tool in model selection for system development.