3 Key Custom Software Development Methodologies

By Author: Johan Smith
Total Articles: 120
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Creating software tailored to your needs requires using specific methods to ensure a smooth development process. The main goal is to make software that matches your project requirements seamlessly. These methods also help in estimating project timelines, delivering a reliable system, and keeping clients informed. What approaches do business owners commonly use in software development today?

This article explores some of the top custom software development methodologies in 2024 that business owners can adopt to grow their businesses.

What is Custom Software Development?

Custom or tailored software development involves crafting, building, and sustaining software for specific businesses, functions, and users. Unlike ready-made software, custom software focuses on well-defined requirements.

Given the broad range of needs in the software market, off-the-shelf solutions often fall short of meeting the demands of modern management and business processes. Enterprises ...
... often require unique features for their applications, leading to the development of custom software.

Many large businesses create custom software to handle essential functions like inventory management and content management. However, this custom or tailored software development process is cost-effective and time-saving.

Custom software is designed to meet specific requirements, which actually reduces the cost and time of development. Typically, tailored software development is carried out either by an in-house development team or through outsourcing. The process involves gathering requirements, coding, testing, deployment, and the methodologies employed in tailored software development projects. 

The 3 main custom software development methodologies are here. 

Waterfall Model:

Think of the waterfall model as a step-by-step approach to building software. Engineers move from the initial idea to deployment in a sequence. While this may sound practical at first, in real life, it's not how things always go. When making any product, customers play a crucial role. Unexpected issues may not go well with strict budgets and timelines. In simple words, the waterfall model, although seeming practical, is often too inflexible for many software development companies working with today's needs.

Agile Development:

Agile Development was introduced from the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. It puts a spotlight on customer feedback and adaptability, putting less emphasis on extensive documentation and more on having a working product. Agile prioritises individuals and interactions, valuing the ability to respond to changes over sticking to fixed plans. In other words, agile development is a modern approach to building software that learns from what works and what doesn't in the development process.

Scrum:

Scrum is like a cousin of Agile. It uses Agile principles but adds a specific structure to development. A significant part of Scrum is sprints, which are agreed-upon timeframes for completing tasks.

During sprint planning, Scrum teams set a goal and assess tasks that contribute to that goal. Scrum teams have scrum masters to guide development, sprint reviews to check progress and gather feedback, and sprint retrospectives to identify improvements for future sprints.

In conclusion, custom software development emerges as a strategic avenue for businesses seeking scalable solutions to address specific challenges directly. For businesses planning to get a custom software built, the key lies in identifying pain points and devising a targeted plan, collaborating with a dedicated development team to navigate and overcome challenges efficiently. By doing so, businesses can leverage the power of custom software to propel their growth and innovation.

Johan Smith is an expert software developer associated with GetAProgrammer, a leading custom software development company in Sydney. In this article, the author has shared insights on the three main custom or tailored software development methodologies in an easy-to-understand way.