039 Development Cycle

The stages of product creation: analysis, design, development, and testing.

• Analysis identifies and documents needs, resulting in a requirements document. Needs are discovered through research, customer feedback, focus groups, and direct experience with the problem.

• Design transforms the requirements into visual form, which becomes the specification. Design involves user research, ideation, prototyping, and testing.

• Development is where the design specification is transformed into an actual product.

• Testing ensures that a product meets both the requirements and design specification.

• Establish iterative development cycles, meaning that there is back and forth between groups at each stage. Work together to modify requirements and specifications as needed.

See Also Design by Committee • Hierarchy of Needs • Iteration KISS • Life Cycle • Prototyping

The ideal development cycle fosters iteration between adjacent stages in the cycle—and, as needed, nonadjacent stages.