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How to Develop Software 

A Step-by-Step Guide

Providing full-cycle software development services since 1989 and practicing Agile software delivery since 2007, ScienceSoft helps confidently plan and build solutions of any type and complexity.

Our clients report 2–12x cost savings thanks to our expert assistance with the development project optimization.

Contact the team Calculate my project cost
How to Develop Software - ScienceSoft
How to Develop Software - ScienceSoft

Contributors

Pavel Ilyusenko

Head of PMO, ScienceSoft

Andrei Dzimchuk

Senior Solution & Integration Architect, ScienceSoft

Andy Lipnitski

IT Director, ScienceSoft

How to Develop Your Own Software: Summary

A development process for new software includes solution planning, design, coding, testing, and deployment. When creating a lean working version (MVP) first, this process can take just 2–6 months.

Key 8 steps to software development

  1. Create a requirements specification.
  2. Prepare a project plan.
  3. Design UX and UI.
  4. Architect the software.
  5. Code the solution.
  6. Establish integrations.
  7. Run rigorous testing.
  8. Set the ready solution live.

A software development project team requires a project manager, a business analyst, UX and UI designers, front-end and back-end developers, QA and DevOps engineers. Depending on the project’s nature, additional talents can be required, e.g., data scientists, 3D designers.

Sourcing Models for Software Development

All in-house

  • Full control over the development flow.​​​
  • Limited team scalability.
  • Significant hiring and training costs to acquire specific skills.

Turn to ScienceSoft to get a consultation on project planning, defining the skill gaps, and more.

Get a consultation

Team augmentation

  • Fast access to the necessary competencies.
  • Reduced project costs.
  • High requirements for in-house project management to coordinate the team members.

Turn to ScienceSoft to quickly augment your team with the required skills.

Augment my team

Partial outsourcing

  • A dedicated team to co-source development tasks with your in-house or engaged talents.
  • Optimized project budget.
  • Collaboration-associated risks are on your side.

Turn to ScienceSoft to get a dedicated team with all needed competencies.

Get a dedicated team

Full outsourcing

  • A fully managed development team with all necessary skills.
  • A quick project start and substantially lower costs.
  • Risks of choosing an inept vendor.

Turn to ScienceSoft to get a team of professionals for end-to-end app development.

Request end-to-end development

Explore Our Comprehensive Guide to Outsourcing Software Development

Software Development Process Roadmap

Below, ScienceSoft describes the core steps we take to complete application development projects. Some tasks can be skipped if you choose to develop an MVP. Also, different development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, V-model, etc.) handle these tasks differently – they can be performed iteratively in parallel, or linearly.

1.

Define requirements for the software

Duration: 3 days – 3 months
  • Analyzing the company’s business needs and the expectations of the software target users.
  • Researching the competition, analyzing competitors' weaknesses and strengths.
  • Defining global, industry- and region-specific compliance requirements for the software, e.g., HIPAA for healthcare solutions, PCI DSS for payment apps, GDPR for the EU.
  • Creating a detailed software requirements specification.
  • Introducing the optimal feature set for the software with features prioritized for implementation according to their value for end users.
  • Determining the risks that can hinder smooth software launch and suggesting pragmatic ways to address them.

For software product development companies, we suggest the optimal market niche, define product differentiation, and formulate a unique selling proposition. We also provide expert advice on the most profitable software monetization models and the winning customer acquisition, conversion, and retention strategies.

Pavel Ilyusenko

ScienceSoft's Head of PMO with 20+ years of experience

2.

Prepare a project plan

Duration: 2 weeks – 1 month
  • High-level software design: app type (mobile, web, desktop), functional modules, advanced capabilities (enabled by AI/ML, IoT, blockchain, etc.), interactions between the modules and with other software, data flows.
  • Defining a precise project scope, deliverables, case-specific KPIs.
  • Creating a software development project plan with major milestones and a work breakdown structure.
  • Composing the team and planning effective collaborative flows.
  • Providing accurate estimates of the development time and costs.
  • Drawing up a business case: performing the cost-benefit analysis, calculating ROI and NPV.

Building a proof of concept is a way to early assess the solution’s technical viability and confidently move to the detailed design. We typically deliver a PoC for innovative software and complex enterprise solutions and reuse the created components later to speed up development.

Pavel Ilyusenko

ScienceSoft's Head of PMO

3.

Design UX and UI

Duration: 2 – 7 weeks
  • Conducting comprehensive UX research; describing how a user will interact with the software.
  • Creating wireframes that showcase basic functionality and content layout on each screen.
  • Designing a sleek visual appearance of user-facing apps, composing a UI kit.
  • Combining wireframes into dynamic UX prototypes, transforming the prototypes into full-color UI mockups.
  • Performing the prototype user testing.

I recommend investing in the unique UI design only if the visual style is a solution's competitive advantage. Otherwise, going with default themes and focusing on software functionality would be a more reasonable option.

Valerie Syrokvash

UX Consultant

4.

Architect the software

Duration: ~ 2 weeks
  • Defining how functional modules of future software should work at the code level.
  • Designing a secure and scalable architecture for the solution.
  • Deciding on integration approaches (point-to-point, middleware-based, iPaaS, etc.) between the software components.
  • Choosing the optimal technology stack.

At ScienceSoft, we rely on cloud services by well-established cloud providers – Microsoft, Amazon, Google – to streamline solution delivery and maintenance. Convenient managed services, the pay-as-you-go model, and multiple ready-to-use components (messaging, data science, IoT, and more) offered by cloud providers help create software 2–20x faster and optimize project investments.

Andrei Dzimchuk

Senior Solution & Integration Architect at ScienceSoft

5.

Code the solution

Duration: 2 – 6 months to deliver the first working version
  • Establishing development, testing, and delivery automation environments: CI/CD, container orchestration, etc.
  • Writing server-side code and APIs.
  • Turning static UI mockups into the fully functional GUI.
  • Setting up and configuring data storage.
  • (for AI-powered software) AI model development, training, and tuning.
  • Thoroughly documenting the software and coding process.

We start with scoping and delivering an MVP to drive early payback and then proceed with rapid incremental software evolution based on the frequent feedback from end users.

Andrei Dzimchuk

Senior Solution & Integration Architect at ScienceSoft

6.

Establish integrations

Duration: 3 week – 3 months

Setting secure integrations between your software and required systems:

  • Corporate apps, e.g., CRM, ERP, accounting software, a BI solution.

  • External data sources relevant for the software-supported operations, e.g., to import traffic data for transportation systems or capital market data feeds for investment apps.

  • Third-party services: authentication, payment, messaging, etc.

  • Hardware, e.g., personal devices, tracking tools, industrial robots.

ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft

7.

Run rigorous testing

Duration: ~30% of the project time
  • Creating a test plan with a testing scope, test types addressing all functional and non-functional software requirements, reporting procedures, etc.
  • Creating test cases and checklists.
  • Writing and running automated test scripts (API and UI tests).
  • Conducting unit testing and static code analysis in parallel with development.
  • Carrying out functional, performance, security, integration testing.
  • Fixing bugs detected by testing.

I strongly recommend involving QA specialists as early as at the requirements specification stage. A QA team needs to make sure that the requirements are fully testable from the very beginning of the SDLC: it will help perform comprehensive testing and avoid costly redevelopments later on.

Pavel Ilyusenko

ScienceSoft's Head of PMO

8.

Set the ready solution live

  • Deploying software in the production environment.
  • User training sessions (onsite, remote, or hybrid).
  • Software performance monitoring and fixing the bugs that users discover.
  • Planning improvements and new features to be added based on user feedback, business needs, market trends, etc.

Note: Under iterative development, all the described tasks will be cycled in 2-week – 6-month releases of new functionality.

Once launched, software needs supervision and improvement to work smoothly in the long run. Our team can take over continuous software maintenance to ensure high performance, availability, full security, and functional relevance of your solution. We can also organize 24/7 user support to quickly resolve issues and help users unlock max value with the software.

Andy Lipnitski

ScienceSoft’s IT Director

Software Development Costs

The cost of software development varies greatly from $100,000 to $1,500,000. From ScienceSoft’s experience, major factors impacting the development cost are:

  • Application type (web, mobile, desktop); platforms and OS versions supported.
  • The number and complexity of software features.
  • The number of user roles.
  • Uniqueness and specifics of the UI design.
  • The scope and complexity of integrations.
  • Availability, performance, scalability, and security requirements.
  • Regulatory compliance requirements.
  • The chosen sourcing model and team composition.
  • Development approach and tech stack.
  • Frequency of software updates and improvements.

How Much Will It Cost to Develop Your Software Solution?

Please answer a few questions about your software development needs. This will help our team provide a tailored service offering and a cost estimate much quicker.

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*What is your industry?

*What kind of healthcare software do you want to develop?

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In case there are multiple applicable options, please select the main solution type that best aligns with the primary aim of your software.

*What EHR/EMR functionality do you want to implement?

*What telehealth or RPM functionality do you need?

*What features do you need in a patient portal or app?

*What features do you need in administrative software?

*What healthcare data analytics functionality do you want to include?

*What diagnostic functionality do you need?

*What clinical trial functionality do you need?

*What functionality should your medical AR or VR solution have?

*What functionality do you need in your desktop medical device software?

*What functionality do you need in your user software for wearables?

*What kind of banking software do you want to build?

*What features should your mobile banking app provide? Select all that apply.

What platforms do you plan to target?

What development option are you interested in?

If you have a web app, do you plan to integrate your future mobile app with its back end?

*Do you already have finalized UX and/or UI samples?

*What features should your internet banking app provide? Select all that apply.

*What functional modules should your treasury software provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your deposit management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your trade finance solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your CRM support? Select all that apply.

What implementation strategy do you prefer?

If applicable, what CRM platform(s) do you consider?

*What features do you need in your banking intranet? Select all that apply.

*What document management features do you need? Select all that apply.

*What functional modules should your accounting software provide? Select all that apply.

*What accounting processes should your software automate?

*What capabilities should your compliance solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What type(s) of banking security solution do you need?

*What type of banking analytics should your solution provide? Select all that apply.

*How promptly should changes in source data be reflected in your analytics solution?

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If you have different latency requirements for different data types, feel free to check several boxes.

*What capabilities should your AI assistant provide? Select all that apply.

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If you have different latency requirements for different data types, feel free to check several boxes.

*What blockchain solution(s) do you want to develop?

*What type(s) of insurance should your solution support?

*Should your solution support alternative insurance models?

*What type(s) of business insurance should your solution support?

*What type(s) of specialty insurance should your solution support?

*What capabilities should your insurance software provide?

*What type of investment solution do you need?

*What functional modules should your portfolio solution include?

*What capabilities should your investment research solution provide?

*What capabilities should your investor relationship management solution provide?

*What capabilities should your investment accounting solution provide?

*What capabilities should your investor reporting solution provide?

*What document management features do you need? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your compliance solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your compliance solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What features should your investor portal provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your investment app provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your investment platform provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your trading platform provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your robo-advisory solution provide?

*What type of investment analytics should your solution provide?

*How promptly should changes in source data be reflected in your solution?

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If you have different latency requirements for different data types, feel free to check several boxes.

*What capabilities should your AI assistant provide? Select all that apply.

*What blockchain solution(s) do you want to develop?

*What capabilities should your payment software provide?

*What types of manufacturing software do you need? (Select all that apply)

*What capabilities should your MRP software provide?

*What capabilities should your production scheduling software provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your MES provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your PLM software provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your machine management software provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your equipment management software provide? Select all that apply.

*What manufacturing machines should your HMI connect to?

*What capabilities should your solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your supply chain management software provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your asset management solution provide?

*What type of software do you want to develop?

*What capabilities should your order management software provide?

*How many orders do you plan to process monthly?

*What capabilities should your inventory software provide? 

*What method of inventory counting should your solution support?

*What functional modules should your vendor management system provide?

*What capabilities should your warehouse management system provide?

*What functional modules do you need in your transportation management system?

*What financial processes should your software cover?

*What functionality do you need in your intranet?

*What document management functionality do you need?

*What document types must your DMS support?

*What functional modules do you need in your HR system?

*What capabilities should your CRM support?

*What kind of BI do you need to cover?

*Please specify the data sources for your analytics solution:

*What kind of ecommerce solution do you have/plan to have?

*Do you expect expertise in a particular ecommerce platform?

Are you planning to implement advanced technologies?

*What functionality do you need in a marketing solution?

*What marketing channels do you want to use?

*What type of kiosk do you need?

*What kiosk features do you need?

*Does your kiosk need integrations with peripheral devices?

*What payment method(s) should your solution support?

*Which components should your in-store security system consist of?

*What features do you need in your price optimization software?

*What is your specialization?

*What type(s) of software are you planning to develop?

*What kind of software do you need to build?

*What enterprise software do you need to develop?

Do you need to implement data analytics?

*What telecommunication app do you need to develop?

*Please select the type of software you need assistance with.

*What production operations should your software support? Choose all that apply.

*Would you like to leverage Industry 4.0 techs?

*What service operations should your software support? Choose all that apply.

*What functional modules should your corporate financial software provide? Choose all that apply.

*What functional SCM modules do you need? Choose all that apply.

*What kind of analytics do you need to cover? Choose all that apply.

Please specify the data sources for your software solution.

*Should your solution offer complex analytics?

*What asset management capabilities should your solution provide? Choose all that apply.

*What fleet management capabilities should your solution provide? Choose all that apply.

*What HR management modules do you need in your software? Choose all that apply.

*What learning management capabilities do you need? Choose all that apply.

*What learning content types should your software support?

*What document management capabilities should your software provide? Choose all that apply.

*What capabilities should your software support? Choose all that apply.

*What type of a client self-service solution would you like to build?

*What types of products are you planning to sell online?

*How many SKUs are you planning to sell?

*Along with core ecommerce functions (e.g., catalog, customer and order management), what capabilities should your ecommerce solution support?

*What content management capabilities should your software provide? Choose all that apply.

*What employee collaboration capabilities should your solution provide? Choose all that apply.

*What capabilities should your payment software provide?

*What enterprise automation processes should your software support? Choose all that apply.

*What type(s) of loans should your lending solution support? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your lending software provide? Select all that apply.

*What transportation & logistics area should your future solution serve?

*What capabilities should your order management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your transportation management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your warehouse management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your fleet management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What type of fleet do your T&L operations involve?

*What capabilities should your labor management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your CRM solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your vendor management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What capabilities should your financial management solution provide? Select all that apply.

*What type of T&L analytics should your solution provide?

*Which software version do you need?

*Which app type(s) do you need?

*How do you plan to use your software?

*What is the expected number of software users?

Are you going to sell your software to:

*How many individuals will use your software, approximately?

*How many organizations are you planning to target, approximately?

*How many end users (individuals from all organizations) will use your software, approximately?

How many organizations are you planning to target, approximately?

*How many end users (both corporate and individual users) will use your software, approximately?

*Do you have any preferences for the environment?

Would you require any integrations?

Do you have tech stack preferences?

Are there any compliance standards the software must meet? Please check all that apply.

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We will not share your information with third parties or use it in marketing campaigns. Check our Privacy Policy for more details.

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We will analyze your case and get back to you within a business day to share a ballpark estimate.

In the meantime, would you like to learn more about ScienceSoft?

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Why Develop Software with ScienceSoft

Our Awards and Partnerships

Selected for sustained growth and resilience

Recognized for reliability, trustworthiness, and excellence in delivering value

A top outsourcing provider for four consecutive years

One of the fastest-growing companies for the second consecutive year

Microsoft Partner since 2008

AWS Partner since 2017

ISO 9001-certified quality management system

ISO 27001-certified security management system

Benefits of Software Development with ScienceSoft

Optimized cost

We prioritize iterative development, use flexible cloud-native architectures, rely on ready-made components (frameworks, platforms, services, open-source APIs, etc.), and employ other proven cost optimization practices to reduce development efforts and associated expenses.

Fast development

We guarantee a project start in just 1–2 weeks and can roll out an MVP of your software in 2–6 months. Our team relies on well-established Agile processes, a mature DevOps culture, and a balanced mix of manual and automated testing to introduce major releases every 2–3 weeks.

Transparent cooperation

We compose a tailored set of KPIs to measure cooperation efficiency and software quality and regularly report the accomplished tasks to ensure you always stay updated on the development progress. We can grant you access to our tracking systems to enable real-time process control.

Strong security

We start the cooperation with signing a NDA (before the initial negotiation, if needed) to legally protect your sensitive information. In cybersecurity for over 21 years, we follow SSDLC and DevSecOps best practices to create completely safe development and data processing environments.

Our Clients Say

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We appreciated ScienceSoft’s client-oriented approach, consistent collaboration across all the project stages, and flexibility to adjust to changes. ScienceSoft’s expert advice helped us reveal cost optimization opportunities and define the functionality to increase the solution’s value.

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ScienceSoft's experience in agile development ensured smooth project implementation and iterative development of Enonic XP. This enabled us to adjust to the changing market requirements and incorporate features that made us stand out from the competition.

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I am particularly impressed by the cooperative nature of ScienceSoft’s team. Our project required coordination with multiple companies and individuals. ScienceSoft worked well with everyone.

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Software Development Services by ScienceSoft

In software development since 1989, ScienceSoft is ready to help non-IT enterprises and software product companies design and build state-of-the-art solutions that bring long-lasting value. Our service offering includes:

Software development consulting

  • Software requirements specification.
  • PoC delivery.
  • Architecture design.
  • UX and UI design.
  • Security and compliance consulting.
  • A detailed implementation plan with cost and time estimates.
I need this!

Product development consulting

  • Competitor analysis.
  • Defining a best-fitting market niche and a unique selling proposition.
  • Solution conceptualization and technical design.
  • Brand health check report.
  • Visual identity recommendations.
I need this!

End-to-end software development

I need this!

Typical Roles on Our Software Development Teams

Business Analyst

  • Eliciting the needs of your business and software end users.
  • Translating the needs into functional and non-functional software requirements.

Project Manager

  • Creating a project plan and monitoring development progress.
  • Coordinating the team's workflows.
  • Reporting to stakeholders.

Solution Architect

  • Designing a secure and flexible architecture for your solution and its integrations with the required systems.
  • Selecting a pragmatic tech stack for the software.

UX Designer

  • Performing UX research.
  • Designing the information architecture and user interactions with the software.
  • Conducting usability testing.

UI Designer

  • Creating an appealing visual style of role-specific software interfaces.
  • Composing a detailed UI kit for interface development.

DevOps Engineer

  • Establishing CI/CD pipelines.
  • Software containerization and container orchestration.
  • Picking and configuring software monitoring tools.

Back-end Developer

  • Writing back-end code and APIs.
  • Establishing software integrations.
  • Fixing the defects found by the QA team.

Front-end Developer

  • Creating a software representation level: everything that the user sees on the screen.
  • Fixing the defects found by the QA team.

QA Engineer

  • Designing and implementing a test strategy, a test plan, and test cases.
  • Documenting and improving the testing process.
  • Reporting on the QA results.

Reliable Technologies and Tools ScienceSoft Uses

Clouds

Amazon Web Services

Microsoft Azure

Google Cloud Platform

DigitalOcean

Rackspace Technology

Back-end programming languages

Microsoft .NET
Java
Python
Node.js
PHP
Golang

Front-end programming languages

Languages

HTML5

CSS

JavaScript

JavaScript frameworks

Angular JS
React JS

MeteorJS

Vue.js

Next.js

Ember.js

Mobile

iOS
Android
Xamarin

Apache Cordova

Progressive Web Apps

React Native

Flutter

Ionic

Desktop

C++
Qt
C#

WPF

Objective-C

Python

Swift

Databases / data storages

SQL

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft Fabric

MySQL

Azure SQL Database

Oracle

PostgreSQL

NoSQL

Apache Cassandra

Apache Hive

Apache HBase

Apache NiFi

MongoDB

Microsoft Fabric

Real-time data processing

RabbitMQ

Apache Flink

Apache Spark Streaming

Apache Storm

Apache Kafka Streams

Amazon Kinesis

Azure Event Hubs

Azure Stream Analytics

Advanced Techs to Boost the Value of Your Software

Click on the cards below to learn ScienceSoft's competencies in the cutting-edge technologies.

Big data

Artificial Intelligence

Data Science

Internet of Things

Computer Vision

Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality

Blockchain

We are eager to hear about the software you fancy!

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In compliance with GDPR, your personal information will be collected and stored for ten years on servers located in the United States. After this term is expired, your information will be erased. We will share your information with our development center, which will handle your request. At our headquarters and our development center we apply the same level of care in respect of your information as prescribed with GDPR rules. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.