The information technology industry is highly complex, vast and dynamic. Software development is an integral part of the industry and is directly influenced by several factors, including growing complexities, market conditions, changing technology trends as well as increasing software development challenges.
Software engineering teams in different domains and business landscapes face varied challenges. For instance, software development projects are now increasingly governed by the “build once, deploy everywhere” paradigm where a single application can run across numerous platforms. Further complicating this issue is the need to integrate different programs and maintain support throughout the product’s lifecycle. In addition, greater demands have been placed on software developers forcing them to work within limited timelines and limited budgets.
In order to drive efficiency in your software development projects and enhance the reliability of your software development initiatives, it is important to understand the major challenges in software development and devise a systematic roadmap to cope with every challenge.
Major Challenges in Software Development
Rapid technology advancement
Every technology advancement is a blessing for the IT industry. But at the same time, technology evolving at a phenomenal rate leads to an added pressure for software development professionals to leverage these upcoming technology trends in software product development to gain a cutting edge over competitors and stand out in the market.
Increasing customer demands
Software projects are generally conceptual and are aimed at designing and developing software products that meet varied customer demands. To develop even the simplest application or product, developers must clearly understand the underlying business concept and bring in the required features to satisfy the growing customer demands.
Time limitations
Software development is a time-game. Developers work under pressured environments and strive to complete project requirements within strict and scanty timelines. This is especially a challenge when working with international clients on multiple time-zones. Time constraints often bring down efficiencies of development teams and lead to mediocre quality software products in the end.
Limited infrastructure/resources
Another challenge faced by majority of software development companies is a lack of resources or IT infrastructure to execute projects effectively. This could mean a lack of high performance software development tools, powerful computing platforms, inefficient data storage architectures or improper networks and connectivity. Such hindrances bring down productivity and performance of software development teams and impact the overall result.
Conflicts with software testing teams
In a classic software development project, interpersonal conflicts occur inevitably between software development and testing teams. Several factors contribute to such conflicts like working under high performance pressure, different mindsets, difference in job roles and the very opposite nature of development and testing. If not controlled and managed effectively, these conflicts could hamper the overall project adversely.
To succeed in a dynamic software industry that is driven by changing technology trends and challenged by multiple internal and external factors, your development teams must have a clear understanding of the problems that lie ahead of them and a roadmap to overcome them.
Implementing software development best practices could help reduce these problems to a large extent. Introducing a DevOps team to handle the testing-development crisis, adopting Cloud for seamless network and infrastructure and constantly enhancing the technical knowhow of your software development teams could help you fight some of these major software development challenges and establish a good position in the software market.