A small, well-scoped digital product can take 3-12 months to build. On the other hand, complex, integration-heavy software may require over a year. Below is an approximate timeline for each phase of the software development lifecycle:Â
- Discovery and planning (2-6 weeks): Defining the project goals, success metrics, scope and constraints, risks, and delivery plan.Â
- Design and architecture (2-5 weeks): Establishing UX flows, system design, integration approach, and security requirements. It may also include proof of concepts (PoCs) for high-risk segments.Â
- Build in iterations (8-52+ weeks): Building the product incrementally with regular demos or releases. It often involves server-side logic, database management, system integration, and back-end and front-end work.Â
- Quality assurance and testing (3-6+ weeks): Aims to uncover and resolve issues, bugs, and defects in the system before launching. This typically includes functional, usability, regression, and performance testing and typically occurs throughout the development process rather than as a separate phase.Â
- Launch (1-3 weeks): Ensuring product readiness through final system checks, providing change management, training, rollout plan, and go-live.Â
- Post-launch support (2-6 weeks): Refining the product after launch, including fixing bugs and refining UI/UX design.Â
The timeline of your IT project will be dictated by your deployment frequency, system complexity, data migration readiness, security and compliance approvals, and feedback cycle.Â