Top 5 Software Development Challenges and Solutions
The software development industry is constantly evolving. New programming languages and web frameworks enable building modern applications. Enterprise data and process automation are two of the biggest drivers of software development. In 2021, the expected IT spending in enterprise applications is around USD 517 billion.
With every step ahead, there are software development challenges that arise. Technical advancements present new challenges every day. For example - lack of talented AI developers is a challenge for several companies that want to build applications on NLP. Another problem in software development could be following traditional methodologies like waterfall that increase the development time (a survey showed that around 61% of companies use or prefer to use agile development now).
This article will highlight the top 5 software development problems and solutions. We will mostly focus on the common problems in software development, along with some unique software engineering challenges.
Software Development Challenges: The Common 5
Only a few challenges and problems in software development projects are technical. Reports suggest that selecting a technology accounts for only around 3 to 4 percent of the problems. Then what are the major problems? Surprisingly, it has more to do with software development best practices, company culture, and mindset.
The top 5 software development challenges are as follows:
- Lack of Innovation
More than 25% of the companies lack innovation. They are still working with legacy systems and processes. For example - software product developers follow the traditional waterfall methodology of development, leading to inefficiency. Something as tiny as working on outdated software like Windows XP signals the lack of an innovative mindset.
Solution - Software development innovation is a result of identifying the unique needs of clients. If a process can be cut short, it should be. There are tools for automated testing and QA that software product developers can easily use. Companies should focus on encouraging the team to bring new ideas to the same product. An open innovation ecosystem is a perfect companion for this purpose.
- Unclear Requirements
Around 33% of developers in a Stack Overflow survey responded that building projects with unclear requirements are one of the biggest software engineering challenges. Often, the basic requirement is confusing. It leads to a product that has a lot of features and functionalities, but that doesn’t serve a specific purpose. There is no specific solution to a client’s requirements.
Solution - By setting a hierarchy of objectives, developers and managers can solve this challenge. They can determine the product and then work out a vision with the help of the product leadership. The initial requirement should match with the principle of delivering the maximum value to customers. It would help in clearly defining the requirement for a product.
- Work Culture Changes
A company-wide cultural change is one of the biggest software development problems, and solutions tend to be difficult. Software development best practices often focus on improving the company culture - promotion collaboration, openness, freedom to make mistakes, ownership, creativity, and more. But these changes are often neglected, which leads to poor software development in the future.
Solution - Cultural change begins with the top management. When there are technical changes, like migrating from a particular project management software, the leadership needs to exemplify its use. Even on the bigger changes, initial training is important. CEOs and CTOs must coordinate with teams to encourage the adoption of the new culture. Only when they become one with them, the software developers will accept the cultural change more openly.
- Data and Security
One of the most significant challenges to software development is data privacy and security. Several data leaks and hacks take place every year. With the pandemic, cybersecurity is becoming important - confidential data is stored on home computers due to remote work. Software development best practices for security and data protection are seeing rapid growth due to unknown vulnerabilities and threats.
Solution - First of all, customer information must be given priority. Companies should tell users how they plan to use the customer data through their applications. After that, continuous testing and monitoring of applications is essential to identify security loopholes. Software developers must make sure that they comply with the data security policies of the local government.
- Technical Advancements
Last but not least, technical software engineering challenges are common across every company. These range from selecting the right technology, integrating third-party applications, QA & testing challenges, limited infrastructure and resources, and others. These are common software development challenges that are usually easily solvable - but companies delay them until the end when they start creating problems.
Solution - New technical advancements must be embraced. If there’s a technology to automate testing of bugs, it should be adopted to save employee time. On top of that, the technical layout should be fixed from the beginning. The use-as-you-go model doesn’t work while building dynamic web applications. Choose a technology stack and stick with it till the end.
Conclusion
Software development challenges are hard to ignore. With the industry growing rapidly, innovation is the need of the hour. Cultural changes and adaptation to new technologies are something every software development company must go through. When hiring software product developers, they must understand that high-quality talent is more important than low-cost. Only then, the software development problems and solutions will make sense.
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