Software Development Process

SW process, or as commonly referred to as SW lifecycle, is a set of rules and procedures applied to the development of SW product in individual and team disciplines.

According to Wikipedia, there are four distinguishable disciplines (models) that commonly used in SW development process:

• Waterfall Model
• Spiral Model (combines Waterfall model and rapid prototyping with the emphasis on risk analysis)
• Interactive and Incremental Model (commonly used in incremental development when the customer doesn't know how to define what is wanted/needed in the final product)
• Agile Development (XP and SCRUM)

The following are less commonly used practices:

• Model-driven engineering, which is focuses on the user domain models rather than algorithmic concepts
• User eXperience (UX) concentrates on the end user's demands with high emphasis on the ease of use
• Chaos Model provides methods to solve bugs and other technical difficulties as well as helps to manage development process and maintain deliverables schedule
• Software Prototyping Model refers to the creating incomplete versions of SW. Prototype usually simulates only few aspects of the final product

There are many more models that are used by SW developers that can be viewed on Wikipedia