SDLC Vs DDLC

By Pavan M Kumar

This article deals about Technical writing and discusses about how you adopt the writing process to suit the stages of Software Development Life Cycle's (SDLC) needs and requirements.

Although there are many steps in SDLC, this article lists out the important stages of SDLC. They are

1. Requirement Gathering
2. Analysis & Design
3. Coding
4. Code Review & Testing Phase
5. Launch (Alpha & Beta releases)
6. Maintenance

Each and every software project has its own customized SDLC framework.

Basically all these proprietary framework versions are dependent upon the skeleton structure of the above SDLC framework.

Just like how every software project is dependent on a SDLC, in the same way, every documentation project also is dependent on a lifecycle called Document Development Life Cycle (DDLC). The DDLC framework is divided into the following steps.

1. Understand Product/project requirements
2. Doing Audience Analysis
3. Deciding about Output formats (.PDF, Online Help) & Documentation deliverables
4. Zeroing on Documentation & Graphic tools
5. Gathering the base or source documents
6. Template Designing
7. Time frame & Estimate
8. Identifying Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) & points of contact
9. Identifying peer, technical, and editorial reviewers
10. Creating the Documentation Plan
11. Draft Table of Contents (TOC)
12. Doing Content Development
13. Managing Review Cycles
14. Incorporating Review Comments
15. Final Output

All the preceding DDLC framework steps can be summarized into 5 subcategories, which in turn can be mapped to each and every step of SDLC. The 5 summarized subcategories are

1. Preparation of the Documentation Plan
2. Writing the content
3. Reviewing the content
4. Document Delivery
5. Document Maintenance

Since every Documentation project in software field depends upon the corresponding project/product, the SDLC framework of the same has to be mapped with the DDLC of the corresponding Documentation project.

Mapping of SDLC vs DDLC

As you can see from the preceding mapping table, each and every process step in SDLC is mapped with the corresponding process step in DDLC. Most of the companies, particularly product companies, want the documentation ready by the time the product hits the market.

SDLC > DDLC

Analysis & Design > Preparation of Documentation Plan

Coding > Writing the content

Code Review & Testing Phase > Review the content

Launch (Alpha & Beta releases) > Document release

Maintenance > Document maintenance (incorporating functionality enhancements & modifications

For the companies following Agile methodology, while the product is under development stage, there will be frequent enhancements, corrections, etc, during each and every iteration. Just like how the changes are incorporated in the code, in the same way, changes have to be done to the corresponding documentation to keep the deliverables up-to-date as per the client/market requirements.

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