SDLC Interview Questions and Answers

Ques 1. What is Software Life Cycle?

Software life cycle comprise the total life of the software developed right from the time of initial development to the time it is scrapped out or terminated. This includes the development phases, revisions and upgrades and if necessary adding it up with another software project as well.

Ques 2. Why is software development life cycle important?

SDLC serves as a guide to the project and provides a flexible and consistent medium to accommodate changes, and perform the project to meet client’s objectives. SDLC phases define key schedule and delivery points which ensure timely and correct delivery to the client within budget and other constraints and project requirements. SDLC co-operates project control and management activities as they must be introduced within each phase of SDLC. 

Ques 3. What are the different phases in SDLC?

There are 5 phases in Software Development Life Cycle:

1. Requirement & analysis
2. Design
3. Coding
4. Testing
5. Maintenance

Ques 4. What is SDLC model? What are the most well known SDLC models?

An SDLC model defines implementation of an approach to the project. It defines the various processes, and phases that would be carried out throughout the project to produce the desired output. There are a variety of SDLC models that exist catering to different needs and characteristics of a project. Some are of iterative nature (Prototyping), whereas some are sequential (waterfall). Some of the well known SDLC models are:

• Waterfall Model
• Iterative Model
• Spiral Model
• V-Model
• RAD Model
• Agile Model 

Ques 5. Describe waterfall software development life cycle model.

Waterfall is a sequential and non iterative SDLC model which describes flowing of phases downwards one by one. The process does not start a phase unless the previous phase is completed once and for all completely. The waterfall model consists of the following phases:

Requirements gathering
Design
Implementation
Testing
Maintenance