5 Ways To Speed Up Software Development

6 min read
02 February 2023

Growing companies in software development are always looking for ways to push their business forward. One thing they try to avoid is anything that could slow them down.  

The biggest causes of a slowdown in software development are a lack of resources or a team that becomes overwhelmed by tasks that mount up through the software development lifecycle. You can mitigate these threats to your timeline by planning ahead. You can also use a few of these top tips to reduce the bottlenecks that can prevent a project from reaching its milestones.  

Automate Fuzzing 

DevSecOps is an important part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). You can use it to fold security testing throughout software development, speeding up the process and getting your program to market quicker, achieving milestones with less stress and fewer tests. By completing security testing during development, instead of at completion, you save time and money you can invest in other areas. 

 Fuzzing helps identify security flaws that need to be addressed but can be time-consuming. You can also lose time chasing false positives, which can be a drain on both human and technical resources. ForAllSecure has open-source software that can help you leverage automation to speed up software development. Their tool, called bncov, is perfect for DevSecOps and can be used to answer some of the most common problems that arise during the software development lifecycle. Using bncov makes the SDLC more efficient and allows you to realize your goals in less time.  

Limit Your Work In Progress (WIP) 

It is easy for any team to get overwhelmed by the number of tasks they have to complete. Work In Progress (WIP) can quickly mount up and affect efficiency. Your development team needs to stay focused on the work ahead of them, and not spend time playing catchup and completing tasks from the previous days and weeks.  

Software development project managers need to manage workflow and prevent tasks from building up to the point where the workload becomes unmanageable. When team members have to multitask to get the job done, they lose focus. This has a snowballing effect, as no single task gets completed to the standards you expect which adds to the volume of WIP. Limit your work-in-progress tasks, and address problems quickly and efficiently before moving forward. 

Set Clear Goals And Milestones 

Without a proper plan in place, you are destined to run into problems that will cost you time and money. The margins are thin in software development, and no company can afford to lose either. Having a clear and understandable roadmap in place that any team member can understand helps everyone know where they are up to and how much further they have to go. 

 This cuts down on the amount of time spent discussing aspects of development and planning tasks, giving you and your team more time to concentrate on pushing the software forward. It also acts as an inspirational tool. Making it simple for the team to see where the project is up to and what is left to do helps drive them and keeps them going even when they feel under pressure. 

 Work In Smaller Teams 

Many hands make light work, but having large teams makes them difficult to manage, and assigning tasks becomes more complicated. Breaking your employees down into smaller groups not only makes them more manageable but makes development easier to manage too. Smaller groups can take responsibility for smaller tasks and focus their efforts on completing them in a timely fashion. 

Every large project is more manageable when chopped up into smaller chunks, and this is true of large teams too. By pairing a clear project roadmap with small, focused teams, you can get more done in less time with fewer people without losing sight of the overall goal. As each small team completes its piece of the software development puzzle the picture becomes clearer more quickly. This allows you to see small problems before they grow into big ones and allocate resources more efficiently and reflexively.  

Expand Your Team With Remote Staff 

With a deadline looming before you it can sometimes become obvious that the task will not be completed in time with the resources you have at your disposal. Remote, ad-hoc workers can help you to speed up the development process without adding too much to the budget. Managing recruitment and a remote team is easy too. It does not take a huge investment of time or money to push the project forward and get your software over the line in time to hit your deadline. 

Keep in regular contact with remote software developers that can jump into your project quickly and have the skillsets you need to push your software forward quickly and effectively. This can be helpful in the final stages of a project. In the final days and weeks of the software development lifecycle, you will often need testing staff or quick coders who can clean up troublesome issues. Utilize remote working teams to get your product over the line in the last few stages of the SDLC. 

Whether you are developing full-scale software for multiple users across a network or a small app or game for smartphones, your project will run into problems. Plan ahead and prepare your team with some of these top tips for speeding up software development. 

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Alex 9.8K
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