Objective of the planning phase is to determine the requirements needed to produce a selected product. During planning, an estimate of the resources required for funding projects are considered and listed according to their priority. The information obtained from the planning phase is analyzed to see if there are any usable alternatives other than the ones stated.
Analysis involves the project developers determining the expectations of the end users of the project being created. In most cases, the project developers are assisted by a team of client focus groups. These are teams of specialists giving pieces of advice to the project developers on what the clients in the market expect of the end product of the project. At this stage, the developers document their proceedings to get a signoff to carry on with the system design.
The design phase of system and product development life cycle is also referred to as the "architectural" phase. Charts are developed to observe the flow of data. Project developers design and structure paths on which the data flows, how it's stored and design screen layouts for coding the user interface.
Plans laid out in the design phase are usually executed in the construction phase. A database is designed and a code for the data flow process is generated for the actual user's interface screens. At this phase of system and product development life cycle, the designed data is tested as many times as necessary to refine the code generated for the user's interface screens.
The test phase involves checking if the system and product contains the needs stated during the analysis phase. All aspects of the created system and product are tested for its performance and functionality. Integration of the system with other components, quality and standards of the system are also checked if they meet that of the company and the targeted customers. The rollout involves the consumers getting the created software and giving feedbacks on its performance issues.