There are several different approaches to software development, much like the various views of political parties toward governing

There are several different approaches to software development, much like the various views of political parties toward governing a country. Some take a more structured, engineering-based approach to developing business solutions, whereas others may take a more incremental approach, where software evolves as it is developed piece-by-piece. Most methodologies share some combination of the following stages of software development:

• Market research
• Gathering requirements for the proposed business solution
• Analyzing the problem
• Devising a plan or design for the software-based solution
• Implementation (coding) of the software
• Testing the software
• Development
• Maintenance and bug fixing