Software Development Challenges and Ways to Overcome Them

With the growing role of digital solutions within various business domains, we can observe increased demand for custom software development. While some companies create and operate their in-house teams of software engineers, many others rely on the services provided by outsourcing developers. But regardless of the business model that you will choose for establishing cooperation with IT experts, if you are interested in getting a high-quality product, you should be aware of software development challenges and how to get over them (or at least minimize their impact).

For your convenience, we offer to divide all the challenges in software development that we will discuss in this article into three groups. Please remember that these groups are not academic notions, they are very flexible, and you can find other terminology in other resources).

Technical challenges in software development

This group unites issues related directly to the technical side of the development process, tools, and technologies used.

Outdated technologies

That’s a very popular problem on those projects that include any interaction with existing software. The issue is that your legacy products may have been built 10-15 years ago, and some new tools, APIs, and services can simply be incompatible with them. Very often, these problems can be observed when you have to deal with huge enterprise systems that have been gradually expanded over many years.

If you have obsolete software, it doesn’t mean you need to reject it and develop a new system from scratch fully. There is a possibility to modernize legacy software in one of the available ways, including migration, refactoring, reengineering, etc. However, if you are using outdated technologies, you can lose 47% more money in breaches than those who timely update their software.

Interoperability challenges

It is very important to make sure that all sub-systems, services, and modules included in your software system can interact with each other efficiently. For example, a customer relationship management (CRM) should have access to data from a sales system.

These issues should be addressed from the very beginning of the development process. In addition, careful design and integration tools are strongly required to ensure seamless software functioning.

Operational software development challenges

There is also a group of challenges in software development projects that are associated with operations and processes themselves and software functioning.

Time and costs issues

Let’s admit that sometimes it can be extremely difficult to estimate the exact time and resources necessary to build a project. The work of developers is tied with rather unpredictable conditions, and you need to consider all risks in advance. Do not set very tight deadlines as such situations can lead to a serious drop in the team’s efficiency and the quality of their work.

We advise you to be as realistic as possible when setting timelines and budgets. It can be a good idea to break larger tasks into smaller ones as they are much more manageable, and they will help you understand the entire picture better.

Data privacy

Data today can be viewed as one of the most valuable assets, especially in the business world. Consequently, it is quite clear why the regulation in this sphere is becoming stricter and stricter and why clients pay more attention to how companies work with their data. And one of the challenges is related to the necessity to make sure that your approaches to development and products meet the requirements of local laws and rules, such as Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, for example.

It is important to ensure transparent data flows and data protection tools like encryption.

Cybersecurity

Today more and more companies use IoT-powered solutions, cloud platforms, and remote collaboration tools for remote collaboration. Unfortunately, all these technologies create a pleasant environment for hackers. From January 1, 2005, to May 31, 2020, 11,762 breaches were recorded.

There won’t be a single solution in this case, as each project and each app should be analyzed individually. However, we strongly recommend not saving time and money on ensuring strong protection of your solution and integrating tools that will help you to timely react to any risks and illicit activities.

Development team challenges

Even if you have the best development team ever, we should admit that software developers can face some possible challenges. And it is important to bear them in mind to be able to react to them as soon as possible.

IT skills shortage

Even companies with in-house development teams may feel a shortage of particular skills, especially when they start a new project. On the one hand, it is possible to hire new specialists, but it may take too long to find these potential employees and solve all the administrative questions. Moreover, it is not always feasible to expand staff, especially when you will require this additional assistance only for a short period.

Nevertheless, today the business space can offer such options as IT staff augmentation that allows expanding your existing team with new skills, or there is an option to hire a dedicated team. The second variant presupposes hiring an entire team that will be created according to your needs and will be fully focused on your project.

Issues with technology advancements

These issues are not related to developers who do not want to study new tools or technologies. Vice versa, good developers are open to learning new tools. They can achieve amazing results, but there are problems setting up and testing them. These software development issues and challenges are the lack of senior leadership.

It is crucial to have experienced engineers in a team and correctly assign senior leaders. These leaders can guide the entire technology adoption process and become mentors for those developers who have less experience.

Misunderstandings within a team

Well-organized communication with a development team and within a team is one of the factors that are vital for project success. Timely and clear feedback, mutual assistance, and readiness to provide any additional clarifications when required are the key components of efficient collaboration. However, it is impossible to ensure it if you do not use any collaborative tools and methodologies.

What can we recommend in this case? An Agile methodology is the most popular one among software development companies. At least 70% of US-based companies rely on this methodology today. It offers great possibilities to ensure daily communication between cross-functional teams and the client. This principle focuses not on the entire project but sprints and continuous delivery.

Final thoughts

Like any other process or task globally, software development has its challenges and issues. And, of course, they can become serious barriers on your way to a successful product launch, but only if you are not ready for them or do not have a reliable IT partner that will guide you through this journey. 

We are well-prepared for all pitfalls thanks to years of working in the software development industry and a deep understanding of numerous business domains. We are ready to share our expertise and provide our assistance. Let’s discuss what we can offer to you and how we can help your business grow. Leave your inquiry on our website, and we will contact you.