This is an English adaptation of a Thai learning note based on “SDLC คืออะไร ?” by mikelopster. It preserves the source video, its core concepts, and the distinction between the presenter’s ideas and the added working prompts.
Contents
The idea in one minute
SDLC gives a team a shared map for deciding what to build, handing work across stages, finding problems early, and learning from the result.
Software that opens successfully is only one part of delivery. Teams also need to understand the user problem, design a solution, check it, release it, and learn from what happens after release. Together, these activities form the Software Development Life Cycle.
Agree on scope, expected quality, and what “done” means before implementation.
Use evidence from each stage to find the earliest point where a problem could have been caught.
Bring outcomes and incidents back into the next plan.
Seven stages, one connected system
- Planning defines the problem, stakeholders, constraints, success measures, and risks.
- Requirements turn needs into behaviours and quality expectations that a team can check.
- Design compares feasible approaches, records trade-offs, and makes interfaces and data responsibilities clear.
- Implementation turns the design into working software in small, reviewable increments.
- Testing checks the important paths, edge cases, integrations, and acceptance criteria.
- Deployment releases a known version, verifies the result, and prepares a response if it fails.
- Operations and maintenance observes real use, resolves incidents, and feeds learning back into the plan.
Every stage needs a clear input, a useful output, and a condition for handing work to the next stage.
Choose a rhythm that matches the uncertainty
A sequential approach can help when requirements are stable and approvals are formal. Iteration is more useful when a team must learn from users or test an uncertain assumption. Incremental delivery works when a useful part of the system can reach people before the entire scope is complete.
Agile helps teams adapt to feedback. DevOps connects delivery with the work of operating a service. Neither removes the need for clear requirements, checks, or ownership.
Use AI to examine each stage
SDLC gives AI a clearer job. Instead of asking for a generic answer, a team can ask it to expose ambiguity in requirements, compare design consequences, identify untested paths, or locate the stage where an incident should have been prevented.
Requirements: find what is still unclear
Design: compare consequences
Testing: find untested risk paths
Operations: feed the lesson back
Start with one recurring pain
Choose a problem the team sees repeatedly: a feature that misses the need, a difficult release, or a handover that leaves the next person lost. Trace back to the stage that should have found it earlier, define the input, output, and exit condition for that stage, then try the change on one small cycle.
Source and terms
Source video: SDLC คืออะไร ? — mikelopster. The source is in Thai. This English version is an adaptation of the Thai learning note, not a verbatim transcript.
Acceptance criteria / Exit criteria
Acceptance criteria define whether a capability meets the expected need. Exit criteria define whether an activity is ready to pass into the next stage.
API contract / ADR
An API contract defines how systems exchange data and errors. An Architecture Decision Record captures context, a decision, and why it was made.