A software development methodology is an outline or frame work to plan and control the process of developing a software application. The methodology for every project is designed to suite the specific needs of each project. Selecting a methodology is too risky, for the methodology selected needs to provide processes to ensure the product quality and should avoid steps that discourage developers, waste time and money, dissipate productivity etc. Ultimately the methodology selected should less the defects, and for that reason, should shorten the product development lifecycle and deliver values.

 Main activities for a software development approach are
1) System analysis
2) Design
3) Specification or (use cases and test cases)
4) Disintegration to Modules or milestone fixing
5) Development
6) Testing
7) Documentation
8) Deployment

All projects can be better managed if the activities can be defined under different segments or stages. All software methodologies have taken these stages into consideration for creating an apt process to carry out development steps from the initial phase to delivery effectively. Changing the way technology is delivered,  the traditional approaches like waterfall methodology, extreme programming are found ineffective as these rational ideas mainly focus on final delivery and testing. A change or correction on the initial phases may become costlier in the final assessment of development.

In the present dynamic business environment, a methodology mostly based on feedback
or iterative process is preferred. These methodologies come under agile development. We have adapted agile and RAD methodology for our development .All agile methodologies are focused on short and frequent delivery of modules. Agile software development is an abstract framework for undertaking software engineering projects. E.g. Crystal Methods, Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM), and Scrum. From our experience, we have conceived SCRUM as more helpful as it can be applied for both development and maintenance of projects that is where we would find the “processes”. Using the SCRUM way, both the requirements and development modules are matched against the target product and any uncertainty or confusion is cleared immediately at short meetings. This is one of the proven software methodologies so far. Other advantage is that active user involvement improves the process and timely completion within the budget. The main persons involving in software development methodology are effectively handled as Product Owner, Scrum Master and team in the SCRUM methodology.

Preventive maintenance is performed based on the analysis of modules or product before it fails for effective operations. For example like Y2K issue or heavy user load on peak business hours, response based on new advertisements etc can be predicted earlier and necessary hardware and network support is ensured before a deadlock. Scheduled maintenance is routine maintenance done to a system like backup of obsolete data, removal of junk or temporary files, updation of patches of servers and operating systems etc done for the smooth execution of modules. Both preventive and scheduled maintenance are required for a systematic functioning of an enterprise system.