Done properly, this serves as the foundation for the technical documentation of the system. It also serves as a blueprint to guide the development phase. At this point, a firm timetable can usually be established. Note the distinctions between requirements gathering, analysis and design. Requirements gathering refers to the task of identifying the business problem or need at hand.
Analysis refers to the task of understanding the business problem at hand.
Design, on the other hand, refers to the process of planning the solution to that problem. This phase is mostly self-explanatory, although it usually comprises the majority of the project life cycle. Taking the design established in the previous phase, the application itself is then built. As mentioned earlier, often the system is built in multiple phases so that critical functionality can be deployed as early as possible. Testing Even though it's listed as a separate phase, the bulk of the testing actually occurs during the development phase.