Drawing upon your knowledge of software development?

Drawing upon your knowledge of software development, which process—requirements, design, coding, or testing—do you think has more impact on the overall success and quality of development? Explain your answer.

Drawing upon your knowledge of software development?
Requirements. Believe me, a clear understanding of what is to be delivered makes everything else go smoother. And there's nothing worse than spending forever developing something that people don't want or didn't expect.
Reply:Coding is probably the least important, which is ironic. Design and testing go hand in hand to deliver a quality product.
Reply:Testing. Though they are all obviously interconnected.





Without testing, you don't have quality assurance. Through testing, innovations can be developed and new future features are discovered.





In most of my experience, it isn't a strictly linear flow - processes, coding and requirements are adjusted throughout the process to meet changing needs.
Reply:two minutes of good design can save two hours of coding two days of testing and two weeks of maintenance
Reply:My husband is a technical architect and from what he says..integrating with the customer's existing software seems most crucial to successful completion of a project.