Difference Between Software Development and Production

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In a typical SDLC there isn't much mention of the word production or development or the distinction between the two.These seem more of a real time , industrial driven concepts . I have come across these terms in regards describing companies.

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As i understand Production in Software does not necessarily mean product development.Inspired from the question Why do we call it “production”? I came to question the basic distinction between the two i.e development and production in regards to software. I used to be under the impression it was just a way of describing the development process in a product development company.

  • Question 1: What is the distinction between the two?
  • Question 2: How widely are these terms used? and are they properly understood and distinguished ?

Best Answer

From what i gathered and understood about The distinction: Most Simply Put

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It can be Differentiated by the Nature of Goals

Development Goal

  • : Getting It done under pressure and on time.

Production Goals

  • Keeping it running ( always under pressure)

  • Needing development on call ( development and bug fix parallelism)

  • Tackling issues before code goes live.

An Enlightening Chart

from Kanban Applied to Software Development: from Agile to Lean

shows change of Success repeatability,Problem Approach,Process Control,Process Improvement from development to production

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Difference based on the Consequences of mistake,Failure

Production : Real-time Immediate loss of hard cash and Potential future opportunities. ** Development:** These cost the company in the long term.

As Péter Török so aptly about production

The latter is where the real, live company processes are run. So when you deploy stuff there, it is live, and any mistake costs hard cash.

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