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Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is related to design, development, testing and move-to-production.   Product Development Life Cycle is around concept, definition, development, testing and launch.    As the software or product repeat its cycle, the product ages over time, then it gets to retirement and/or is being replaced by the next generation.

Isn’t it a bit like our Life Cycle from birth, growth, maturity, decline and then death; and go on with the next generation?

Does a company have a life cycle too?   Google returns the following result on a search of “Company Life Cycle” – the 7 stages of business life cycle, the organizational life cycle, and something about industry life cycle…

When you start in a company, how could you tell at what stage the company is in?  There could be data such as earning reports which tell the business results of the time, % of growth year-over-year.   I believe the business result is a delayed signal to the stage of the company life cycle.   There could be equivalence of company life cycle with human life cycle.

I have witnessed company in growth, but not when it was born.  I imagine it as transformational as a new born coming to life.  There are a lot of changes, fast pace, demanding, relentless, yet everyday there is something exciting and there is a lot of belief.  And the founder is the center of the attention.

What does a company in growth stage look like?  Maybe it is a bit unstructured, lots of ideas and inconsistent in execution.  There are lots of growth and energy.

Let’s look at this company of a thousand employees.  It is no longer at its creation stage.   The company is looking to grow more by acquisition than product differentiation, it has reorganized in the past three years, employees and managers alike feel they can do little to effect meaningful changes, the managers do not show belief in their own people, they talk about good old days, and fixing a product receives more time and attention than new features.   What stage is this company in?

Let’s look at another company where the visionary leader on his ideas the company was found; the organization is hectic as it had no proven track record in the marketplace, and things change almost daily, yet there is excitement and belief  in the staff on they are trying to achieve.   What stage is this company in?

Does the life cycle of the company affect the mental state of our own life cycle?  Does a startup make a person younger?  Or a company in decline creates stress and problem for our own life stage, much like aging could?

Posted in Career Management