DO-178C covers the complete software lifecycle: planning, development and integral processes to ensure correctness and robustness in the software. The integral processes include software verification, software quality assurance, configuration management assurance and certification liaison with the regulatory authorities. 

This document explains that although the standards do not oblige developers to use analysis, test, and traceability tools in their work, such tools improve efficiency in all but the most trivial projects to the extent that they have a significant part to play in the achievement of the airworthiness objectives for airborne software throughout the development lifecycle.