The lifecycle of a software component encompasses its stages from creation to deprecation, including development, testing, deployment, and maintenance. Lifecycle coupling reflects the interdependence of components’ lifecycles.
The balanced coupling model represents lifecycle dependencies through the dimension of distance: the shorter the distance between two components, the higher their lifecycle coupling. Since distance is a socio-technical dimension, lifecycle coupling is influenced not only by source code organization but also by the organizational structure. For example, assigning components to different teams can further reduce their lifecycle coupling.