Software Development Lifecycle Models And The Waterfall Model

The Waterfall methodology was created by Winston Royce in 1970 and is based on the idea of "...progressing linearly from conception, through requirements, design, code and test..." (Neill, 2004). One of the main assumptions about this method is that the requirements will change very little if at all and that users will not be involved in development or be providing much feedback (Neill, 2004). A really good definition given by Laplante and Neil on this methodology is, "This model of development assumes that requirements are set, stable, and fully evolved before analysis begins, because development progresses linearly through the phases from requirements through system deployment. A phase is revisited only if artifacts created in that phase fail inspection review, or test. If you run into people who dispute this argument, remind them that water doesn 't flow up a waterfall" (10).

The preferred methodologies for managing a software’s lifecycle are a major factor in deciding how a firm reacts to market demands. The major SDLC frameworks followed are the waterfall model, Agile methodology (scrum) and Kanban. We will discuss this answer

Using the waterfall approach the system developers will be able to focus on one piece of the system and move on each part separately. This will give the design team more time to focus on small sections of the new coding. Moving from one stage to the next means that each step has been checked thoroughly and is completed.

Written off as a dying approach to software engineering I found that the Waterfall approach process was in fact alive and largely in use according to a Queue opinion article (Neill, 2004). While surveying professionals for the article in Queue, the Waterfall approach was reported to be in use by a third of the professionals that responded to the survey (Neill, 2004). I could not help but wonder if the Waterfall approach was some sort of zombie process that was back from being presumed dead, or if the method was being used for convenience purposes. Before I would be able to answer these questions for myself I would have to look into why these presumptions were made in the first place.

After having reviewed definitions and perspectives by three author groups, I’m inclined to conclude that waterfall methodology is essentially defined by its insistence upon the completion of product development steps in a sequential manner in order to accommodate a client’s need for a product or tool that will enable their business to be performed in a temporally defined effective (or desired) manner. By utility, for the sake of quickly delivering a product to the satisfaction of its client, a development team who employs the waterfall method may do so because of waterfall’s logical yet rigid structure. Its step-by-step nature promotes an easy to follow guide, though many of the tasks involved in the process of its development are anything but easy. Further, waterfall’s rigid nature seems to reinforce the notion of its logic, if but for the sake of timely product completion and client budget. Due to its methodological rigidity, however, products developed by way of waterfall may tend to be rigid in their own right.

It has been observed that in software development, change is unavoidable and must be accommodated for in the life cycle. A number of alternative process models have been introduced in order to attempt to fix the issues in the Waterfall model. An early modification to the standard Waterfall method introduced prototyping as a feedback and discovery mechanism to identify misunderstandings and omissions early on in the process (Neill, 2004). Other process models attempted to further get rid of the risks of misunderstandings by breaking down projects

There is a cross section of projects ranging from a few weeks to a few years. There are also a wide cross section of customers, those capable of articulating clearly their requirements and the ones that are not clear on their requirements and the overall outcome to be achieved. The level of programmers within the Information Technology Department, where development work is executed, range from intermediate to advance or above average programming competence. The Waterfall approach is easier to manage and can be utilized for projects where there are clear requirements and the project is determined to be a long term one. Also, this method may be best suited given the organization’s requirements for thorough documentation and project accountability, when it comes to budget and cost. The Agile methodology can be used for projects where the requirements as well as the expectation from the end product are not as clear. The developers that are above average in terms of their competence can also use this method. In addition, the Agile method is also best suited for the projects that would require rapid

Since the method was developed for manufacturing and construction projects, it made sense in these industries that a portion of the project was fixed and unchangeable after a phase completed. Imagine the construction of a road, you prep and lay down a foundation then eventually lay down the final asphalt or concrete layer. It wouldn’t make sense to build in the ability to go back and change the foundation after the top layer was set. Obviously, software engineering is very different and therefore requires a much different approach to development. Besides slow turnaround, there were many other criticisms of the waterfall method. Some included redesign, rework, and retesting due to lack of knowledge about requirements when a project began. Also, due to the extremely long lead and delivery times, requirements changed or projects were dropped altogether leaving a company with a half-built loss on the balance sheet. An industry average put the estimated time for any software project using the Waterfall approach at 3 years. This was the environment that enabled a few forward-thinking developers to meet and design a new and better approach.

In this paper we develop a new model for software development that lays special emphasis on highly structured lifecycle and defining an output with each stage and also tries to fulfill the objective of the Software Engineering of developing high quality product within schedule and budget. The new proposed model is designed in such a way that it allows client and developer to interact freely with each other in order to understand and implement requirements in a better way using the concept of process model.

The Waterfall method uses documentation at the onset of the project that clearly defines the software requirements. The creation of the documentation and source code usually takes a significant amount of time. This time consuming process is usually circumvented when using an Agile approach (Arken, 2008). The process, however time consuming, is also extremely important. By clearly defining the goals and objectives of the project, stakeholders like the customers and developers are on the same page at the start. Another clear benefit to having documentation of project requirements is realized whenever there is a change of personnel during the project lifetime. The creation of documentation helps prevent project failure if one or

The waterfall technique has stages that it experiences. In the content, it says that, "no one developed the waterfall strategy" (Bowes, J.). It was acquired by big business programming engineers. There is a few advantages and disadvantages of the waterfall strategy. A few geniuses are "The advancement procedure has a tendency to be better recorded since this strategy places more prominent accentuation on documentation like necessities and outline docs. Numerous associations locate this consoling" (Bowes, J.). The waterfall procedure is one of the simpler ones to get it. A con of the waterfall strategy is "Frequently the general population we're building programming for (the customer) don't know precisely what they require in advance and don't have the foggiest idea about what's conceivable with the innovation accessible. Along these lines of working doesn't deal with this well" (Bowes, J.). This procedure doesn't have its own particular

The waterfall model consists of five phases such as requirements, Design, implementation, verification and maintenance. The method is a sequential design process where progress is seen as flowing downwards in a steadily manner, each development phase has its own distinct goals. The model is similar to water flowing down a cliff it can only flow in one way and cannot go back up it is the same with waterfall development ,after a development phase is completed it proceeds to the next development phase you cannot go back.

A software development methodology is a structure imposed on the development of a software product. It is used to structure, plan and control the process of developing an information system including procedures, techniques, tools and documentation aids. A wide variety of methodologies have evolved over the years, majority aggress that all these methodologies are distinguished into two categories – Heavyweight or Lightweight. Heavyweight methodologies are also known as traditional methodologies which approach system development with standard, well-defined processes such as Waterfall, Spiral and Unified Process. Lightweight methodologies

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Though many people interchange system engineering models and software engineering life cycle models, they are defined as two different approaches to software development. System engineering is the technical and technical management process that results in delivered products and systems that exhibit the best balance of cost and performance. As the program progresses from one phase to the next one, so does the system engineering process. It deals with the overall management of engineering project during their life cycle. Its main focus is knowing what the clients and end users wants and needs are satisfied and developing just that all the way through the system’s entire life cycle. Whereas, on the other hand, software engineering focuses on the quality of the product or system, how cost effective it is, is it done within the time-constraints given, whether it is easy to maintain and enhance, and does it work as the requirements defined. Its main focus is on delivering a product that meets the requirement specifications. There are so many models to choose from, as it all depends on what the project needs and entails. Depending on the requirements, allows for the choice of what mode to use.