The Waterfall Method And The Agile Methods Of Development

Introduction to Agile Methods by Hayes and Andrews gives detailed-oriented information about different aspects of agile methods like why there is a need for new software development processes and pitfalls of traditionally methodologies and how this lead to emergence of agile methods. They describe various existing agile methods but describes only one in great detailed – Extreme Programming(XP). They define Extreme Programming as agile, adaptive software methodology having well defined values - Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, and Courage. Failing in achieving this values will result in failing Extreme Programming. Extreme Programming is used only when you have complete understanding of the business and requirements. Extreme Programming follow a series of iteration to deliver the final project. Initially the story heard from the customer is broken down into smaller stories such that the developers can assign time to develop that stories and then its deliver to the customers for feedback. Coach plays a vital role in Extreme Programming. Afterwards Hayes and Andrews describe how XP differs from traditional methodologies. They also explain the common misconception about Extreme Programming is spread around the world. There are only fewer companies in the world that uses Extreme Programming because people are afraid of changing to new methods.

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.

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.

The idea behind Agile is to put people before processes, to deliver working software versus mountains of documentation, to collaborate with clients rather than negotiate contracts, and lastly to be agile rather than rigidly following a plan (History: The Agile Manifesto).

For the past years, waterfall process had been used by small and big companies as an approach to development process. This approach looks like a waterfall where it shows a steady downwards flow. This approach of development is the most mature and disciplined.

can stand alone as the sole development strategy. Verner and Cerpa (1997) observed a relationship between the size of a department and the preference to utilize a prototype. They also discovered many of the aspects of a waterfall approach that made it widely used still hold true. Developer communication and project control have long been seen as positive characteristics of the waterfall approach. The increased control is the result of the rigid, phased structure that defines a waterfall development plan. A drawback to this development strategy is the lack of feedback that we see in the scrum or agile method. This lack of feedback makes having a complete requirements essential, the lack of which can mean an unsuccessful or scrapped project.

Waterfall method is one of the traditional software developing method that has been implementing for decades. Usually, clients have requests, then software developers create an initial paln; after client approves the plan, developers follow through the plan; at the end, developers test and finish the task. Upon clients’ additional requests or tests, developers add up the extra features, but in most of the case, it would be too late or too hard to change. The entire process is not very communicative or translucent since clients and developers generally meet just once or twice throughout the project. In the article Why Making Software is so Difficult the author mentioned that software production is very

The waterfall model was legally introduced as an idea through a paper that had been published by a man called Winston Royce in the year 1970. However, due to the waterfall model being introduced by Winston Royce himself, it had been introduced as an example of a flawed software development method, which was vulnerable due to its shortcomings. The waterfall model philosophy had been inherited from the hardware manufacture and construction strategies that had been in practice in the year 1970s; therefore it had a structured approach to the software development itself. In comparison to the agile methodology, which developed in the year 1990s where the developers had decided to break away from the traditional structured, segmented and administrative approaches, which were being made to the developed software, and progressed towards more of the flexible development styles. The term Agile can be referred to as being lightweight methods, which had been declared in a research paper in the year 1974 by Edmonds. Furthermore, some of the most noticeable and common agile methods of the software development that subsequently had been evolved were known as Scum in the year 1995, 'Extreme Programming ' in 1996, 'Adaptive Software Development ', 'Dynamic Systems Development Method ' in 1995 and 'Feature Driven Development '. In the year 2001, a team of developers in the agile software development had declared the agile manifesto. The agile

Waterfall development has distinct goals for each phase of development. This case because, due to difficulty of returning to an earlier phase. The model shown here is one of several more or less equivalent alternatives.

The original Waterfall model has a foundation that is supported by two distinct characteristics. First, the methodology is rooted in the fact that that the software be developed in stages. “Originally created by Benington in 1956 and later modified by Royce in 1970, the quintessential Waterfall model is linear and sequential in evolution, typically with milestones at each phase of development. (Pavolka, 2005). As seen in figure 1 (Ruparelia, May 2010), the typical thresholds consisted of Evaluation, Requirements, Analysis, Design, Development, Validation, and ultimately Deployment. The evaluation phase, at the aggregate level, helps to reveal the situation at hand. The requirements phase is arguably the most important phase of the Waterfall plan as it lays out the project statement and sets the framework and expectations for the project. The next phase, Analysis, works as a comparison between what capabilities are needed versus what constraints currently exist. That leads into the Design phase in which the software developers determine the architecture required to meet the customer’s expectations taking into account the constraints previously identified. Development is the next phase that takes the inputs from the Design phase and outputs a tangible product ready for testing. The testing or Validation phase is the process in which the software is checked for two things: a) any and all bugs are identified and removed and b) the original scope of work including all

Due to its characteristics, the Waterfall method has some really good advantages towards it. First of it, the client knows what to expect. After all the requirements gathering and analysis a well estimated project is presented, with a good idea of the size, cost, and timeline for the project. More than this, the client will have a definite idea of what their program will do in the end. Secondly, its meticulous record keeping allows the ability to improve the existing program in the future, and because of waterfall’s strong documentation it allows for minimal project impact when facing an employee turnover. These two main points, predictability and well-documented projects are the Waterfall flagship in an industry that pursue the best cost

A traditional approach got a sequence of steps and cannot come back once done with sequence steps. Waterfall model is similar to this when we discuss traditional approach in software industry (Winston W. Royce, 1970). There is no need for all the projects to follow all steps in sequence. Some projects can skip some steps or can perform

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.

Agile Software Development is a set of principles that have revolutionized the software development industry. They "seek alternatives to traditional project management" acting as "an alternative to waterfall, or traditional sequential development." (The Agile Movement, agilemethodology.org) It is thought that Agile came to be with the introduction of the Agile Manifesto, but their origination dates back much further.

Waterfall Process – this is where developers execute their steps or phases in a defined order. In this order, they affirm requirements, analyze those requirements, design a solution tactic, create a software framework that applies to the solution, develop code, test that code, deploy, and support their solution (TutorialsPoints, 2016).