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Waterfall model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waterfall model
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The waterfall model is a sequential design

process, often used in software development
processes, in which progress is seen as flowing
steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the
phases of Conception, Initiation, Analysis, Design,
Construction, Testing, Production/Implementation,
and Maintenance.
The waterfall development model originates in the
manufacturing and construction industries; highly
structured physical environments in which after-thefact changes are prohibitively costly, if not
impossible. Since no formal software development
methodologies existed at the time, this hardwareoriented model was simply adapted for software
development.[1]

The unmodified "waterfall model". Progress flows from the

top to the bottom, like a cascading waterfall.

The first known presentation describing use of

similar phases in software engineering was held by Herbert D. Benington at Symposium on advanced programming
methods for digital computers on 29 June 1956.[2] This presentation was about the development of software for
SAGE. In 1983 the paper was republished[3] with a foreword by Benington pointing out that the process was not in
fact performed in a strict top-down fashion, but depended on a prototype.
The first formal description of the waterfall model is often cited as a 1970 article by Winston W. Royce,[4][5]
although Royce did not use the term "waterfall" in this article. Royce presented this model as an example of a
flawed, non-working model.[6] This, in fact, is how the term is generally used in writing about software development
to describe a critical view of a commonly used software development practice.[7]

Contents
1 Model
2 Supporting arguments
3 Criticism
4 Modified models
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links

Model
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In Royce's original waterfall model, the following phases are followed in order:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Requirements specification
Design
Construction (implementation or coding)
Integration
Testing and debugging
Installation
Maintenance

Thus the waterfall model maintains that one should move to a phase only when its preceding phase is completed
and perfected. Various modified waterfall models (including Royce's final model), however, can include slight or
major variations on this process.[citation needed]

Supporting arguments
Time spent early in the software production cycle can lead to greater economy at later stages. McConnell shows
that a bug found in the early stages (such as requirements specification or design) is cheaper in money, effort, and
time to fix than the same bug found later on in the process.[8] To take an extreme example, if a program design
turns out to be impossible to implement, it is easier to fix the design at the design stage than to realize months later,
when program components are being integrated, that all the work done so far has to be scrapped because of a
broken design.[citation needed]
This is the central idea behind Big Design Up Front and the waterfall model: time spent early on making sure
requirements and design are correct saves much time and effort later. Thus, the thinking of those who follow the
waterfall process goes, make sure each phase is 100% complete and absolutely correct before proceeding to the
next phase. Program requirements should be set in stone before design begins (otherwise work put into a design
based on incorrect requirements is wasted). The program's design should be perfect before people begin to
implement the design (otherwise they implement the wrong design and their work is wasted), etc.
A further argument for the waterfall model is that it places emphasis on documentation (such as requirements
documents and design documents) as well as source code. In less thoroughly designed and documented
methodologies, knowledge is lost if team members leave before the project is completed, and it may be difficult for
a project to recover from the loss. If a fully working design document is present (as is the intent of Big Design Up
Front and the waterfall model), new team members or even entirely new teams should be able to familiarize
themselves by reading the documents.[9]
Some waterfall proponents prefer the waterfall model for its simple approach and argue that it is more disciplined.
The waterfall model provides a structured approach; the model itself progresses linearly through discrete, easily
understandable and explainable phases and thus is easy to understand; it also provides easily identifiable milestones
in the development process. It is perhaps for this reason that the waterfall model is used as a beginning example of a
development model in many software engineering texts and courses.[citation needed]
It is argued that the waterfall model and Big Design up Front in general can be suited to software projects that are
stable (especially those projects with unchanging requirements, such as with shrink wrap software) and where it is
possible and likely that designers will be able to fully predict problem areas of the system and produce a correct
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design before implementation is started. The waterfall model also requires that implementers follow the well-made,
complete design accurately, ensuring that the integration of the system proceeds smoothly.[citation needed]

Criticism
Advocates of Agile software development argue the waterfall model is a bad idea in practicebelieving it
impossible for any non-trivial project to finish a phase of a software product's lifecycle perfectly before moving to
the next phases and learning from them.[citation needed]
For example, clients may not know exactly what requirements they need before reviewing a working prototype and
commenting on it. They may change their requirements constantly. Designers and programmers may have little
control over this. If clients change their requirements after the design is finalized, the design must be modified to
accommodate the new requirements. This effectively means invalidating a good deal of working hours, which means
increased cost, especially if a large amount of the project's resources has already been invested in Big Design Up
Front.[citation needed]
Designers may not be aware of future implementation difficulties when writing a design for an unimplemented
software product. That is, it may become clear in the implementation phase that a particular area of program
functionality is extraordinarily difficult to implement. In this case, it is better to revise the design than persist in a
design based on faulty predictions, and that does not account for the newly discovered problems.[citation needed]
In Code Complete (a book that criticizes widespread use of the waterfall model), Steve McConnell refers to
design as a "wicked problem"a problem whose requirements and limitations cannot be entirely known before
completion. The implication of this is that it is impossible to perfect one phase of software development, thus it is
impossible if using the waterfall model to move on to the next phase.[citation needed]
David Parnas, in A Rational Design Process: How and Why to Fake It, writes:[10]
Many of the [system's] details only become known to us as we progress in the [system's]
implementation. Some of the things that we learn invalidate our design and we must backtrack.
Expanding the concept above, the project stakeholders (non-IT personnel) may not be fully aware of the
capabilities of the technology being implemented. This can lead to what they "think is possible" defining expectations
and requirements. This can lead to a design that does not use the full potential of what the new technology can
deliver, or simply replicates the existing application or process with the new technology. This can cause substantial
changes to the implementation requirements once the stakeholders become more aware of the functionality available
from the new technology. An example is where an organization migrates from a paper-based process to an
electronic process. While key deliverables of the paper process must be maintained, benefits of real-time data input
validation, traceability, and automated decision point routing may not be anticipated at the early planning stages of
the project.[citation needed]
The idea behind the waterfall model may be "measure twice; cut once," and those opposed to the waterfall model
argue that this idea tends to fall apart when the problem constantly changes due to requirement modifications and
new realizations about the problem itself. A potential solution is for an experienced developer to spend time up front
on refactoring to consolidate the software, and to prepare it for a possible update, no matter if such is planned
already. Another approach is to use a design targeting modularity with interfaces to increase the flexibility of the
software with respect to the design.[citation needed]
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Due to the types of criticisms discussed above, some organizations, such as the US Department of Defense, now
have a preference against waterfall type methodologies, starting with MIL-STD-498 "clearly encouraging
evolutionary acquisition and IID".[11]
The current DoD Standard 5000.2, released in 2000, states a clear preference against waterfall: "There are two
approaches, evolutionary and single step [waterfall], to full capability. An evolutionary approach is preferred. [In
this] approach, the ultimate capability delivered to the user is divided into two or more blocks, with increasing
increments of capability...software development shall follow an iterative spiral development process in which
continually expanding software versions are based on learning from earlier development."[12]

Modified models
In response to the perceived problems with the pure waterfall model, many modified waterfall models have been
introduced. These models may address some or all of the criticisms of the pure waterfall model.[citation needed]
Many different models are covered by Steve McConnell in the "Lifecycle Planning" chapter of his book Rapid
Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules.[13]
While all software development models bear some similarity to the waterfall model, as all software development
models incorporate at least some phases similar to those used in the waterfall model, this section deals with those
closest to the waterfall model. For models that apply further differences to the waterfall model, or for radically
different models seek general information on the software development process.[citation needed]

See also
List of software development philosophies
Agile software development
Big Design Up Front
Chaos model
Iterative and incremental development
Object-oriented analysis and design
PRiSM
Rapid application development
Software development process
Spiral model
System Development Methodology
V-model
Dual Vee Model

References
1. ^ Benington, Herbert D. (1 October 1983). "Production of Large Computer Programs"
(http://sunset.usc.edu/csse/TECHRPTS/1983/usccse83-501/usccse83-501.pdf) . IEEE Annals of the History of
Computing (IEEE Educational Activities Department) 5 (4): 350361. doi:10.1109/MAHC.1983.10102
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1109%2FMAHC.1983.10102) . Retrieved 2011-03-21.
2. ^ United States. Navy Mathematical Computing Advisory Panel. (29 June 1956), Symposium on advanced
programming methods for digital computers, [Washington, D.C.]: Office of Naval Research, Dept. of the Navy,
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3.

4.
5.
6.

7.
8.
9.

10.
11.

12.

13.

Waterfall model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OCLC 10794738 (//www.worldcat.org/oclc/10794738)

^ Benington, Herbert D. (1 October 1983). "Production of Large Computer Programs"
(http://sunset.usc.edu/csse/TECHRPTS/1983/usccse83-501/usccse83-501.pdf) . IEEE Annals of the History of
Computing (IEEE Educational Activities Department) 5 (4): 350361. doi:10.1109/MAHC.1983.10102
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1109%2FMAHC.1983.10102) . Retrieved 2011-03-21.
^ Wasserfallmodell > Entstehungskontext, Markus Rerych, Institut fr Gestaltungs- und Wirkungsforschung, TUWien. Retrieved on 2007-11-28 from http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/fit/fit01/wasserfall/entstehung.html.
^ "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems"
(http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/leading_answers/files/original_waterfall_paper_winston_royce.pdf) .
^ "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems"
(http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf) , Proceedings of IEEE WESCON 26
(August), 1970: 19
^ Conrad Weisert, Waterfall methodology: there's no such thing! (http://www.idinews.com/waterfall.html)
^ McConnell (1996), p. 72, estimates that "...a requirements defect that is left undetected until construction or
maintenance will cost 50 to 200 times as much to fix as it would have cost to fix at requirements time".
^ Arcisphere technologies (2012). "Tutorial: The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)"
(http://softwarelifecyclepros.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Tutorial-Software-Development-LifeCycleSDLC.pdf) . Retrieved 2012-11-13.
^ "A Rational Design Process: How and Why to Fake It" (http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/davidparnas/fake-it.pdf) , David Parnas (PDF file)
^ Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History
(http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2003.1204375) , Craig Larman and Victor Basili, IEEE Computer,
June 2003
^ Department of Defense Instruction Number 5000.2, April 5, 2002
(https://learn.dau.mil/CourseWare/46_5/images/dodi5000_2.pdf) , Subject: Operation of the Defense Acquisition
System: 4.7.3.2.3.3. Acquisition Strategy Considerations.
^ McConnell (1996), pp. 143-147, describes three modified waterfalls: Sashimi (Waterfall with Overlapping
Phases), Waterfall with Subprojects, and Waterfall with Risk Reduction.

Bibliography
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008
and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
McConnell, Steve (2006). Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art. Microsoft Press. ISBN 07356-0535-1.
McConnell, Steve (2004). Code Complete, 2nd edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN 1-55615-484-4.
McConnell, Steve (1996). Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules. Microsoft Press.
ISBN 1-55615-900-5.
Parnas, David, A rational design process and how to fake it (PDF)
(http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/SE-Intro/fakeit.pdf) An influential paper which criticises the
idea that software production can occur in perfectly discrete phases.
"Managing the Development of Large Software Systems"
(http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf) , Proceedings of IEEE
WESCON 26 (August), 1970: 19.
"Why people still believe in the waterfall model" (http://tarmo.fi/blog/2005/09/09/dont-draw-diagrams-ofwrong-practices-or-why-people-still-believe-in-the-waterfall-model/)
The standard waterfall model for systems development
(http://web.archive.org/web/20050310133243/http://asden.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model

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www.larc.nasa.gov/barkstrom/public/The_Standard_Waterfall_Model_For_Systems_Development.htm)
NASA webpage, archived on Internet Archive March 10, 2005.
Parametric Cost Estimating Handbook (http://cost.jsc.nasa.gov/PCEHHTML/pceh.htm) , NASA webpage
based on the waterfall model, archived on Internet Archive March 8, 2005.

External links
Understanding the pros and cons of the Waterfall Model of software development
(http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6118423.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=tr)
"Waterfall model considered harmful" (http://www.it-director.com/technology/productivity/content.php?
cid=7865)
Project lifecycle models: how they differ and when to use them (http://www.businessesolutions.com/islm.htm)
Going Over the Waterfall with the RUP (http://www128.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/4626.html) by Philippe Kruchten
CSC and IBM Rational join to deliver C-RUP and support rapid business change
(http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/3012.html)
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