Cycoda: Programming Waterfall

Waterfall methods

In waterfall methods, each stage of the software development process - requirements, analysis, design, code (build) and test is completed before the next one starts.

This is a very satisfactory method when requirements are well designed and not expected to change, for example automating a well proven manual system.

The weaknesses of this approach shows when requirements are less well defined and change. Invariably some of the uncertainties in the requirements will not be clarified until well into the analysis and design, or even code phases, requiring backtracking to redo work.

Often working code is not available until near the end of the project, when problems with the original requirements become apparent. The pyramid diagram shows that more effort is involved in later steps of the method.