Analysis Of Waterfall And Agile Brief Introduction

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.

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.

Choosing a proper method for software design is completely depended upon the requirements and end products of the company. These requirements and goals might change in the process of development of software depending upon the decisions of stakeholders, developers and system analysts.

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

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.

In addition, defining requirements can be difficult and sometimes early assumptions are flawed. Some opponents of Waterfall argue that it is impossible to fully understand the system requirements until the development phase and that some performance issues cannot be predicted or are not evident until the testing phase. Waterfall is not well-suited for custom software projects that rely heavily on continuous customer feedback and changing needs because communication and collaboration is not always stressed; once the requirements are established, the customer may have little contact with the development team until delivery. (Chatterjee, 2010) Because Waterfall projects are not based upon small iterations that can be easily and promptly modified, occasionally critical errors are found in the late stages of a Waterfall software development project that require scrapping the project and starting over; a very costly and disappointing result. Another negative is that some programmers believe that Waterfall is out-of-date and that it does not accommodate for the unknown factors that are a constant challenge in designing leading edge technology. Developers who abide by

The author of the article mainly discusses about the two approaches that are useful for Software engineering.

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

Waterfall methodology is the one that is the most utilized over all businesses, and it is exceptionally basic in programming advancement and development. There are numerous variants of the waterfall technique, yet the original one included these high-level stages: Requirements specification, Design, Construction (AKA or coding), Integration, Testing and debugging (AKA Validation), Installation, and Maintenance.

At no point in the process development can the next phase begin until the previous phase is completed. This is how the waterfall method received its name, it begins at the top and works its way down towards the bottom, and at no point can the process be reversed. Youssef Bassil in his article titled “A Simulation Model for the Waterfall Software Development Life Cycle”, defines the water fall method as the following, “The Waterfall model defines several consecutive phases that must be completed one after the other and moving to the next phase only when its preceding phase is completely done. For this reason, the Waterfall model is recursive in that each phase can be endlessly repeated until it is perfected.” There are certain situations where the waterfall method is advantageous in application and that involves the following; a short time frame, there3 are no unclear expectations, the technology is understood, the requirements are fixed and the product propose is stable.

Imagine an enterprise software development project where the customer says "we are going to take a long time to get this done and we don 't expect to see any results for at least two years". Can you imagine it? Me neither, and the truth is that it will probably never happen:) So what is reality? In the real world of enterprise software development, the key for any development team is to provide maximum value to and work closely with the customer, to be able to build a culture of true ingenuity, and to be able to meet the customer 's changing needs in a way that there is minimal disruption, if any.

There are many different methodologies when it comes down to software development. Some methods may be too complicated for a small business to use. Agile development is a methodology that works extremely well for small businesses, and focuses on the strength of people-centric viewpoint and collaboration. Some benefits of agile development are increased productivity, expanded test coverage, improved quality/fewer defects, and higher customer satisfaction. Some challenges in

A range of research approaches can generate different and richer information about a complex phenomenon such as software development. In particular, qualitative research methods have been advocated in this regard, although they still occupy a relatively marginal position in software engineering research compared to quantitative methods.

This means that as each of the individual eight stages (conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, implementation, and maintenance) are accomplished, the designers move on to the next step. Being that this is sequential processes, when a step has ended, creators cannot go back to an earlier step, that is, not short of scrapping the entire project and starting from the beginning. There’s no room for modification or inaccuracy, so a project outcome and a wide-ranging plan must be fixed in the creation and then followed cautiously. The waterfall methodology stresses thorough record keeping. Having such records will provide the project managers the capability to improve upon the existing program in the future. The client knows what to expect when the waterfall methodology is used. . They’ll have knowledge of the scope, price, and timeline for the project. They will also have a definite indication of what their program will do in the end

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