The waterfall methodology is a framework employed in making software products where phases of the entire process are followed to the letter by the team. It follows a very detailed system or model that clearly defines what each phase hopes to achieve, how it may impact the whole design and development of the software product and when the whole process can be completed. [youtube:iJlNFW35CZg;[link:Waterfall Methodology];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJlNFW35CZg&feature=related]
The manufacturing and construction industries first utilised the model back in the 1970s, where hardware products were manufactured. Today, though, the software sector is mainly using the model to design and develop software products.
The phases that the waterfall methodology incorporates into software design and development are as follows:
Requirements analysis. During this phase, what the clients need out of the product are established. The team would make use of customer interviews and use cases for this phase.
Design. During this phase, the architecture of the product (hardware and software) are established, along with the parameters for security and performance, storage constraints for data, programming language and the IDE, and others. Also, the product’s user interface will be decided on the course of this phase.
Implementation. The whole team starts building the product in this phase, according to the specifications and requirements established in the first two phases. This phase will also address the division of labor between designers, programmers, compilers and others.
Testing. During testing, every component of the product as well as the complete whole is subjected to rigorous testing to ensure that everything is functioning perfectly, and clients would be appeased. A Quality Assurance (QA) team deals with this phase.
Installation. When the waterfall methodology has reached Installation, the software product is being prepared for use by the customer. This may mean giving them the product through sending it over the Internet, or delivering it to them by way of physical media.
Maintenance. In this phase, the errors and bugs that the product came with would be sorted out by the team. Also, every time an issue is fixed, a new version or release of the product would be sent to the clients.
Every organization’s needs are different though and it’s imperative to assess your needs before you adopt any particular methodology. There are alternatives to the Waterfall methodology-the Agile, for example, has got fairly popular recently-and you may find out that they suit you better. Make sure you do your research and consult the right people, those who have the experience required to advise you.
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