Waterfall Model: Stages, Benefits, And Implementation

The Five Stages of the Waterfall Model

1. The waterfall method is the primary system development lifecycle that is used in the software design. It mainly constitute of a systematic sequential development of the product’s lifecycle. The product lifecycle of the model have span of five  stages and each stage will have will be proceeded only when the previous phase is complete. The waterfall model make sure that there is no overlapping of any phase that can lead in system overloading. The outcome of the first phase is the input of the second outcome. The following steps are involved in the Water System Development Lifecycle:

This phase mainly describes the importance of all the requirements that are needed to the desired software. The sufficient time is required to work on the phase by gathering the data that could be related to the system design. It helps in the creating a better structure to input data, analyse all the possibilities of advancement ,check and  consider all the technical limitation that can arise during implementation. It provide the blueprint of the process to meet the client’s needs in the system development. The requirement analysis provides all the data that can be used in the creating a proper budget to design a software. The requirement analysis mainly consist of the two parts.

1. Vision document: The requirement analysis need the vision document to specify the problem background, the main objective of the project and the probability of achieving the success by the project. The vision document is the overview of the project in understanding the benefits and potential risk that could be faced in the future regarding the software.it is mainly used in order to guide the client the right way to know about the project theoretically and suggest if there are any changes needed.
2. Requirement gathering: After the requirements have been clarified through the vision documents. The interviews, the survey, the questionnaire, the workshop are conducted  with the stakeholders of the software interface to keep a track of the requirements that have been in use regarding the project. The requirement gathering help in giving a better knowledge about the optimal resources that can be used in building the software. It keeps the track of the additional requirement that can occur in the development phase. The main use of the requirement gathering is to be prepared about the additional requirement that can occur in future.

The further step in the waterfall lifecycle is the software design phase, which mainly looks through the project scope, the, vision documents and the exact time and budget that will needed to implement the project in real.

1. Project Scope: The project scope helps in gaining the project description and suggesting the main function that will be needed in order to create the creation of the dummy projects to check the gathered requirements can be implemented to the project and what resourcing and modification  can be done in the project. The project scope is the blueprint that is designed based on the vision documents. In this stage, the developer must inform the client about the exact needs of the project that has been deployed and tested.
2. Software Requirements Specification:

The software design needs the software requirements specification because the requirements that are specified in order to implement the requested software. The software specification phase makes sure that the requirements that are to be used under the project are cohesive, consistent, traceable and complete. This phase specify the requirements based on the product description and the objective of the project prototype. The requirement specification can create a prototype that can figure out the input data that has been stored and process to output data and present the way the output data should be presented in order to provide the way the project will work. The requirement specification can show through the prototype the process of working of the project. The prototype is the small demonstration that is done in order to know the working and the lagging of the project. It helps in checking the progress made by the project and the other required changes that are happened to be made in the real project or the software.

Requirements Analysis Phase

The Software Development Lifecycle Phase is the third step of the waterfall model.  This help in actual implementation of the project in the practical application. This phase make sure about defining the overall system architecture(Abrahamsson et al. ,2017). This involves the implementation step like coding, coding button and the simple forms. This lifecycle phase gives the idea about the project that the actual work is in progress. The development phase is essential in the creating a software since the work is divided in this phase into numerous function each assigned with respective task options in accordance with the functionality. The application design and system architecture that provides the Skelton to the project be define in this phase of the waterfall method of the system development lifecycle phase. This is one of the most important phase of the waterfall lifecycle.

The fourth phase of the system development lifecycle is defined as the software-testing phase. The phase is also known as the study phase that make sure about the quality of the project being developed. This make sure that the project that is implemented is according to the client’s needs. The function of this phase is to make sure that the all the requirement that was expected by client for his software. The testing phase mainly consist of the practical application of the program or the software before sending them in fieldwork. The testing phase make sure the major code problem that occur in the software could be fixed beforehand so that client do not have much problem in using the software. This phase is generally meant to tackle all the major and minor problems while using the software. Once the problem is fixed, the software is deployed to the clients. The minor issues like bug tracking, security framework are assisted online through the GPS.

This is the last phase of the waterfall model. When the software is tested and deployed to the client, the maintence phase of the lifecycle make sure of the minor fixes and updating of the product (software) from time to time. The maintenance phase of the software development helps in bringing up the new enhancement that is required by the client. The maintenance phase helps in building a better security framework, new modification that can be made in the software. The maintenance phase makes sure that there is proper discussion of any modification with the client regarding the software.

Software Design Phase

2. In the User Requirements Specification determines the actual requirements that are needed in the software application. The user requirement specification that can be determined using the two methods of the requirement analysis:

1. The vision document:

The vision document help in creating the problem background, the problem statement in the context of which the project is being made. The vision documents provide the overall basic needs that is to be implemented to fulfil the prime objective of the product. The vision document discusses the software environment, the security framework, the lagging of the previous software and how the new project might help in giving the system the better performance. The vision document is the blueprint of the problem statement and the proposition of the requirements that includes the software platform for developing the codes and the framework to establish it in the system architecture.

1. Resource gathering:

 After the requirements have been clarified through the vision documents. The interviews, the survey, the questionnaire, the workshop are conducted  with the stakeholders of the software interface to keep a track of the requirements that have been in use regarding the project. The requirement gathering help in giving a better knowledge about the optimal resources that can be used in building the software. It keeps the track of the additional requirement that can occur in the development phase. The main use of the requirement gathering is to be prepared about the additional requirement that can occur in future.

1. Software requirement specification:

 The software design needs the software requirements specification because the requirements that are specified in order to implement the requested software. The software specification phase makes sure that the requirements that are to be used under the project are cohesive, consistent, traceable and complete. This phase specify the requirements based on the product description and the objective of the project prototype. The requirement specification can create a prototype that can figure out the input data that has been stored and process to output data and present the way the output data should be presented in order to provide the way the project will work. The requirement specification can show through the prototype the process of working of the project. The prototype is the small demonstration that is done in order to know the working and the lagging of the project(Lei et al. 2017) It helps in checking the progress made by the project and the other required changes that are happened to be made in the real project or the software.

References

Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J., & Warsta, J. (2017). Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.

Lei, H., Ganjeizadeh, F., Jayachandran, P. K., & Ozcan, P. (2017). A statistical analysis of the effects of Scrum and Kanban on software development projects. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 43, 59-67.