The ‘waterfall’ method is the traditional “linear” approach to software development. The client knows broadly what it wants from the software at the outset, and the development process flows on from there in the stages below (supposedly like a waterfall):
- Planning and formulating requirements for the software, (see our note managing the procurement process);
- Design
- Coding
- Testing
- Integration
- Deployment
- Support and maintenance
Appropriate for: projects which have fixed/guaranteed requirements from the outset or involve complex integration of multiple components and/or with external systems.