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Concept
Waterfall model
Summary
The waterfall model is a breakdown of project activities into linear sequential phases, meaning they are passed down onto each other, where each phase depends on the deliverables of the previous one and corresponds to a specialization of tasks. The approach is typical for certain areas of engineering design. In software development, it tends to be among the less iterative and flexible approaches, as progress flows in largely one direction ("downwards" like a waterfall) through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment and maintenance. The waterfall model is the earliest SDLC approach that was used in software development.
The waterfall development model originated in the manufacturing and construction industries, where the highly structured physical environments meant that design changes became prohibitively expensive much sooner in the development process. When first adopted for software development, there were no recognized alternatives for knowledge-based creative work.
The first known presentation describing use of such phases in software engineering was held by Felix Lorenzo Torres and Herbert D. Benington at the Symposium on Advanced Programming Methods for Digital Computers on 29 June 1956. This presentation was about the development of software for SAGE. In 1983 the paper was republished with a foreword by Benington explaining that the phases were on purpose organized according to the specialization of tasks, and pointing out that the process was not in fact performed in a strict top-down fashion, but depended on a prototype.
Although the term "waterfall" is not used in the paper, the first formal detailed diagram of the process later known as the "waterfall model" is often cited as a 1970 article by Winston W. Royce. However he also felt it had major flaws stemming from the fact that testing only happened at the end of the process, which he described as being "risky and invites failure".
Official source
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