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Software development has come a full circle states Alex Iskold in a scathing, pull-no-punches broadside upon the Waterfall model.

Read it here: the future of software development

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Nowadays, this question seems to figure at every technical interview that that I been involved with (at either side of the table). What would you choose – Waterfall model or the Iterative approach?

The correct answer – it depends.
The usual answer – some mumbling about extreme programming (followed barely disguised rant on how one was forced to use it).

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FACT #1: The Standish Group’s 1994 Chaos Report found that the top three project impairment factors across 352 companies and 8,000 projects were

1. Lack of user input (12.8% of respondents),
2. Incomplete requirements and specifications (12.3%), and
3. Changing requirements and specifications (11.8%)

FACT #2: Almost 50% of defects identified during testing to be due to defects in requirements. Source: “Calculating your return on investment from more effective requirements management.”

How does one address this? Let’s first understand the processes and tools that are in place today.

• Development Process (the way we do it)
  • Waterfall
  • Iterative.
  • eXtreme Programming
  • RUP
• Tools (the hammer and tongs of it)
  • Word, Visio, Excel, Power Point (all are documents)
  • UML – Visual Paradigm, Rational
• Experience (hey cant dismiss that)
  • Business experience (Knowing the business is critical)
  • IT experience (What do we have, what do we need to build, the know how and prior experience with similar requirements)

Notice something?

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