Waterfall still lives Feb 20, 2008 12:20
Despite widely regarded as obsolete and at best, inaccurate, the waterfall model of software engineering still persists. I believe this is true because the waterfall model is the best for management; the only problem is that it's probably the worst for building useful software.
The Waterfall model is still a popular way to structure a software development project. It allows management to use products like Microsoft Project to generate nice Gantt charts based upon the classic stages: requirements, specifications, design, implementation, testing, maintenance. Management can find comfort in understanding a schedule with a logical sequence of steps, one following the other. The problem is that adjusting time lines in Microsoft Project has nothing to do with creating great software.
Non-software management will never understand code; nor should they. But isn't it way past time to stop pretending that software development fits the model they can understand? Management needs to accept that trying to manage software like other traditional processes doesn't work. Just stop it.
The ultimate point of this post is to showcase a fundamental flaw in the waterfall model. Users don't know what they want until they have something they don't. Generally speaking, this is often true in life. People don't typically know what they want, but they definitely know what they don't want: I don't want to be sick, I don't want to have debt, I don't want to fight with my spouse, etc. I've belabored this boring topic enough.
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