Information System Development Life Cycle Models - High Level Models and Methodologies for Information Systems - page 23

Fig. 2.1 An example of the waterfall life cycle model (adapted from Balaji and Murugaiyan 2012 )

deliver new software systems and products. Viewing each stage as a single, “ fro-

zen moment of evolution can greatly delay the implementation stage because

errors will only be detected very late in the process, during the testing phase, which
is preceded by extensive designing and coding (Munassar and Govardhan 2010 ).
The communication of objectives between developers and clients is also greatly
hindered because if the client changes the requirements of the system, the devel-
opment process needs to completely restart for those changes to be taken into
account (Balaji and Murugaiyan 2012 ).
This model is an idealized and greatly simpli

”

ed concept of SDLC. It is not very

flexible, but it is still popular as a conceptual basis for other frameworks or models.
Its greatest strength lies in that it outlines generally accepted positive habits of
software development, such as minute and accurate planning early in the project,
extensive documentation of the entire process, and having robust design concepts
before starting to code (Munassar and Govardhan 2010 ). However, the reality of a
development process can often be much more disorganized than that.

2.3 The Incremental Model

The incremental model is a particular evolution of the waterfall model that attempts
to address its more prominent shortcoming, which is the slowness of the cycle. It
also aims at outlining a more

flexible process that requires less extensive planning
up-front (Munassar and Govardhan 2010 ).
According to this approach, instead of dividing the SDLC into static, isolated
steps, the whole process can instead be designed, tested, and implemented one