Software Process and Software Development Lifecycle Model

One of the basic notions of the software development process is SDLC models which stands for Software

Development Life Cycle models. There are many development life cycle models that have been developed in order

to achieve different required objectives. The models specify the various stages of the process and the order in

which they are carried out. The most used, popular and important SDLC models are given below:

 Waterfall model
 V model

 Incremental model

 RAD model

 Agile model

 Iterative model

 Spiral model

 Prototype model

Waterfall Model
The waterfall model is a breakdown of project activities into linear sequential phases, where each phase depends

on the deliverables of the previous one and corresponds to a specialisation of tasks. The approach is typical for

certain areas of engineering design.

V Model
The V-model represents a development process that may be considered an extension of the waterfall model and

is an example of the more general V-model. Instead of moving down in a linear way, the process steps are bent

upwards after the coding phase, to form the typical V shape. The V-Model demonstrates the relationships

between each phase of the development life cycle and its associated phase of testing. The horizontal and vertical
axes represent time or project completeness (left-to-right) and level of abstraction (coarsest-grain abstraction

uppermost), respectively.

Incremental model
The incremental build model is a method of software development where the model is designed, implemented

and tested incrementally (a little more is added each time) until the product is finished. It involves both

development and maintenance. The product is defined as finished when it satisfies all of its requirements. Each

iteration passes through the requirements, design, coding and testing phases. And each subsequent release of the

system adds function to the previous release until all designed functionally has been implemented. This model

combines the elements of the waterfall model with the iterative philosophy of prototyping.
Iterative Model
An iterative life cycle model does not attempt to start with a full specification of requirements by first focusing on

an initial, simplified set user features, which then progressively gains more complexity and a broader set of

features until the targeted system is complete. When adopting the iterative approach, the philosophy of

incremental development will also often be used liberally and interchangeably.

In other words, the iterative approach begins by specifying and implementing just part of the software, which can

then be reviewed and prioritized in order to identify further requirements. This iterative process is then repeated

by delivering a new version of the software for each iteration. In a light-weight iterative project the code may

represent the major source of documentation of the system; however, in a critical iterative project a formal

software specification may also be required.

RAD model
Rapid application development was a response to plan-driven waterfall processes, developed in the 1970s and
1980s, such as the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM). Rapid application development

(RAD) is often referred as the adaptive software development. RAD is an incremental prototyping approach to

software development that end users can produce better feedback when examining a live system, as opposed to
working strictly with documentation. It puts less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on an adaptive

process.

RAD may resulted in a lower level of rejection when the application is placed into production, but this success

most often comes at the expense of a dramatic overruns in project costs and schedule. RAD approach is especially

well suited for developing software that is driven by user interface requirements. Thus, some GUI builders are

often called rapid application development tools.

Spiral model
The spiral model, first described by Barry Boehm in 1986, is a risk-driven software development process model

which was introduced for dealing with the shortcomings in the traditional waterfall model. A spiral model looks

like a spiral with many loops. The exact number of loops of the spiral is unknown and can vary from project to

project. This model supports risk handling, and the project is delivered in loops. Each loop of the spiral is called a

Phase of the software development process.

The initial phase of the spiral model in the early stages of Waterfall Life Cycle that is needed to develop a software

product. The exact number of phases needed to develop the product can be varied by the project manager

depending upon the project risks. As the project manager dynamically determines the number of phases, so the

project manager has an important role to develop a product using a spiral model.
Agile model
Agile is an umbrella term for a set of methods and practices based on the values and principles expressed in the

Agile Manifesto that is a way of thinking that enables teams and businesses to innovate, quickly respond to

changing demand, while mitigating risk. Organizations can be agile using many of the available frameworks

available such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Extreme Programming (XP) and etc.

The Agile movement proposes alternatives to traditional project management. Agile approaches are typically used

in software development to help businesses respond to unpredictability which refer to a group of software
development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through

collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.

The primary goal of being Agile is empowered the development team the ability to create and respond to change

in order to succeed in an uncertain and turbulent environment. Agile software development approach is typically

operated in rapid and small cycles. This results in more frequent incremental releases with each release building

on previous functionality. Thorough testing is done to ensure that software quality is maintained.