Waterfall Model


Waterfall Model

(programming)A software life-cycle or product life-cyclemodel, described by W. W. Royce in 1970, in which developmentis supposed to proceed linearly through the phases ofrequirements analysis, design, implementation, testing(validation), integration and maintenance. The WaterfallModel is considered old-fashioned or simplistic by proponentsof object-oriented design which often uses the spiral model instead.

Earlier phases are sometimes called "upstream" and later ones"downstream".

Compare: iterative model.

[W. W. Royce, "Managing the Development of Large SoftwareSystems", Proceedings of IEEE WESCON, August 1970].