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Software Engineering: Software development life cycles · The Waterfall Model

How the Waterfall model organizes software work into sequential phases, where it fits, and why late feedback makes it risky.

Software Engineering · 22 questions

Try 3 questions

1. What is the defining feature of the Waterfall model?

  1. Each phase finishes before the next begins
  2. Small working releases ship every few weeks
  3. Design and coding happen in the same step
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Answer: Each phase finishes before the next begins

Waterfall is strictly sequential: requirements, design, implementation, testing and maintenance follow one another, like water flowing down steps.

2. In the classic Waterfall sequence, which phase comes immediately before implementation (coding)?

  1. System and software design
  2. Testing and verification
  3. Deployment and maintenance
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Answer: System and software design

Design translates the requirements into an architecture and detailed plan, which programmers then implement; testing follows coding.

3. Winston Royce's 1970 paper is often cited as the origin of Waterfall. What did it actually say about the purely sequential approach?

  1. It was risky and invited failure
  2. It was the ideal for large systems
  3. It worked only for military projects
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Answer: It was risky and invited failure

Royce presented the simple sequence and then warned it was risky, recommending feedback between phases and building a preliminary version first.

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