There are several variants of prototyping but they are mainly categorized into throwaway and evolutionary.
Throwaway prototyping creates a model that will eventually be discarded and evolutionary prototyping refers to a robust prototype that will be constantly refined to reach its final version. A functioning version of the software solution can help identify potential risks and threats that can be dealt with in a timely manner, reducing costs and time investment.
Additionally, the user is involved and can visualize a working version of the software. A working prototype may cause confusion with the finished version of the system.
Oftentimes, developers end up wasting a significant amount of time creating a prototype, and their time could have been t used in a more valuable manner. Additionally, it can be costly to implement functioning prototypes. The Spiral methodology can be thought of as a combination of the Waterfall methodology and the prototyping methodology.
It is typically the methodology of choice for large and complex projects because it uses the same stages as the Waterfall methodology but it separates them into planning, risk assessment, and prototype building.
It provides more realistic estimates in terms of workloads, budget, and schedule as it discovers challenges and issues in its early stages.
It is a costly methodology that consumes a significant amount of time to reach the desired solution. Additionally, it requires a team of highly-skilled specialists who help evaluate risks and assumptions. The iterative and incremental methodology known for excellence, Agile is a framework that evolves through collaboration between teams. It is a dynamic and interactive methodology that works in sprints that have a defined duration with lightweight deliverables that help reduce the time in which software is released.
It advocates for adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and rapid and flexible responsiveness to changes. High-quality software, which can then be further built upon with successive iterations, is delivered in the least possible amount of time.
It includes a deep involvement from the client but it remains a very flexible methodology as changes can be introduced at virtually any stage of the project. Additionally, Agile fosters a high degree of collaboration between cross-functional teams and all the involved parties. It requires a team of specialized developers who are solely focused on the project at hand and have a specific set of skills.
Agile can be challenging when scaling projects and it also presents constant refactoring as changes are frequent and even more so if the scope is not properly defined from the early stages of the project. The iterative and incremental methodology is designed to overcome any fault or shortcoming of the Waterfall methodology.
The iterative and incremental methodology begins with initial planning and ends with the deployment of the solution, with cyclic interaction in between. In essence, it develops a software application via iterative and repeated cycles that are performed incrementally so developers can learn from the development of previous portions of the software.
It delivers business value early in the development lifecycle and makes better use of limited resources via incremental development. It is flexible enough to adapt to changing requests between increments and is more customer-focused than linear approaches. This methodology requires heavy documentation efforts as it follows a stringent set of processes.
It requires a deep level of customer involvement and can turn problematic when delimiting functions and features. V model methodology is considered an extension of the Waterfall methodology, but instead of flowing down in a linear way, the steps are designed upward to form a V shape.
In this methodology, the relationships between each phase of the development lifecycle are associated with a testing phase. The horizontal and vertical axes display the time or project completeness left to right and abstraction level coarsest-grain abstraction.
It is relatively easy to use and understand as it has specific deliverables throughout each phase of the process. It carries out test plans early on in the lifecycle which helps verify and validate the product from the beginning.
There are no early prototypes of the software and no clear path for issues discovered during the testing phases. This summary of some of the most prominent SDLC methodologies paints an illustrative description of what each solution entails and which one is best suited for specific project needs and requirements, thus making it easier to select the right methodology. With Continuous Integration CI , users can detect problems from the build of a software application to its basic deployment.
CI allows users to detect and fix problems before they have the chance to cause significant damage. In many environments, CI is considered a necessity for Agile frameworks and to help meet business demands. In essence, with Continuous Integration, all developer work copies are merged into shared mainline multiple times a day to prevent integration problems.
In this model, a prototype is built and developed to act, feel, and behave like an early approximation of a final software solution. An ideal prototype displays the expected functionality of a product under development and is frequently used to demonstrate to customers who may not have specific project requirements how the software can look and function.
Usually, a prototype is reworked and refined until it reaches an acceptability stage from which a finalized solution can be developed. The incremental development model involves the design, implementation and incremental testing of a software product until the product is finished. The software product is not considered finished until it meets all of the functional and technical requirements that were initially delimited.
It combines elements from the waterfall and prototyping methodologies. But each of these phases is not done very formally or thoroughly. By using this prototype, the client can get an "actual feel" of the system, since the interactions with prototype can enable the client to better understand the requirements of the desired system.
Prototyping is an attractive idea for complicated and large systems for which there is no manual process or existing system to help determining the requirements. In such situations letting the client "plan" with the prototype provides invaluable and intangible inputs which helps in determining the requirements for the system. It is also an effective method to demonstrate the feasibility of a certain approach. This might be needed for novel systems where it is not clear that constraints can be met or that algorithms can be developed to implement the requirements.
The process model of the prototyping approach is shown in the figure below. Prototyping Model. The basic reason for little common use of prototyping is the cost involved in this built-it-twice approach.
However, some argue that prototyping need not be very costly and can actually reduce the overall development cost. In this phase, the functioning software is delivered wholly to the production environment if the increments are successful.
Otherwise, the increments are rolled back and fixed and then deployed again. Monitoring and Maintenance Once the software product is delivered, it is constantly monitored to look out for defects and issues that the user might encounter. The user feedbacks and reviews are analyzed. The respective teams fix the defects or improvise the software products.
The bug fixes may not flow through the entire cycle, but a well-planned process is carried out so that the fix doesn't introduce other problems. This practice is also known as regression. I hope this blog post gave you a clear idea of the 8 stages of the Software Development Life Cycle. The tasks in each stage may be performed together, or are independent. A successful SDLC would require cooperation and smart work across all the teams. This helps to speed up the software product development process by automating, otherwise manual processes.
Irrespective of the best practices adopted, understanding the user's requirements and queries is the key to optimizing the whole software product development process. We believe in providing quality content to our readers. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any content published here, feel free to contact us using the Contact link below.
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