Tutorial: Why do we need methods? (Nguyen Nang Chung & Nguyen Anh Tung)

3.    The author mentions both incremental development and iterative

development within the case study.

a.       Explain both of these terms

b.      Why would the approach taken to incremental and iterative development described in the case study contribute to the project failure?

 

3a. Explain both of these terms

1. Definition:  Iterative mean?

Iterative development is a methodology of software development that divides a project into many releases. The main idea of iterative development is to create small projects that have a well-defined scope and duration and constantly do builds and updates as soon as possible.

Diagram of Iterative model:

When to use iterative model:

§  Requirements of the complete system are clearly defined and understood.

§  When the project is big.

§  Major requirements must be defined; however, some details can evolve with time.

2. Definition:  Incremental mean?

Incremental model in software engineering is a one which combines the elements of waterfall model which are then applied in an iterative manner. It basically delivers a series of releases called increments which provide progressively more functionality for the client as each increment is delivered.

Diagram of Incremental model:

When to use the Incremental model:

§  This model can be used when the requirements of the complete system are clearly defined and understood.

§  Major requirements must be defined; however, some details can evolve with time.

§  There is a need to get a product to the market early.

§  A new technology is being used

§  Resources with needed skill set are not available

§  There are some high risk features and goals.

3b. Why would the approach taken to incremental and iterative development described in the case study contribute to the project failure?

In recent years, the failure of IT projects have received a lot of attention in the press and in the boardroom. Especially, the approach taken to incremental and iterative development described in the case study contribute to the project failure.

·         Firstly, The risk of failure of a software project can be due to the increase in complexity and difficulty of predicting how complex systems will behave. At that time, we will lose control of the change in the project, particularly as project requirements misinterpreted or some requests neglected.

·         Secondly, Although the major requirement has been identified; However, given the length of most software projects, the requirements will have changed over time and could well change numerous times during a project lifespan. Therefore, the error rate increased sharply, rising at a much higher rate than the average rate at a certain stage, particularly in end-stage . With this condition, we will take a lot of time to fix bugs or rewrite code. At that time, we will lose control project progress, appear a mismatch and lack of uniformity between the project's progress and the report progress.