How to Guide for on Waterfall Project Management
"All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result." - Stephen Covey (Author of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People")
"Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end; then stop." - Lewis Carroll (Author of "Alice in Wonderland")
There are different types of Project
Management and they vary according to the industry in which it is being used.
Waterfall Project Management is otherwise known as the Traditional Project
Management or Sequential Project Management. The title "Waterfall Project
Management" was first used and described by Winston W. Royce in his 1970
article "Managing the Development of Large Software System".
The waterfall project management follows as seven
predefined steps. These steps or phases occur sequentially and the progress of
the project depends on completion of each individual phase. After completion of one stage,
the workflow goes into the next stage mimicking a stack of water troughs set to
overflow into the next trough once when the first one is completely filled with
water. The stacked image of the phases was how waterfall management received its name.
The lists of steps or phases involved in project
management are: Requirement Phase, Design Phase, Construction or Implementation
Phase, Integration Phase, Testing Phase, Installation Phase and Maintenance
Phase.
1. Requirement Phase
In the first stage the project specification is
collected and the customer provides any additional requirements based on their
needs. The specification gathered at this stage is vital since it is the
deciding factor for how the project
will progress. In the
construction industry, the first stage is gathering a customer's requirement
for their building. It plays an important role in future decision making. Often
times an assigned team would gather all the inputs needed for creating that
dream house and create a document stating the details of end product features.
Naturally, once this stage is completed within the pre-defined timeline the
project moves to the next phase, design.
2. Design Phase
In the second phase of project progression, the
document specification defines what kind of material and resources are going to
be used for creating the customer desired product. In the construction industry
the design phase involves creating a blueprint of the building which is going
to be constructed. Also, during this stage the blueprint goes through an
approval process and it is finalized. This stage takes into consideration all
the pertinent requirements and any modification to the blueprint should be done
face-to-face with the customer.
The input gathered from the customer view-point provides feedback on proper
satisfaction of project specification drawn in the first stage of the project.
3. Construction or Implementation Phase
The blueprint of the building becomes the outline of
the project and at this stage the construction of the building goes into full
fledge mode. The building is constructed in sequential stages of completing
each level before constructing the next level. The Waterfall project management
also follows the same concept. Each successive stage requires the completion of
the previous stage before it can be started. The project is managed by a team
of workforce people. The team in-charge of drawing up the specification
document forwards the project to the next level or next team. The second team
or the Architects draw up the design of the building and pass it on to the
Construction team thus progress the project to the next stage.
4. Integration Phase
In this stage the entire building comes together with
all the required components. This
stage is more commonly found in an earlier method of software development. At
this stage, the software has been used to create a customer wish list for their
software application needs and matched up with the requirement of resources and
programming language selections. The design section brings in software
architecture blueprint that would be followed for the creation of the end
product. Similarly, in the construction industry the blueprint is turned into
the actual building. So the various lines on a blueprint become concrete walls.
5. Testing Phase
At this stage the software is rigorously tested
against pre-defined testing requirements. Once the blueprinted architecture of
the software and its programming and implementation have been complete it
becomes vital that all components are verified and tested. At this stage there
can be no major changes to the software application and it usually requires
small to large fixes to the application. Since the Waterfall project management
doesn't support revising and version control, so it becomes rather tedious to
make corrections. Whereas, in the construction industry, the building has to
meet safety
requirements and be tested to ensure all state laws have been applied.
6. Installation Phase
At this stage, in software project development, the
software application is ready for being installed and run by the client. This
could be the closest to project completion if it were a standalone project. So,
during installation if there are requirements that need to be cross verified or
improved, they are offered as a regular update. In the construction industry,
the project is completed and is ready for customer usage. At this stage the
actual building based on the specification provided by the customer is
verified. A satisfied customer is a project well managed.
7. Maintenance Phase
At this stage, the project is handed over to the
customer and whatever new features are needed, is then handled by providing
patches or updates for the software application. Sometimes each consecutive
upgrade to the software application might be an innovation to meet the needs of future projects. In the construction
industry, the project maintenance is a project life cycle by itself. Once a
building is finished and handed over there is not much of maintenance to be
undertaken unless there is an issue of pre-existing environmental condition to
the structure. For example, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco requires a
protective coat of paint at fixed interval to maintain it against the corrosion
from the mingling of cold and warm waters fogs.
Finally, it could be said that there are some
industries where project management could follow the waterfall approach but in
software industry it might fail. Comparatively, in the building of a hardware
component, sometimes the waterfall method works perfect for the project. Where
the project requires sequential completion of each phase to go to the next
level then those projects would be well aided by Waterfall Management.
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