Life Cycle Models

(Lecture 2)

Dr. R. Mall

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Classical Waterfall Model
 Classical waterfall model divides
life cycle into phases:
 feasibility study,
 requirements analysis and
specification,
 design,
 coding and unit testing,
 integration and system testing,
 maintenance.
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Classical Waterfall Model

Feasibility Study

Req. Analysis

Design

Coding

Testing

Maintenance

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Relative Effort for Phases
 Phases between feasibility
study and testing 60
 known as development 50
Relative Effort
phases.
40
 Among all life cycle phases
30
 maintenance phase
consumes maximum effort. 20
 Among development 10
phases, 0

Maintnce
Design
Coding
Test
Req. Sp
 testing phase consumes the
maximum effort.

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Classical Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Most organizations usually define:

 standards on the outputs (deliverables) produced at
the end of every phase
 entry and exit criteria for every phase.
 They also prescribe specific
methodologies for:
 specification,
 design,
 testing,
 project management, etc.

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Classical Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 The guidelines and methodologies of an

organization:
 called the organization's software
development methodology.
 Software development organizations:
 expect fresh engineers to master the
organization's software development
methodology.

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Feasibility Study
 Main aim of feasibility study:determine whether
developing the product
 financially worthwhile
 technically feasible.
 First roughly understand what the customer
wants:
 different data which would be input to the system,
 processing needed on these data,
 output data to be produced by the system,
 various constraints on the behavior of the system.

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Activities during Feasibility
Study
 Work out an overall understanding
of the problem.
 Formulate different solution
strategies.
 Examine alternate solution
strategies in terms of:
 resources required,
 cost of development, and
 development time.
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Activities during Feasibility
Study
 Perform a cost/benefit analysis:
 to determine which solution is the
best.
 you may determine that none of
the solutions is feasible due to:
 high cost,
 resource constraints,
 technical reasons.

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Requirements Analysis and
Specification
 Aim of this phase:
 understand the exact
requirements of the customer,
 document them properly.
 Consists of two distinct
activities:
 requirements gathering and
analysis
 requirements specification.
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Goals of Requirements
Analysis
 Collect all related data from the
customer:
 analyze the collected data to
clearly understand what the
customer wants,
 find out any inconsistencies and
incompleteness in the
requirements,
 resolve all inconsistencies and
incompleteness.
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Requirements Gathering

 Gathering relevant data:

 usually collected from the end-
users through interviews and
discussions.
 For example, for a business
accounting software:
 interview all the accountants of the
organization to find out their
requirements.
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Requirements Analysis (CONT.)

 The data you initially collect

from the users:
would usually contain several
contradictions and
ambiguities:
each user typically has only a
partial and incomplete view of
the system.
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Requirements Analysis (CONT.)

 Ambiguities and contradictions:

 must be identified
 resolved by discussions with the
customers.
 Next, requirements are organized:
 into a Software Requirements
Specification (SRS) document.

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Requirements Analysis (CONT.)

 Engineers doing
requirements analysis and
specification:
are designated as analysts.

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Design
 Design phase transforms
requirements specification:
 into a form suitable for
implementation in some
programming language.

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Design
 In technical terms:
 during design phase, software
architecture is derived from the
SRS document.
 Two design approaches:
 traditional approach,
 object oriented approach.

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Traditional Design Approach

 Consists of two activities:

Structured analysis
Structured design

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Structured Analysis
Activity
 Identify all the functions to be
performed.
 Identify data flow among the
functions.
 Decompose each function
recursively into sub-functions.
 Identify data flow among the
subfunctions as well.

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Structured Analysis (CONT.)

 Carried out using Data flow

diagrams (DFDs).
 After structured analysis, carry
out structured design:
 architectural design (or high-level
design)
 detailed design (or low-level
design).
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Structured Design
 High-level design:
 decompose the system into modules,
 represent invocation relationships
among the modules.
 Detailed design:
 different modules designed in greater
detail:
 data structures and algorithms for each
module are designed.

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Object Oriented Design
 First identify various objects (real world
entities) occurring in the problem:
 identify the relationships among the
objects.
 For example, the objects in a pay-roll
software may be:
 employees,
 managers,
 pay-roll register,
 Departments, etc.

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Object Oriented Design (CONT.)

 Object structure
 further refined to obtain the
detailed design.
 OOD has several advantages:
 lower development effort,
 lower development time,
 better maintainability.

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Implementation

 Purpose of implementation
phase (aka coding and unit
testing phase):
translate software design into
source code.

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Implementation

 During the implementation

phase:
 each module of the design is
coded,
 each module is unit tested
 tested independently as a stand
alone unit, and debugged,
 each module is documented.

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Implementation (CONT.)

 The purpose of unit testing:

 test if individual modules work
correctly.
 The end product of
implementation phase:
 a set of program modules that
have been tested individually.

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Integration and System
Testing
 Different modules are integrated in
a planned manner:
 modules are almost never integrated in
one shot.
 Normally integration is carried out
through a number of steps.
 During each integration step,
 the partially integrated system is
tested.
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Integration and System
Testing

M1 M2

M3 M4

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System Testing

 After all the modules have been

successfully integrated and tested:
 system testing is carried out.
 Goal of system testing:
 ensure that the developed system
functions according to its
requirements as specified in the
SRS document.
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Maintenance
 Maintenance of any software
product:
requires much more effort than
the effort to develop the product
itself.
development effort to
maintenance effort is typically
40:60.
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Maintenance (CONT.)

 Corrective maintenance:
 Correct errors which were not discovered
during the product development phases.
 Perfective maintenance:
 Improve implementation of the system
 enhance functionalities of the system.
 Adaptive maintenance:
 Port software to a new environment,
 e.g. to a new computer or to a new operating system.

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Iterative Waterfall Model
 Classical waterfall model is
idealistic:
 assumes that no defect is
introduced during any
development activity.
 in practice:
 defects do get introduced in almost
every phase of the life cycle.

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Iterative Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Defects usually get detected

much later in the life cycle:
For example, a design defect might
go unnoticed till the coding or
testing phase.

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Iterative Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Once a defect is detected:

 we need to go back to the phase
where it was introduced
 redo some of the work done during
that and all subsequent phases.
 Therefore we need feedback paths
in the classical waterfall model.

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Iterative Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

Feasibility Study

Req. Analysis

Design

Coding

Testing

Maintenance

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Iterative Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Errors should be detected

 in the same phase in which they are
introduced.
 For example:
 if a design problem is detected in
the design phase itself,
 the problem can be taken care of much
more easily
 than say if it is identified at the end of the
integration and system testing phase.

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Phase containment of
errors
 Reason: rework must be carried out not only
to the design but also to code and test
phases.
 The principle of detecting errors as close to its
point of introduction as possible:
 is known as phase containment of errors.
 Iterative waterfall model is by far the most
widely used model.
 Almost every other model is derived from the
waterfall model.

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Classical Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Irrespective of the life cycle

model actually followed:
 the documents should reflect a
classical waterfall model of
development,
 comprehension of the documents is
facilitated.

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Classical Waterfall Model
(CONT.)

 Metaphor of mathematical
theorem proving:
 A mathematician presents a proof
as a single chain of deductions,
 even though the proof might have
come from a convoluted set of
partial attempts, blind alleys and
backtracks.

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Prototyping Model
 Before starting actual development,
 a working prototype of the system
should first be built.
 A prototype is a toy implementation
of a system:
 limited functional capabilities,
 low reliability,
 inefficient performance.

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Reasons for developing a
prototype
 Illustrate to the customer:
 input data formats, messages, reports,
or interactive dialogs.
 Examine technical issues associated
with product development:
 Often major design decisions depend
on issues like:
 response time of a hardware controller,
 efficiency of a sorting algorithm, etc.

41
Prototyping Model (CONT.)

 The third reason for developing a

prototype is:
 it is impossible to ``get it right'' the
first time,
 we must plan to throw away the
first product
 if we want to develop a good product.

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Prototyping Model (CONT.)

 Start with approximate requirements.

 Carry out a quick design.
 Prototype model is built using several
short-cuts:
 Short-cuts might involve using inefficient,
inaccurate, or dummy functions.
 A function may use a table look-up rather than
performing the actual computations.

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Prototyping Model (CONT.)

 The developed prototype is submitted

to the customer for his evaluation:
 Based on the user feedback, requirements are
refined.
 This cycle continues until the user approves the
prototype.
 The actual system is developed using
the classical waterfall approach.

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Prototyping Model (CONT.)

Build Prototype

Requirements Customer Customer

Gathering Quick Design Evaluation of satisfied Design
Prototype

Refine Implement
Requirements

Test

Maintain

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Prototyping Model (CONT.)

 Requirements analysis and specification

phase becomes redundant:
 final working prototype (with all user
feedbacks incorporated) serves as an animated
requirements specification.
 Design and code for the prototype is
usually thrown away:
 However, the experience gathered from
developing the prototype helps a great deal
while developing the actual product.

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Prototyping Model (CONT.)

 Even though construction of a working

prototype model involves additional cost ---
overall development cost might be lower for:
 systems with unclear user requirements,
 systems with unresolved technical issues.
 Many user requirements get properly
defined and technical issues get resolved:
 these would have appeared later as change requests
and resulted in incurring massive redesign costs.

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Evolutionary Model
 Evolutionary model (aka successive
versions or incremental model):
 The system is broken down into several
modules which can be incrementally
implemented and delivered.
 First develop the core modules of the
system.
 The initial product skeleton is refined
into increasing levels of capability:
 by adding new functionalities in successive
versions.
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Evolutionary Model (CONT.)

 Successive version of the

product:
 functioning systems capable of
performing some useful work.
 A new release may include new
functionality:
 also existing functionality in the
current release might have been
enhanced.
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Evolutionary Model (CONT.)

C
A AB A
B

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Advantages of Evolutionary
Model
 Users get a chance to experiment with a
partially developed system:
 much before the full working version is
released,
 Helps finding exact user requirements:
 much before fully working system is developed.
 Core modules get tested thoroughly:
 reduces chances of errors in final product.

51
Disadvantages of
Evolutionary Model
 Often, difficult to subdivide
problems into functional units:
 which can be incrementally
implemented and delivered.
 evolutionary model is useful for
very large problems,
 where it is easier to find modules for
incremental implementation.

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Evolutionary Model with
Iteration
 Many organizations use a
combination of iterative and
incremental development:
 a new release may include new
functionality
 existing functionality from the
current release may also have
been modified.
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Evolutionary Model with
iteration
 Several advantages:
 Training can start on an earlier release
 customer feedback taken into account
 Markets can be created:
 for functionality that has never been
offered.
 Frequent releases allow developers to
fix unanticipated problems quickly.

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Spiral Model
 Proposed by Boehm in 1988.
 Each loop of the spiral represents a
phase of the software process:
 the innermost loop might be concerned with
system feasibility,
 the next loop with system requirements
definition,
 the next one with system design, and so on.
 There are no fixed phases in this model,
the phases shown in the figure are just
examples.
55
Spiral Model (CONT.)

 The team must decide:

 how to structure the project into phases.
 Start work using some generic model:
 add extra phases
 for specific projects or when problems are
identified during a project.
 Each loop in the spiral is split into
four sectors (quadrants).

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Spiral Model (CONT.)

Determine Identify &

Objectives Resolve Risks

Customer
Evaluation of Develop Next
Prototype Level of Product

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Objective Setting (First
Quadrant)

 Identify objectives of the phase,

 Examine the risks associated with
these objectives.
 Risk:
 any adverse circumstance that might
hamper successful completion of a
software project.

 Find alternate solutions possible.

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Risk Assessment and Reduction (Second
Quadrant)

 For each identified project risk,

 a detailed analysis is carried out.
 Steps are taken to reduce the risk.
 For example, if there is a risk that the
requirements are inappropriate:
 a prototype system may be developed.

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Spiral Model (CONT.)

 Development and Validation (Third quadrant):

quadrant
 develop and validate the next level of the product.
 Review and Planning (Fourth quadrant):
quadrant
 review the results achieved so far with the
customer and plan the next iteration around the
spiral.
 With each iteration around the spiral:
 progressively more complete version of the
software gets built.

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Spiral Model as a meta
model
 Subsumes all discussed models:
 a single loop spiral represents waterfall model.
 uses an evolutionary approach --
 iterations through the spiral are evolutionary levels.
 enables understanding and reacting to risks
during each iteration along the spiral.
 uses:
 prototyping as a risk reduction mechanism
 retains the step-wise approach of the waterfall model.

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Comparison of Different Life Cycle
Models
 Iterative waterfall model
 most widely used model.
 But, suitable only for well-understood
problems.
 Prototype model is suitable for
projects not well understood:
 user requirements
 technical aspects

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Comparison of Different Life Cycle
Models (CONT.)

 Evolutionary model is suitable for large

problems:
 can be decomposed into a set of modules that can
be incrementally implemented,
 incremental delivery of the system is acceptable to
the customer.
 The spiral model:
 suitable for development of technically challenging
software products that are subject to several kinds
of risks.

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