Riding the rapids...

Traditional IT development is often likened to a "waterfall,"  with each phase (analysis, design, coding, testing, etc.) in a well-defined and irrevocable sequence. A typical such project may extend for 10 to 12 months. These days, that's time enough for technologies to mutate, new markets to emerge, and the business case for a project to become obsolete before the final deliverable sees the light of day...

Compare the waterfall diagram at right to the drawing below.  Here is a process with the same phases, but where the objective is a production-level prototype which provides one well-defined increment of functionality.

Even more important, this process model is a single instance of a larger, iterative development model that incorporates constant analysis, testing, and end-user feedback to guide the design, coding and integration effort.

You might say we've "captured" the waterfall to create a "waterwheel," with multiple but shorter iterations of the development cycle, with each cycle producing a usable (though limited) edition of the final application.

The timeline for final project completion is roughly the same. In fact, having the unit and build testing distributed throughout the project can reduce or eliminate the common testing delays and follow-on repairs.

Better still, with user acceptance testing coordinated with iterative analysis and design, the application in its final deliverable is more certain to be a timely and up-to-date solution to the original business case.

Obviously, there's more to improving the way IT projects are managed than simply drawing circles and arrows: it takes a willingness to examine every step in the process, every effort, and every method. We're not alone in this regard; there are many new methodologies emerging today, some more radical than others. One in particular has even gone so far as to label itself "extreme..."