Effective Software Project Management

Chapter 17. Iterative SDPM Strategy

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

—Thomas Alva Edison American inventor and entrepreneur

Chapter Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to: Explain the Iterative SDPM strategy Have a high-level understanding of the Evolutionary Development Waterfall model, SCRUM, Rational Unified Process, and the Dynamic Systems Development Method

On the certainty/uncertainty line, the models that lie to the right of the incremental models are those that we have defined as iterative models. These models have been proposed to address the difficulty many project managers face when they try to clearly define requirements. There are four such models, and they all are similar in that the requirements are not fully explored and it is the project itself that helps in that further exploration.

Iterative approaches are used when you have an initial version of the solution but they are known to fall short in terms of features and perhaps functions. The iterative cycles are designed to uncover the missing pieces of the solution. Think of the Iterative SDPM strategy as a variant of production prototyping. The intermediate solutions are production ready, but they might not be released to the end user until the final version is ready. The intermediate versions give the customer something to work with as they attempt to learn and discover additional needed features.