SIT773: Comparative Summary of Software Development Life Cycle Models

This report provides a comprehensive comparison of several software development life cycle (SDLC) models, including the waterfall model, parallel development model, iterative life cycle, evolutionary prototyping, throw-away prototyping, and agile development. It outlines the main characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of each model, along with an assessment of the associated risks. The report also examines how each model accommodates changes in requirements during the project lifecycle and analyzes their impact on client satisfaction and project costs. The content is based on the provided assignment brief for SIT773, focusing on the practical application of different SDLC approaches.

Running head: SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
Waterfall model
Advantages are:
 Easy and simple to use
 Phases are mainly processed and then completed one at a time
 Clearly described stages
 Simplified arranging of tasks (Alshamrani and Bahattab 2015)
 Processes and the results are not well documented
The disadvantages of this particular model are:
 There is no generation of software until late in the life cycle
 Significantly high risk and high uncertainty
 Progress measurement within the stages is not easy
 Cannot accommodate the altering requirements
 The adjustment of the scope during life cycle could lead to the end of project
Parallel development model
The main characteristics of the parallel development are:
 Release preparation
 Tailored or even customer specific software
 Post-release maintenance
 Distribution of the work by various development individuals or teams
 Segregation of the work on various features
 Deployment of various software variants within various environments
Main advantages of the parallel development model are:

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SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
 Ability of changing or introducing the requirements during the complete
process
 Less personnel number
 Minimisation of cost
 Increases the speed
Disadvantages of this model are:
 Managerial role is reduced
 Difficulty in software development with the help of just documentation
Iterative life cycle
The advantages are:
 Implemented during early stages (Chi et al. 2019)
 Allows teams with discovering functional or design associated flaws
The disadvantages are:
 Requirement of more resources
 Not suitable for smaller projects
Evolutionary prototyping
The advantages are:
 Useful for the explanatory programming
 Development could be stopped after several iterations
The disadvantages are:
 Inability of setting any time frame
 Difficult to monitor project

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SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
Throw-away prototyping
The main advantages are:
 Saves money and time
 Promotes consistency
The disadvantages are:
 Creates confusion due to prototypes
 Excessive time for development
Agile development
The main advantages are:
 Increases customer satisfaction
 Frequent delivery of working software
The main disadvantages are:
 Lack of emphasis on important designing

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SIT773 SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
References
Alshamrani, A. and Bahattab, A., 2015. A comparison between three SDLC models waterfall
model, spiral model, and Incremental/Iterative model. International Journal of Computer
Science Issues (IJCSI), 12(1), p.106.
Chi, E.C., Hu, L., Saibaba, A.K. and Rao, A.U., 2019. Going Off the Grid: Iterative Model
Selection for Biclustered Matrix Completion. Journal of Computational and Graphical
Statistics, 28(1), pp.36-47.