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Project Management & Agile · Foundational

Waterfall Model

A sequential life cycle where each phase is completed before the next begins.

Definition

Commonly traced to a 1970 paper by Winston Royce, waterfall moves through requirements, design, implementation, verification, and maintenance in order. It is the classic example of a predictive approach.

Example

Requirements are fully signed off before any design or coding starts.

Exam tip

Exams use 'waterfall' and 'predictive' interchangeably.

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