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RE: Waterfall vs. Spiral development and doc (was: RE: Why is wor king from a spec like walking on water?)
Subject:RE: Waterfall vs. Spiral development and doc (was: RE: Why is wor king from a spec like walking on water?) From:Jim Shaeffer <jims -at- spsi -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 17 Nov 1999 10:40:56 -0500
Janet Swisher said:
<<snip>>
most of the discussion I've seen of documentation development assumes a
waterfall model for both the product and the documentation.
<<snip>>
At some (many?) companies, the process is documented using the waterfall
model but practiced using a spiral model. Each model has strengths and
deficiencies so there is a natural inclination to oscillate between them.
(I'm borrowing the oscillation concept from _The Path of Least Resistance
for Managers_.)
The waterfall model depends on those frozen specs. The spiral model at least
makes a token effort to revise the specs as the changes are made downstream.
Then, there is the white-water model where you just navigate the changes as
they are made and don't bother about looking back, there's no time.
