Software Life Cycle Comparison Table

Life Cycle Model Capability	Pure Waterfall	Code-and-Fix	Spiral	Modified Waterfall	Evolutionary Prototyping	Staged Delivery	Evolutionary Delivery	Design-to-Schedule	Design-to-Tools	Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software
Works with poorly understood requirements	Poor	Poor	Excellent	Fair to excellent	Excellent	Poor	Fair to excellent	Poor to fair	Fair	Excellent
Works with poorly understood architecture	Poor	Poor	Excellent	Fair to excellent	Poor to fair	Poor	Poor	Poor	Poor to excellent	Poor to excellent
Produces highly reliable system	Excellent	Poor	Excellent	Excellent	Fair	Excellent	Fair to excellent	Fair	Poor to excellent	Poor to excellent
Produces system with large growth envelope	Excellent	Poor to fair	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Fair to excellent	Poor	N/A
Manages Risk	Poor	Poor	Excellent	Fair	Fair	Fair	Fair	Fair to excellent	Poor to fair	N/A
Can be constrained to a predefined schedule	Fair	Poor	Fair	Fair	Poor	Fair	Fair	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
Has low overhead	Poor	Excellent	Fair	Excellent	Fair	Fair	Fair	Fair	Fair to excellent	Excellent
Allows for midcourse corrections	Poor	Poor to excellent	Fair	Fair	Excellent	Poor	Fair to excellent	Poor to fair	Excellent	Poor
Provides customer with progress visibility	Poor	Fair	Excellent	Fair	Excellent	Fair	Excellent	Fair	Excellent	N/A
Provides management with progress visibility	Fair	Poor	Excellent	Fair to excellent	Fair	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	N/A
Requires little manager or developer sophistication	Fair	Excellent	Poor	Poor to fair	Poor	Fair	Fair	Poor	Fair	Fair

 

Note: Table above is from Rapid Development book from Microsoft Press, Copyright © 1996