Waterfall

The waterfall methodology is methodology in itself and also a characteristic of many other methodologies. It involves breaking a project down into a number of separate steps where each step involves different activities and is made possible by the outputs from the previous step.

This may hardly sound like a methodology at all but it contains within it a discipline which is not normally present in an unorganized group. It forces people to deal with things in a logical order and to perform each step to a certain standard before progressing onwards.

Many sophisticated cyclic methods have elements of the waterfall about them. Each cycle is usually expressed in terms of waterfall.

A waterfall approach is useful when the output is well defined and the technologies well understood. It is most useful for processes (as opposed to projects) where the path is worn smooth by experience.