the V-Model: the Development Process

The V model as designed is built for traditional waterfall project development processes.

The validation process is aligned to the governance and planning artefacts like requirements documents and solution designs.

The testing processes are also aligned but less tightly to the waterfall development process and can be applied whatever development framework is used. For example; if you use Agile you could apply the V-model tests for each iteration of your development.

The typical stages of a waterfall SLDC are:

• Business Case
• Business Requirements
• Solution Architecture or System Specification
• System Design
• Component Design
• Component Construction

For each of these stages there is a validation exercise that can be done on the way through the development process, and a testing activity than can be done on the way out of development on the way to production.

For now here is the model as a diagram. You can click the image to get a larger view.

The next posts will expand on the validation and testing steps.

Project Management
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