This research investigates if software development projects can be

delivered on time and to budget in environments where

requirements change frequently. Software development projects
have a poor delivery record with most delivering late and over
budget, many being cancelled, and only a few delivering software
that meets the customers full requirements. A project's schedule
and budget are determined and committed to in the early stages of
the project when little is known about the product requirements. As
the customer learns about the product they need to change the
product. But change requires rework and this creates a conflict for
the project manager: should they allow changes, to exploit their
learning, or should they reject changes to protect the promised
schedule and budget. The traditional waterfall software
development approach tries to resolve this conflict by perfecting the
requirements upfront and therefore preventing change. In contrast,
iterative and incremental approaches try to resolve the conflict by
frequently delivering small increments of top priority functionality
and allowing the customer to reprioritise between iterations.