Spiral Model

Outline

Introduction
The spiral model
Evaluation
Conclusions
References

Introduction
A Risk-Driven Approach
Different idea of software development.
How does this project affect the developers and the
clients?
How does each step in the project affect its overall
development?
Not used in previous development models.
Usually code-driven or document-driven.

The spiral model

A Typical Cycle of the spiral
Risk Analysis
Prototype
Design/Validation
Planning
Alternatives
And repeat
Measure of Cumulative Cost and Progress
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The spiral model

Initiating and terminating the spiral
Four fundamental questions arise in considering this
presentation of the spiral model:
(1) How does the spiral ever get started?
(2) How do you get off the spiral when it is
appropriate to terminate a project early?
(3) Why does the spiral end so abruptly?
(4) What happens to software enhancement (or
maintenance)?
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The spiral model

Initiating and terminating the spiral
Initiating the process:
The spiral gets started by a hypothesis that a
particular operational mission (or set of missions)
could be improved by a software effort.
Terminating the process:
The spiral process then involves a test of this
hypothesis:
At any time, if the hypothesis fails the test, the spiral is
terminated.
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The spiral model

The spiral model

The spiral model

Cycle Requirements
Each cycle is completed by a review by the
people concerned with the project.
Plans for the next cycle should be introduced.
With each succeeding level in the spiral the

level of detail increases.

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The spiral model

Prototype
Throwaway prototyping
Throwaway or Rapid Prototyping refers to the creation of a model that
will eventually be discarded rather than becoming part of the final
delivered software.

Evolutionary prototyping
The main goal when using Evolutionary Prototyping is to build a very
robust prototype in a structured manner and constantly refine it.

Incremental prototyping
The final product is built as separate prototypes. At the end the separate
prototypes are merged in an overall design.

Extreme prototyping
It is a development process is used especially for developing web
applications.
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The spiral model

Advantages of prototyping
Reduced time and costs
Improved and increased user involvement
Disadvantages of prototyping
Insufficient analysis
User confusion of prototype and finished system
Developer misunderstanding of user objectives
Developer attachment to prototype
Excessive development time of the prototype
Expense of implementing prototyping
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Risk item

Risk management techniques

Personnel shortfalls

Staffing with top talent, job matching; teambuilding;

morale building; cross-training; pre-scheduling key people

Unrealistic schedules
and Budgets

Detailed, multisource cost and schedule estimation;

design to cost; incremental development; software reuse;
requirements scrubbing

Developing the wrong

software Functions

Organization analysis; mission analysis; ops-concept

formulation; user surveys; prototyping; early usersmanuals

Developing the wrong

user Interface

Task analysis; prototyping; scenarios; user characterization

(functionality, style, workload)

Gold plating

Requirements scrubbing; prototyping; cost-benefit analysis;

design to cost

Continuing stream of
requirement Changes

High change threshold; information hiding; incremental

development (defer changes to later increments)

Shortfalls in externally
furnished Components

Benchmarking; inspections; reference checking; compatibility

analysis

Shortfalls in externally
performed tasks

Reference checking; pre-award audits; award-fee contracts;

competitive design or prototyping;Teambuilding

Real-time performance
Shortfalls

Simulation; benchmarking; modeling; prototyping;

instrumentation; tuning

Straining computerscience Capabilities

Technical analysis; cost-benefit analysis; prototyping;

reference checking

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The spiral model

The Risk Management Plan
Identify the projects top 10 risk items.
Present a plan for resolving each risk item.
Update list of top risk items, plan, and results

monthly.
Highlight risk-item status in monthly project reviews.
Compare with previous months rankings, status.
Initiate appropriate corrective actions.
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Spiral model usage: TRW Software Productivity

System, Round 0. --Feasibility study.

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Spiral model usage: TRW Software Productivity

System, Round 1.--Concept of operations.

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Spiral model usage: TRW Software Productivity System,

Round 2.--Top-level requirements specification.

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Evaluation
Advantages
Estimates become more realistic as work progresses, because

important issues are discovered earlier.

It is more able to cope with the changes that software
development generally entails.
Software engineers can get their hands in and start working
on a project earlier.

Disadvantages
Highly customized limiting re-usability
Applied differently for each application
Risk of not meeting budget or schedule
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Conclusions
The risk-driven nature provides adaptability for a

full range of software projects.

The model has been successful in a large application,
the TRW-SPS.
The model is not yet fully elaborated.
Even partial implementations of the model, such as
the risk management plan, are compatible with the
other process models.

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References
Rapid

Prototyping Tools Revisited

Alan M. Davis, "Operational Prototyping: A new
Development Approach. IEEE Software, September 1992.
Page 70-78.
Wikipedia: Software Prototyping
B. Boehm, " A Spiral Model of Software Development and
Enhancement, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes,
Volume 11 , Issue 4 (August 1986) Pages: 14 - 24.
Barry Boehm et al., "Using the WinWin Spiral Model: A
Case Study, IEEE Computer, July 1998 (vol. 31 no. 7) pp.
33-44.
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