Yourdon DeMarco Waterfall Design

12/13/14

So, not too long ago, I came across a resume that spoke of experience in Yourdon DeMarco waterfall design. Specifically the NSAM 81-3 and 2187 standards. I tried to dig deeper via some basic Google-fu, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in the specific standards of waterfall. All I really found were the standard "don't do waterfall design" sorts of articles. Also, Yourdon DeMarco did a lot more stuff that passed the passage of time, which makes searching for their waterfall design standards all the more difficult.

Waterfall design is an interesting sort of thing. There's only ever talk about how it shouldn't be done, and also a lot of talk about how it's done anyways by people and companies who should know better. For example, I've read about scrum-fall, which is more or less accused as being waterfall disguised as scrum.

It almost seems a little unfair to waterfall design. I mean, yes, I understand that it as a design philosophy has been displaced by methods that have been shown to be more productive. But, still, there should be some effort of illustrating waterfall at its best. Especially if, in reality, too many groups end up doing waterfall instead of the better methods.