Simulating the Software Development Lifecycle: The Waterfall Model

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation-based approach using the Waterfall model to estimate project timelines, identify resource bottlenecks, and improve planning in software development.

Contribution

It adapts the Waterfall model into a simulation framework with SimPy, providing a novel tool for project estimation and resource optimization in software engineering.

Findings

Simulation accurately estimates phase completion times.

Resource bottlenecks identified, especially programmer shortages.

Using simulations improves project planning and resource allocation.

Abstract

This study employs a simulation-based approach, adapting the waterfall model, to provide estimates for software project and individual phase completion times. Additionally, it pinpoints potential efficiency issues stemming from suboptimal resource levels. We implement our software development lifecycle simulation using SimPy, a Python discrete-event simulation framework. Our model is executed within the context of a software house on 100 projects of varying sizes examining two scenarios. The first provides insight based on an initial set of resources, which reveals the presence of resource bottlenecks, particularly a shortage of programmers for the implementation phase. The second scenario uses a level of resources that would achieve zero-wait time, identified using a stepwise algorithm. The findings illustrate the advantage of using simulations as a safe and effective way to experiment and plan for software development projects. Such simulations allow those managing software development projects to make accurate, evidence-based projections as to phase and project completion times as well as explore the interplay with resources.