Why Waterfall labored
The unique project-management fashions for software program got here from industries that constructed massive, complicated programs lengthy earlier than software program existed, significantly manufacturing and development. Six-month specs, multi-year builds, gated phases and tightly managed handoffs made sense in a world the place software program shipped slowly, and markets moved in quarters reasonably than days.
The large specification doc served an actual objective. It compressed all the pieces the group had realized right into a single artifact, handed it to the builders and successfully mentioned: go construct this, and we’ll regroup in a 12 months.
Then the online modified the clock.
Suggestions loops collapsed from quarters to weeks, and ultimately to days. Groups may ship on Tuesday and observe consumer conduct on Wednesday. In that setting, the 200-page specification stopped wanting like disciplined planning and began wanting like operational drag. The tempo of labor modified which meant the tooling and coordination mannequin needed to change with it.