Building the house one room at a time vs building the whole frame first.
Author:Sambath Kumar Natarajan(Connect)Version:1.0
Incremental Model
Incremental means delivering finished slices of value.
Iterative vs Incremental
- Iterative: Sketching the whole painting, then coloring it in. (Refining quality)
- Incremental: Painting the left corner fully, then the center. (Adding scope)
The Trap
The biggest risk in Incremental delivery is Frankenstein Architecture. If you build the "Payments" room without thinking about the "User Profile" room, your hallway (Database) will be a mess.
[!TIP] You need a "Walking Skeleton" architecture—a thin slice of end-to-end functionality—before you start incremental delivery.
Execution Reality
Most "Agile" teams are actually doing Incremental Waterfall.
- Sprint 1: Login
- Sprint 2: Profile
- Sprint 3: Dashboard This is just a breakdown of a requirements document into 2-week chunks. It is not iterative, because they never revisit the Login feature.