Team Roles in Waterfall Methodology

Each software development methodology has a particular team structure that should be implemented to hold its principles. Waterfall is no exception. This popular software development methodology has lots of specific aspects in its team building. In this article, we will tell you about the roles in Waterfall methodology. But before doing that we should give the general definitions of Waterfall and its team.

Waterfall is considered the traditional model of software development. That is because it was originated in the 1950s. At that time software development was a completely new invention, so the first programmers just took a typical hardware development methodology and applied it to the newborn industry. The result was quite successful, that’s why Waterfall is considered the golden standard of software development. The methodology is based on three simple principles: strong documentation, low degree of customer involvement, and sequential structure of project realization.

Waterfall teams are usually quite large. They include more than 15 people. Partially that is because of the strict hierarchical structure of such teams. Their members are not interchangeable, unlike the members of Agile teams. Each of them is responsible for a certain piece of work. Every Waterfall developer must report on his activities to the project manager. This person is the formal leader of each Waterfall team.

Waterfall teams have four typical roles. Let’s look at them in greater detail.

• A developer is a person who creates the code. This is one of the most important roles in Waterfall teams. Waterfall programmers must avoid bugs during their work because one single defect may be a reason to run the entire project from the very beginning.
• The role of a tester is also extremely important. In Waterfall projects, tests are usually conducted at the final stages of their realization. That is why testers have to find all bugs in final products and return the software to the developers so that they can fix all defects.
• A business analyst is a person responsible for making the software product popular in the digital market. His main task is to write business strategies.
• A project manager is the main person in every Waterfall team. He is responsible for the quality of final software. His main task is to manage the projects and to subdivide tasks among other team members.