Topic: V-model

V-model

The V Model, while admittedly obscure, gives equal weight to testing rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Initially defined by the late Paul Rook in the late 1980s, the V was included in the U.K.'s National Computing Centre publications in the 1990s with the aim of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of software development. It's accepted in Europe and the U.K. as a superior alternative to the waterfall model; yet in the U.S., the V Model is often mistaken for the waterfall.

The V shows the typical sequence of development activities on the left-hand (downhill) side and the corresponding sequence of test execution activities on the right-hand (uphill) side.

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In fact, the V Model emerged in reaction to some waterfall models that showed testing as a single phase following the traditional development phases of requirements analysis, high-level design, detailed design and coding. The waterfall model did considerable damage by supporting the common impression that testing is merely a brief detour after most of the mileage has been gained by mainline development activities. Many managers still believe this, even though testing usually takes up half of the project time.