Modeling Iteration’s Perspectives in Software Engineering

Iteration is ubiquitous during software development and particularly notable in complex system development. It has both positive and negative effects; the positives of iteration include improving quality and understandability, reducing complexity and maintenance, leading to innovation, and being cost-effective in the long run; Negatives of iteration include; time, cost, and effort overrun. Its management is a challenging task and becomes more complex due to the non-uniformity of the terminology used at various places. Although Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC) are highly iterative, not much work related to them has been reported in the literature. Insights into iteration are explained in this paper by defining different perspectives (Exploration, Refinement, Rework, and Negotiation) on iteration through literature review, modeling each perspective, and simulating the effect of each iterative perspective on project completion time. An attempt has been made to create awareness about efficient use of iteration during software development by informing which perspective of iteration has what kind of impact on project completion time to avoid delays.