The traditional, or phased, approach identifies a number of steps to be taken to complete the project. The traditional approach usually involves five phases:
- The initiation phase of the project
- The planning and development phase
- The execution phase
- The supervision and control phase
- The closing phase
These phases are mostly used sequentially, but they can overlap. Different industries use different variants of these project phases. For example, in software development, this approach is known as a waterfall model. The waterfall pattern proved to be useful for less well-defined projects (although I do not think it is), but it is not good for larger projects that do not clearly define the functional requirements of the software.
To solve these problems, various modified waterfall methods have been published.