Comparison of Risk Management between Waterfall, Prototype and Incremental Development

Fidya Farasalsabila (Institut Teknologi Batam)
Supardi (Politeknik Pariwisata Batam)
Aulia Agung Dermawan (Institut Teknologi Batam)
Alvendo Wahyu Aranski (Institut Teknologi Batam)
Is Fadhilah (IBMT Surabaya)
Machsun (IBMT Surabaya)
Ahmad Rizky Saputra (Institut Teknologi Batam)

IESM
Vol. 7 No. 2 (2026): Vol 7 No 2 Agustus 2026

The success of a software project depends on risk management. The first and most important step is to choose a risk management friendly software development methodology. The aim of this research is to identify the most effective software risk management approach that will prevent software project failures. To this effect, comparative analysis is used to compare between the three most common approaches to developing software: the waterfall model, the prototype model, and the incremental model. The purpose of this comparison is to determine which model provides the best assistance for risk management. During the process of writing this article, several limitations were encountered in the literature for related work as a result of the lack of up-to-date information in comparative risk management studies. In the end, it was found that incremental has the potential to be the best risk management considering the evolution of software requirements.