Advantages:

• Allows a system to be developed in stages.

• Requirements are tagged to indicate the intended build increment.

• If a mistake is made, only the latest iteration is discarded.

• To simplify tracking, each build increment can follow a Waterfall life cycle.

• Allows testing earlier in the life cycle.

• Defects are detected earlier.

• Building a smaller system is less risky than building a larger system.

• Improved visibility of progress.

Disadvantages:

• Assumes that all requirements can be known at the outset.

The disadvantages of Incremental become critical when system behavior is difficult to define. This is especially true of software that is designed to control instrumentation that is being developed concurrently.

An Incremental life cycle can become completely uncontrolled if Feature Creep occurs.