As the name suggests, incremental (or iterative) development (ID) is a succession of project segments that build on each other to create the final product. This allows for different aspects of the software to be fleshed out and tested prior to moving to the next step.

This doesn't mean that multiple steps can't be worked on simultaneously, just that a successive step isn't started until the previous one is judged to be complete. This development practice most aligns with traditional project management, where different aspects of the project can be developed at the same time, but within each aspect's pipeline, the steps are iterative and cumulative.

An example development process is shown in the following diagram. The columns represent the stages of the project, while the rows are the individual aspects. Each titled column has one or more sub-columns that represent the different milestones within each stage.

As can be seen in the following diagram, the areas of each colored graph move to the right as one moves down the chart. This makes sense, as initial development aligns with Requirements and Design, while finishing the project means deployment takes precedence. Testing cycles up and down during the project, as milestones are reached: