Why ‘Waterfall’ Works for Government Based Project in Indonesia

Aniqma has been providing several technical-related supports for governments across Indonesia:

• Five of Bandung City Government Sections, initiated WUB (Wira Usaha Baru / New Entrepreneur) Bandung, in which each of them has regularly organized a dedicated workshop for aspiring entrepreneurs. Aniqma provided front-end pieces to accommodate coordination and synchronization of initiative programs between the five sections (Dinas KUMKM, Dinas Pangan dan Pertanian, Dinas Pendidikan, Dinas Tenaga Kerja dan Dinas Pemuda Olah Raga).
• Division of Economics, Regional Secretary Bandung City, wants to provide a certain level of information transparency regarding the operation of several regional owned enterprises / Badan Usaha Milik Daerah (BUMD) under their domain, and also want to create synchronization between citizen, government, and corporates in terms of issuing the verification of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Aniqma provided front-end pieces to both of the projects.
• Ministry of National Development Planning Indonesia, Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional (Bappenas), aims to provide analysis, research, and recommendations as a basis for policies which are related to economic and social growth through low-carbon activities and minimal exploitation of natural resources. Through collaboration with PT. DATC, Aniqma provide design and front-end pieces to the platform which are capable to calculate automatically the balance between gas emission to economic and social growth by utilizing the system dynamics method. This platform was presented later during the IMF — World Bank Annual Meeting at Nusa Dua — Bali, in October 2018.

During this collaboration, we found out that governments in general:

(1) tends to have several layers of bureaucracy that quick decisions are almost impossible to be made, and

(2) tends to use a top-down approach to define requirements.

Hence, we find that Waterfall software development is the most practical solutions to be applied.

Waterfall model is a relatively linear sequential design approach for certain areas of engineering design. In software development, it tends to be among the less iterative and flexible approaches, as progress flows in largely one direction (“downwards” like a waterfall). However, the waterfall model provides a structured approach; the model itself progresses linearly through discrete, easily understandable and explainable phases and thus is easy to understand; it also provides easily identifiable milestones in the development process. In the occasions where rapid iterations are almost impossible to be made, having the requirements to be clearly defined in the early phase will be extremely helpful toward the whole process. And projects from Indonesian government in general, tends to fit that mold.