Iterative or incremental software development appears to be a promising software process approach, and it looks great in theory. However, it's anything but simple when it comes time to apply it to real projects.

Iterative development is even more difficult to implement when your staff is familiar - and comfortable - with the waterfall method.

This paper describes how iterative software development process has been adopted in RAFAEL, based on the Unified Software Development Process (USDP) introduced by Rational Inc. The paper identifies the core differences between iterative and waterfall software development, addresses the possible difficulties in applying the iterative process and details the elements of an iterative software development process tailored to RAFAEL.