The Waterfall Model, Prototyping, Test First Development, Feature Driven Development, RAD, RUP, XP, DSDM the list gets daunting. When it comes to development methodologies, we think the most important thing is that you have one. That being said, in most situations we prefer agile approaches. These are typified by frequent releases of limited scope and short duration. Also by their heavy emphasis on constant testing, frequent publication for access by the whole team, and the use of time-boxing.
What does all this mean to you? These methods allow for constant feedback regarding project state, functional correctness, feature implementation, and design decisions. Because agile methods place tremendous value on speed to market, sticking to the timeline becomes a core value for projects adopting them. They also tend to expose potential operational challenges and performance or scalability issues much earlier than other approaches. All these attributes make pretty difficult to gloss over issues. You can run, but you can't hide.
