Navigating Project Management Methodologies: Agile vs Waterfall Showdown

Introduction

Hi! Welcome back again to my blog. Past adopters of agile project development were small, self-possessed teams performing on small, self-contained tasks or projects. They proved that the agile model can execute, to the progress of software builds across the globe. It turned out the model of waterfall project management wasn't as better for the software development as agile project management was for many teams.

Now these days, most of the organizations have started scaling agile beyond one team or project and have started implementing it on entire programs because of famousness of agile project management. However, Agile has even spread among several development teams to include IT, business development, marketing, and more.

Agile vs waterfall project management

Initially, Agile was included by software teams, who shifted from the traditional,  waterfall method to an advanced method that provided regular feedback and management at the time of development lifecycle.

Agile project management has taken an iterative method for development by making several progressing steps with frequent feedback intervals.

This encourages adaptability as a team can manage throughout the process of product development, rather than getting confined through a linear way. It also grants for regular, high-influence output that helps teams to render a series of wins over period.

About agile project management

Agile project management can be defined as an iterative method to develop a project, which needs frequent releases that include customer comment. The capability to manage during every iteration promotes the velocity and adaptability. This method is different from a simple ‘waterfall project management’ method, which follows a set way with certain deviation.

With modern age customers and businesses desiring quick responses and alterations, agile renders the flexibility to manage and iterate at the time of the development procedure. Also, Agile project management is considered as a cornerstone of DevOps programs, where operations and development teams perform together.

Principles of Agile

• An agile project is divided into multiple progressing steps that include frequent feedback intervals.
• A project need is divided into smaller portions, which are then emphasized by importance.
• It adjusts at regular pre-decided intervals to make sure a customer’s desire are fulfilled.
• It helps in collaboration, especially with the client.
• It combines planning with running, which permits a team to effectively answer to modifying needs.

Benefits of Agile management

• Detects issues early
• Quicker feedback cycles.
• Greater potential for satisfaction of customer.
• Efficient teams perform better within a given time.
• Time to market is certainly enhanced.
• More visibility / beneficial.
• Flexible importance targeted on result delivery.

Disadvantages of Agile

• Perfect agile running with a regular deployment pipeline has several technical component & engineering costs for establishment.
• Difficult path and inter-project dependencies might not be defined with clarity as in waterfall.
• An organizational study curve cost is available.

Elements to include while shifting to agile

Shifting to agile can be valuable, especially while a team or organization is shifted from an older traditional project management method. Shifting to agile practices might need a number of procedure modifications, especially while including a DevOps method, where both development & operations teams perform together to build and maintain software. While including agile principles, a team and the client must accept following two significant concepts:

• Usually, the development team will only accept task that it has the capability for. The product owner never tends to push work to the team or make commitment to them to particular deadlines. However, the development team catches task from the program's backlog as it can have new task.
• Mainly, the client’s target is to maximize the value of the team's result. The team depends on the client’s need to accomplish the most significant task first.

About waterfall project management

The waterfall project management method entails a perfectly explained sequence of running with project phases that never progress until a phase gets final permission. Once a phase is accomplished, it can be tough and costly to revisit a previous position. Agile teams might follow a same sequence yet do so in smaller increments with regular feedback loops.

A single crossed deadline or scope modification at the time of a waterfall project can cause outsized influence on frequent releases. Also, when a team focuses on the next phase of assignment completely, clearing technical issues or fixing bugs can be pain taking if the team is completely allocated to new type work and often pushing forward to the next level.

The waterfall management method for a project follows a linear, sequential policy. It performs well for task that has expectable, recurring processes, yet it can leave development teams flat-footed and unable to adjust quicker than a competitor.

An example of a waterfall project with tightly partitioned blocks of time. This makes a “utilise it or lose it” thought that inspire developers, owners of product, and stakeholders to request in every time window, since there might be no chance to iterate in the upcoming time. Generally, teams utilizing waterfall try to handle scope creep through “edit control”, where everyone agrees the main contract is not modified.

The waterfall model can release some of the famous challenges of developing products:

• Difficulty in obtaining user feedback and product checking: To include harassment to injury, the end customer will be unable to interact with the product until it's completed. Thus, crucial issues in design of product and code keep secrete till the time of release.
• Blockers and dependency management: Traditional project management styles often make "complex paths", where the project can't proceed ahead until a blocking problem is resolved.

Benefits of waterfall

• The cost of the project can be calculated after the needs are explained.
• It needs less coordination because of the correctly explained phases sequential procedures.
• A clear project phase assists to explain dependencies of work clearly.
• Better concentration on documentation of designs and needs.
• The design phase is more procedural and designed before any software is developed.

Drawbacks of waterfall

• It’s tougher to break up and share task because of specialized tighter phase teams sequentially.
• Risk of wasting time due to late and setbacks throughout phase transitions.
• Additional communication overhead at the time of handoff throughout phase transitions.
• We need to hire more employees to accomplish special phase teams and on the other hand agile influences combination of multiple cross-functional team.
• Product ownership and involvement might not be as strong in comparison to agile since the target is shifted to the existing phase.

Let's go through the mechanisms agile projects utilize to organize, execute, and structure task in an iterative method.

Iterative method provides various benefits for a team to:

• It collects feedback from clients during the procedure and iterate appropriately without the pressure of a final handover deadline.
• We adapt iterative method to modifying situation from newly found needs to a blocked portion of work.
• We develop relationships and different connections across various roles that make it smoother for people to get connected and communicated perfectly.

Agile enables teams to be more efficient to changes that certainly happen at the time of a project.

An even better advantage of the shared skill among the software development teams could be realized. The team's abundant skill sets add more flexibility to the task in all portions of the team's codebase. Hence, this method, performance and time aren’t wasted at all if the project direction alters.

Product Roadmaps

A product roadmap displays how a product or solution gets developed over a specific time. A roadmap in agile management provides significant context that helps teams to reach both progressive and project-wide targets. Roadmaps are designed of start-ups that are large regions of functionality, and include given timelines that connect when a feature is available. As the work is progressed and teams learn more, it's realized that the roadmap will alter to reflect that the newer information - probably in broad methods. The target is to keep the roadmap concentrated on existing conditions that influence the project and long-term targets in order to  work efficiently with clients and answer to the challenging landscape.

The following is a genuin roadmap for a product development team, with starts in the boxes and timelines referred by the milestone-highlighters in red.

Needs

Each beginning in the roadmap breaks down into a special set of needs. Agile needs are smooth explanation of desired features, rather than the several-page documents connected with traditional projects. However, they exclude over time and capitalize on the team's shared knowledge of the client and the desired product.

Agile needs stay lean while each of the team builds a shared understanding through current conversation and combination. While implementation is suppose to start are they fleshed out with complete details.

Backlog

The backlog sets the importance for the agile project. The team involves all task items in the backlog: new advantages, bugs, improvements, technical or architectural assignments, etc. The client gives priority the task on the backlog for the team of engineering. The development team utilizes the important backlog as its single truth source for what task desires to be accomplished.

Agile metrics

Agile teams thrive on metrics. WIP(Work In progress) limits make the team, and business, concentrate on providing the best urgent work. Various graphs such as burndown charts and management charts assist the team expect their delivery cadence, and progression flow diagrams assist detect bottlenecks. These agile metrics and artifacts make everyone concentrated on the great goals and improvement confidence in the team's capability to provide future work.

Agile runs on trust

Agile processes are unable to function without a high level of trust amongst team members and therefore make trust. It needs specialist to have critical conversations regarding selecting correct option for the specific program and the product. Because conversations occur at regular intervals, plans and concerns are regularly stated. That means team members should be confident in each other's capability (and interest) to perform on the decisions made throughout those conversations.

Conclusion

Hope, you must have got better idea on difference between Agile and waterfall project management. Agile is an innovative method not only for software apps but for other projects. By allowing the flexibility to reply to alteration at the time of the development cycle, agile grants teams to ship better quality products which fetch customers’ requirements. Agile helps in empowering teams, developing accountability, and inspires innovation at the time of continuous growth. Agile provides you the capability to answer the alteration without going off the tracks. And that’s greatly helpful for any program.