Agile development and Waterfall are both project management techniques. The development of these techniques took place to help companies succeed in their projects by choosing the right strategies to apply to them. There are a few differences between these approaches, which we will discuss in this article.
Agile development consists of a group of values and principles cultivated by a bunch of technology leaders. It aims to provide flexibility in the project management process and make it easier to succeed. Agile development focuses on teamwork and makes customer satisfaction their topmost priority. There is a specific timeframe for agile development-based projects,varies normally between 2 to 4 weeks. This timeframe is known as ‘sprint’. When a new project begins, the determination of the deliverables takes place foremost, keeping the customers’ requirements in mind. After the completion of the project, evaluation takes place based on the deliverables defined at the starting of the sprint.
The Waterfall approach, on the other hand, divides the Software Development Life cycle (SDLC) into various stages. This divides tasks up and the development team can move forward to another stage only after completing the previous one. In the Waterfall Development approach, completion of each stage takes place only once. You cannot go back to one phase if any changes are required. Therefore, it requires careful planning and evaluation to ensure that the project management lifecycle is smooth and free of errors.
Both of these methods, agile development and waterfall project management, have their pros and cons. It all depends on what kind of project your team is hoping to pursue. The Agile Development Process is meant for projects that are more complex in nature. When there are multiple deliverables and the project does not follow a very sequential timeline, you may choose Agile over Waterfall. We also know that the Agile approach requires lots of cross-collaboration amongst teams. Hence if we need a lot of group functionality, we will opt for Agile.
Waterfall, however, is more suited for projects with pre-set requirements that are not very complex to follow. This means that these projects do not expect a high amount of alteration and are usually to be delivered in a singular timeframe. Therefore, the approach you choose all depends on what type of projects your company gets.
References
https://project-management.com/agile-vs-waterfall/
https://www.aipm.com.au/blog/agile-vs-waterfall-whats-the-difference
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sdlc/sdlc_overview.htm
