Ensure project management success by choosing the right methodology at the outset.
No matter what you do in business, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to manage a few projects at some point. Whether launching a new product or service, or restructuring and reorganizing departments within your company, knowing which management approach to take can make all the difference.
In this article, we look at two standard project management methodologies that businesses use today—Agile and Waterfall—and explain their principles, advantages, and disadvantages to help you decide which is best for your business.
What is Agile methodology?
In the grand Agile vs. Waterfall debate, Agile methodology is the flexible and incremental project management methodology well-suited to today’s fast-paced business environment. With Agile methodology, your team breaks down projects into smaller tasks, iterates them, and completes them in rapid succession over time.
This methodology aims to deliver working solutions (such as software, for example) as early in the process as possible. Working solutions help organizations better understand how their products will perform in real-world situations, allowing them to make changes swiftly and efficiently.
Principles of Agile
To achieve such flexibility and adaptability, principles of Agile project management include:
Incremental delivery. Your team continually delivers product releases throughout the development process instead of waiting for the final product.
Customer collaboration. Customers participate throughout development, providing feedback on what they want before you assign development resources.
Rapid iteration. Instead of having everything set in stone from day one—typically what happens with Waterfall—each team has the freedom to add or remove new features from a product whenever necessary.
Advantages of Agile
Flexibility is one of Agile’s most significant advantages. This allows the methodology to work for projects of almost any size and scope.
Agile also has the advantage of being highly collaborative. Instead of following a set plan that mandates individual tasks and deadlines, Agile takes a more holistic approach where everyone works toward shared goals. As such, each contributor has a say in how things happen—and there's no need for one person (i.e., the project manager) to have all the answers at the outset.
Disadvantages of Agile
Despite its tremendous flexibility, the Agile development process is not suitable for all project types.
The Agile methodology may not be ideal if you have strict deadlines (such as with a government contract). This is because Agile facilitates many changes during development, inevitably affecting the original scope or project timeline.
Similarly, delivering a cohesive end product with Agile can be tricky because of the risk of delivery fragmentation from individual inputs.
What is Waterfall methodology?
The Waterfall methodology is the second contender in the Agile vs. Waterfall discourse. With its roots dating to manufacturing industry innovations in the 1950s and 1960s, Waterfall is among the first well-documented project management methodologies.
The Waterfall development process is a more rigid, order-driven effort with minimal or no flexibility. It relies upon clearly defined linearity and requires your teams to complete each project phase before moving to the next.
Principles of Waterfall
In being so strictly sequential, Waterfall demands that teams keep moving forward with each project phase until completion, even if the situation suggests a rethink might be required. While opinions on the various stages of Waterfall differ, each process, in general, involves the following phases:
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Testing
Operation
Advantages of Waterfall
Agile may be desirable because of its suitability for modern, rapidly changing projects, but there are reasons why Waterfall has stood the test of time. These include:
Waterfall mandates testing and approval after each project phase concludes, meaning that quality is assured after each development sprint. In the software development context, this testing reduces or eliminates technical debt.
Unlike Agile, Waterfall has clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each contributor and precisely defined workflows. This structure helps keep everyone on track and ensures predictability in deliverables and timelines.
Disadvantages of Waterfall
The biggest disadvantage of Waterfall is its lack of flexibility. Because of how strictly process-driven Waterfall is, your teams can encounter difficulties if original assumptions prove incorrect or new information demands a course change. It also prevents teams from receiving feedback until they spend the resources.
While it might sound like a good thing in some respects—who wants to face repetitive feedback rounds?—innovation is an important reason why this methodology can be a problem.
The most creative and innovative projects and teams adapt their approach to changing situations. This adaptability works with regular updates on where things stand as new development occurs. Because Waterfall holds off on testing and feedback until the end of the development cycle, it can become difficult to do innovative work.
What is the difference between Agile and Waterfall?
By now, you should understand that Agile and Waterfall are two very different project management methodologies. While Agile focuses on collaboration, flexibility, and speed, Waterfall mandates hierarchy, rigidity, and ‘slow’ quality.
/ Agile vs. Waterfall
In summary, the difference between Agile and Waterfall is that:
Agile is a cyclical process with short collaborative periods of innovative development followed by immediate testing.
Waterfall is a linear process with longer, tightly controlled development phases and periodic testing.
When to use Agile vs. Waterfall
Considering the principles, advantages, and disadvantages we’ve discussed regarding these methodologies, you can see that Agile and Waterfall suit different use cases and project management scenarios.
Use Agile when:
You need the flexibility to deal with project uncertainties
You are managing collaborative projects, such as customer-led product development
You have a team with adaptive skill sets
Use Waterfall when:
You have a clearly defined project scope and do not anticipate uncertainty
You are managing projects with set phases, timelines, and deliverables
You have a team with narrow skill sets
Learn more about Agile vs. Waterfall project management methodologies
Whatever approach you take in Agile vs. Waterfall methodology, remember that effective project management depends on selling your team on the methodology's value and showing what works for you as a project manager. Putting in the time to understand and be able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, therefore, is time well spent.
For more information on Agile vs. Waterfall, check out the best project management software offerings or read about these distinct methodologies on the Capterra blog. And don't forget that a hybrid approach to project management might ultimately be best for you!