CIO as Agile Leader: Agile vs. Waterfall

AGILE AND WATERFALL IS NOT OPPOSITE, BUT COMPLIMENTARY.



There seems to be this polarization between waterfall and agile, when in reality there is more of a continuum between them. Some more enlightened practitioners are developing ways to use both! Agile and Waterfall are not opposite, they are complimentary.




* WATERFALL" IS THE TERM MOST WIDELY USED IN REFERENCE TO A PROJECT LIFE-CYCLE where the characteristics of the product of the project are progressively elaborated phase-by-phase. For example, a typical waterfall might involve concept, requirements, design, development, and turnover. AGILE PROJECTS HAVE AN EVOLUTIONARY LIFECYCLE. Agile has three characteristics: Incrementalism, Iteration, Improvement. As Agile is more about the mindset shift upon keeping iterative communication, cross-functional communication, customer satisfaction and faster delivery. Agile is ALL ABOUT rapid feedback loops and minimizing waste.



* WATERFALL IS LINEAR WHERE VALUE IS GENERATED AT THE END OF PROJECT WHEREAS AGILE IS ITERATIVE WHERE VALUE IS GENERATED PERIODICALLY. Waterfall typically means sequential work. "Waterfall" is not about planning, not about PM, not about PMO, but about a specific form of the project life-cycle, where Requirements, Design, Implementation, Test are rather executed in sequence. AGILE BREAKDOWN LARGE PROJECT TO SMALL WORKS. Agile is focused on team and the team interaction now how we get programs completed; Agile doesn't attempt to control all the variability, but rather chunks up the project into small "work" then "measure" phases. Conduct early reviews, provide releases and gather early feedback (iterative, responsive, handle change).



* WATERFALL WEIGHS HEAVILY ON FORMAL STRUCTURE MODEL (WHERE THE MANAGER IS THE BOSS) AND THE AGILE PRINCIPLES MANDATE SELF-MANAGING TEAMS (where the manager is the facilitator)If the discussion is about the process or the life-cycle, the waterfall approach goes phase by phase whereas the Agile approaches limit the work in progress. Scrum limits it by a Sprint, Kanban limits it by the number of work items and some other approaches use a combination of both.



* 'WATERFALL CAN MIX AGILE PHILOSOPHY; WHILE AGILE TAKES WATERFALL'S STRUCTURE: Even in Waterfall model if the Project can be split into phases and for every Close Phase (phase exit) value is generated then Waterfall is also some sort of Agile methodology. Scrum meaning a short sprint and is part of software development methodology and is not related to Project Management. One of the key ideas behind agile is that the client can cancel the project at any time if they are not happy with the results of the work (software) to date. This is somewhat harder to do with waterfall because you might be in the development phase before the client really sees anything that is useful or working. Waterfall users may deal with this through prototyping or simulation.



* Which methodology one needs to select is situation-driven:



WHEN TO USE SCRUM:

- Team members have knowledge of the domain.

- All team members have been trained on Scrum prior to the start of the project

- The Product Owner has AUTHORITY to make product decisions on behalf of stakeholders.

- You need an incremental feedback cycle (done at the end of Sprints) for User Stories/Features, so that adjustments can be made.

- Fixed time and budget project, but project sponsor knows not every possible feature will be implemented. (i.e. Not fixed scope)



WHEN TO USE WATERFALL- A project that's required to comply with regulations, where they need to be cross referenced with requirements and features.

- Projects that have a fixed price, time and scope.

- You need formal sign off of requirements before work can begin.

- Team members do not have adequate domain knowledge and need a detailed requirements document.



In many cases, perhaps the practical approach is to mix Waterfall and Agile techniques. Use Waterfall for the requirements' phase and an iterative/Scrum-like approach to development, in order to manage software project with the right level of discipline and flexibility.



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