Waterfall and Agile Methodologies

Waterfall and Agile Methodologies

Project is a set of activity executed to obtain unique product. Project Management is careful planning, controlling and organizing with application of skills, knowledge and techniques to meet specific project requirements. Every project management technique involves five fundamental steps, viz., initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing. Among the various project management techniques, the sequence of execution of these five steps can vary across the models or there can be additional steps added to these basic steps.

Among the various existing project management techniques, waterfall methodology and agile methodology are the two universal methodologies followed across various organizations. Waterfall model is one of the oldest methodology existing and is a linear model. Agile is an emerging methodology and it is an iterative model. Both waterfall and agile methodologies are widely used across the organizations.

Waterfall model involves completion of each step before executing the next step, there is no room for change. Testing is done after the design and development of the product. The feedback of the product is obtained only at the end.

Agile is an iterative approach where there can be repetition in steps executed based on the requirement. In agile model, there can be changes or new requirements introduced at any point of time. For example, during the process of development, if there are any new change requests, a waterfall model would not accommodate the changes unless the whole process is restarted from the scratch. In agile model such changes are encouraged and the changes can be easily accommodated. Testing is not done in fixed stages but is done and is started from day one. The feedback is obtained in each stage and hence it reduces risk.

Both waterfall and agile models have the respective pros and cons. Waterfall model can be used in the situations where the client is certain about the end product and agile model can be used when the end goals are not clearly defined. Agile model can be used when the client’s needs are hazy and the goals are clearly clarified as the project progresses.

In agile methodology, the testing is involved in each sprint and hence bugs are caught in the initial development stages itself. Since the product is tested at each cycle, the product can be released at any phase in the project. In waterfall model, since the system testing and integration testing is done only in the end, there can be defects found at the cycle which might be incorrigible and might require restarting the whole process. The product cannot be released until the final testing is done.

In agile methodology, in the initial iteration, different developers work on different modules and integrate it to obtain a basic working model. Based on the outcome of the first iteration, the client comes up