Agile and Waterfall – Benefits of Blending the Two

     Most of you will be familiar with agile and waterfall methodology, and you will be applying these on your projects. But what if we use combination of two? Will this be helpful? We’ll discuss that here, but first lets refresh some concepts.

Waterfall Methodology

The waterfall model is a sequential approach of project/product development, that is popular in software engineering industry. The waterfall model contains a logical progression of steps. Similar to a waterfall over a cliff edge, different goals are set for each phase of development and cannot be reworked after completion.

agile and waterfall
Waterfall Model

Agile Methodology

In agile methodology, the venture partners and designers effectively cooperate to comprehend the domain, recognize what should be fabricated, and then set goals to achieve the target. The agile methodology works better in projects where the requirements are unclear, permitting the development teams to be inventive, imaginative and continuous joint effort with clients and colleagues; and dealing with an iterative task plan that is unpredictable. The companies in the e-services sector, holding a huge clients base doesn’t rely only on the rapid esteem that is presented by the agile methodology or the high affirmation that is given by waterfall methodology, rather they need both agile and waterfall methodology to make their projects successful in the given time, budget and scope.

agile and waterfall
Agile Model

Benefits of Blending Agile and Waterfall

Given the differences of how the two methodologies are perfect inverses of each other, you may think that that blending these may not work. However, in reality, blending agile and waterfall methodology can be extremely beneficial as its enable each group to utilize the procedure that works best for them.

When organization starts to rely upon a single approach, the constraints of that methodology will restrict innovation in project handling. But if the organizations are working with two methodologies, it will result in prominent adaptability of the organization to handle the various projects and sort out the work process. According to 2014 CAST Research on Application Software Health (CRASH), the study claimed that once agile and waterfall methodology is blended, it tends to prompt more robust, secure programming and even produces better code.

agile and waterfall
Blending Agile and Waterfall

The most significant advantages of blending agile and waterfall methodology is improving consistency and improving the capacity to react in a convenient way to criticism from clients, colleagues, and executives. The fundamental point is to empower the teams to characterize necessities and adjust to changing prerequisites. Once both the methodology is blended, it will hold the tracking system of waterfall method, while grasping the versatility of agile. To make this blending work is imperative that there are open and dynamic channels of correspondence between all partners, simply like in a genuine marriage!

Constraints in Blending Agile and Waterfall

In any case, blending two methodologies which are different in nature can create a messy situation. Teams will require training of the methodology which is new to them. The project manager who will be responsible for the blend will particularly battle with consolidating the logistics, including budgets, schedule, scope, and metrics. Since most software of project management doesn’t support the use of waterfall and agile, it frequently requires organization to contribute a great deal of time and coordinating data into something that can be understood by each team member.

Conclusion

There are advocates for agile and waterfall methodologies. Agile methodology is effective in powerful situations and on those projects which are firmly organized cooperation, however it likewise stances difficulties because of the absence of documentation necessities and works better with co-founding groups.  On the other hand, waterfall methodology is suitable for those project which has clear set of requirements and objectives, the methodology posture difficulties for huge scale venture because of the trouble of overseeing prerequisites or adapting to change. However a blended methodology provides organization the capacity to advance the administration of the diverse sort of undertakings and furthermore fuses the agile required to adjust to changing needs and situations. This methodology will even account more prominent adaptability and joint effort with simply enough planning and as every increment of the project is fabricated, the team members of the project will gain more clarity from their client.

Hina Iftikhar

I a mater's graduate in Project Management and currently working as a freelance in the relevant field. I am able to relate to a wide range of people, as proven by my varied work experiences e.g social media manager, graphic marketing coordinator and corporate relation officer.

View All Posts

Pin It on Pinterest