difference between agile and waterfall project management

In such a way, the team delivers parts of the functionality step by step, iteration after iteration.

Here is where you can see the fundamental difference between Agile and Waterfall workflows – business value is delivered, not at the end of the project as with Waterfall, but after each iteration.

Short development iterations allows product testing sooner, then improving it based on the feedback received. With Agile, the team has an opportunity to validate product quality much faster than compared with Waterfall. The result of each iteration is working and tested software. Project needs) when the development team works over the selected features and converts them into working software.Įach iteration includes the key phases of the software development life cycle, namely, analyzing, planning, coding, and testing. Iteration is a time-boxed period (usually one to three weeks or more, depending on Instead of completing one phase after another, Agile methodology breaks the whole process into smaller parts called iterations. AgileĪgile product management was born as a lion-hearted answer to challenges of the traditional Waterfall approach. All business value is delivered at the end of the project. The whole product is designed, built, and tested in one go. Each phase has a clear list of deliverables and review criteria, which simplifies project management. Maintenance – the team provides support and fixes bugs discovered by users.Īs there’s no way to go back, each phase must be 100% complete before the team proceeds to the next stage.

Deployment – developers integrate various pieces of the final product and organize a demo for stakeholders.

Testing – QA engineers check the whole codebase for bugs or inconsistencies.

Coding – developers implement the design according to the requirements.

Waterfall projects require large upfront planning and extensive documentation.

Design – software architects decide how to build the application and how it’s going to work.

Discovery – the team gathers a complete list of requirements for the whole project.

It divides the development process into 6 distinct phases: The whole building is commissioned in one go and workers rarely have to go back to rework the foundation once they’ve built the walls. It comes from the construction industry, where it’s typical to build houses one step at a time, from laying foundations to raising the roof. Waterfall is one of the oldest approaches to development. Key differences between Agile and Waterfall software methodologies Project workflow Waterfall So, to help you understand the major differences between these two methodologies, we decided to compare them based on six characteristics, namely: Here at MindK, we have experience in managing Agile and Waterfall projects and have firsthand knowledge of the whole software development process, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. But how are both of them managed and what is the difference? Agile and Waterfall are two of the most popular types of software development methodologies today. The success of a software development project is closely related to which software development approach is used.

Difference between agile and waterfall project management