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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
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Project Management and Waterfall vs
Agile Method 5 min read
Leave a Comment / Information Technology / By cj
Waterfall and Agile are two of the most popular project management
approaches in the software development industry. Both concepts are
extremely complicated to grasp and understand from a student’s
perspective. As students, we rarely get the opportunity to participate in a
project which uses such approaches. Today, we will do our best to simplify
these methods in a relatable manner for students.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
What is Project and Project
Management
Let’s start first by defining what a Project is and what it means to do “Project
Management”
A Projec t can be loosely defined as an
under taking of plans to achieve a specific
goal.
It is that simple.
If you plan your schedule for the day in order to prepare for your exam
tomorrow, your to-do list may probably look something like this:
Wake up
Breakfast & Chill (Youtube)
Review & Chill (Spotify: Relaxing Music)
Lunch & Chill (Youtube)
Review & Chill (Spotify: Study Music)
Sunset & Chill (Youtube)
Realize the day is almost over
Panic (Spotify: Inception Movie Soundtrack)
Skip Dinner
Review Hardcore
Panic Some More
Skip Sleep
Take Exam at 8AM
Submit Exam at 11AM
If your goal was to pass your exam, and you did because of your awesome
to-do list, congratulations! You just completed a successful project!
Your to-do list may look sloppy, but hey, you got the job done. You just did
project management.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
Projec t Management is basically : getting
things done.
Organizations and businesses which undertake projects will have more
elements and intricacies with their project and project management. There
will be differences between projects for small companies vs big companies,
short-term projects vs long-term projects, etc. However, all projects will have
the same elements or building blocks.
Building Blocks of a Project: Time,
Cost, and Quality
This picture does a great job summarizing the impact of the different
building blocks of a project.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
As you can see, it is very difficult for a project to be able to achieve all three.
Most projects succeed with two building blocks. However, getting two out of
three usually results to a minor drawback.
Using the example above, focusing on Time (getting things done quickly)
and Cost (getting things done at low cost) will result to a cheap, quick, but
low quality project outcome. Meanwhile, focusing on Quality (getting things
done with high quality) and Time will result to a fast, good, but expensive
project outcome.
To learn more about projects and project management, check out this link.
Waterfall and Agile Method
For the longest time, the Waterfall method has been considered the
traditional and most popular project management approach in the IT and
software development industry. However, the advancement of technology,
especially the emergence of Cloud computing (check out our article on
Cloud here), has empowered startups to practice a more Agile approach.
The lean and small teams of startup companies rely on the Agile method
to get things done quicker and to release beta versions of their products in
the market earlier.
Releasing MVPs (minimum viable products) earlier help startups get
customer feedback, raise funds, and pivot to success much faster.
This is why Agile method has been gaining success and more popularity
over the years. However, before we get ahead of ourselves and shout “Agile!
Agile!” to passersby, it is important to compare and differentiate the two
methods in order to get a better appreciation of both.
A good way to differentiate the two methods is by looking at how they
interact with the Triple Constraints.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
Triple Constraints Theor y of Projec t
Management
The figure above shows the three constraints on project management:
budget, time, and scope. Budget and time are already explained above. The
new word is scope.
Scope constraint talks about features and details involved in the software
development project. Imagine the last app you used and all its features: UI,
UX, dashboard, etc. The more features a software has, the bigger its scope.
Looking outside the IT industry, scope of project may entail the details
involved in it. For example, a college party with more scope will have more
elements involved like professional DJs, guest celebrities, multiple mobile
bars, smoke machines, first aid station, and more.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
Waterfall Method vs Agile Method
The two popular methods handle the three constraints differently.
Waterfall Method has a fixed scope, and
variable budget and time constraints.
Agile Method, has a variable scope, and
fixed budget and time constraints.
Think of Waterfall Method as a more “stubborn” approach to project
management with a very clear set of goals to accomplish and features to be
included. It is more stubborn in the sense that it will be willing to increase
its budget and extend its deadline schedule just to make sure that all
desired features and scope are accomplished.
Agile Method, on the other hand, has a more forgiving approach with the
scope of the project. With Agile Method, it is okay to come up short with
some of the planned features of the project as long as you stick to the
assigned budget and the agreed deadline. The fixed budget and time
constraints are the reasons why Agile Method is popularly used by a lot of
startups with limited resources: both manpower and money.
In order for Agile Method to reach the same level of features or scope as the
Waterfall Method has planned, the former will have to undergo multiple
iterations or cycles of development. Have you ever seen games with
multiple launches of updates and latest versions? Games with Waterfall
Method development will most likely have something like: v1, v2, v3 while
games with Agile Method development will have: v1.1, v1.2, v1.3 and so on.
If you are interested to learn more about these project management
methods, check out this article which discusses project management
methods in detail.
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Project Management and Waterfall vs Agile Method - The Digital Native Project
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