Project Management: Agile and Waterfall Methodologies Research

This document presents a comparative analysis of Agile and Waterfall project management methodologies. It begins by defining each approach, highlighting their core principles and frameworks, including the iterative nature of Agile and the sequential phases of Waterfall. The research explores the differences between Agile and traditional project management, emphasizing the iterative structure, interactive user input, and evolutionary delivery of Agile. It contrasts Agile and Waterfall, focusing on scope definition, team synchronization, customer involvement, and funding models. The document outlines the benefits of Agile, such as higher product quality, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced risks, and the benefits of Waterfall, including its simplicity, ease of management, and detailed documentation. The document uses figures and references to support its findings, providing a comprehensive overview of both methodologies and their applications.

Research on Agile PM
and Waterfall PM
Name of the Student
Name of the University

Agile PM
 Agile follows an iterative approach based on guiding
and planning of project processes
 Agile methodology divides the project into sub-
sections, which are known as iterations (Rasnacis and
Berzisa 47)
 Each of the sub-sections are reviewed by the project
team, which also includes project stakeholders.

Agile PM
(Fig 1: The Agile Methodology
Framework)
(Source: Rasnacis and Berzisa 47)

Working of Agile PM
 Agile PM adopts practices based on continuous
integration and continuous deployment
 Agile PM requires teams to evaluate the cost and time
within the progress of work
 The role of project manager is distributed within the
team members of APM

Waterfall PM
 The waterfall model is defined as a sequential and
linear approach towards SDLC
 The Waterfall PM puts focus on logical progression
approach (Alshamrani and Bahattab 106)
 The Waterfall model follow phases such as analysis,
planning, initiation, design, construction, testing,
deployment and continuous maintenance

Waterfall PM
(Fig 2: The Waterfall Model Framework)
(Source: Alshamrani and Bahattab 106)

Working of Waterfall PM
 The Waterfall PM puts their primary emphasis on
documentation and the source code
 The working strategy of this model follows a structured
approach
 They provide identifiable milestones within the
development process

Difference of Agile from
Traditional PM
Characteristics Traditional PM Agile PM
Structure of
Organization
Linear nature Iterative nature
Project Scale Medium and small
scale (Ahimbisibwe,
Cavana and
Daellenbach 24)
Large scale
Requirements of
User
Defined before
implementation
Interactive input
Development model Life Cycle Evolutionary delivery
Customer
Involvement
They get involved in
early stages of project
They get involved from
the time work is
initiated

Agile versus Traditional Methods
(Fig 3: Research of Dr. David F. Rico on Agile versus
Traditional Methods)

Difference of Agile from Waterfall
PM
Characteristic
s
Waterfall PM Agile PM
Features/Scope Would work well when
scope would be defined
Changes are welcomed
when scope is not
defined
Team Synchronization is limited Smaller and dedicated
teams are required
Customer
Availability
Customer involvement is
required at milestones
Customer availability is
required throughout
project (Elghondakly,
Moussa and Badr 609)
Funding Reduce of risks in price
contracts
Price is defined as per
materials and time

Waterfall versus Agile
(Fig 4: Waterfall versus Agile Methodologies)
(Source: Elghondakly, Moussa and Badr 610)

Benefits of Agile to Project
 Agile methodology leads to higher product quality
 Leads to high customer satisfaction
 Increases control over project (Serrador and Pinto
1049)
 Reduced risks and Fast Return on Investment (ROI)

Benefits of Waterfall Model to Project
 Simple and easy usage
 Easy management due to rigid model
 Start and end points of each of the phases are set
 Detailed documentation provides resistance to changes

References
Ahimbisibwe, Arthur, Robert Y. Cavana, and Urs Daellenbach. "A contingency fit model
of critical success factors for software development projects: A comparison of agile
and traditional plan-based methodologies." Journal of Enterprise Information
Management 28.1 (2015): 7-33.
Alshamrani, Adel, and Abdullah Bahattab. "A comparison between three SDLC models
waterfall model, spiral model, and Incremental/Iterative model." International Journal
of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI) 12.1 (2015): 106.
Elghondakly, Roaa, Sherin Moussa, and Nagwa Badr. "Waterfall and agile
requirements-based model for automated test cases generation." 2015 IEEE Seventh
International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Information Systems (ICICIS).
IEEE, 2015.
Rasnacis, Arturs, and Solvita Berzisa. "Method for adaptation and implementation of
Agile project management methodology." Procedia Computer Science 104 (2017): 43-
50.
Serrador, Pedro, and Jeffrey K. Pinto. "Does Agile work?—A quantitative analysis of
agile project success." International Journal of Project Management 33.5 (2015): 1040-
1051.

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