Agile vs waterfall is the development world’s version of Xbox vs Playstation. Which one should you use and why? What are the benefits of using either one? Is there really that big of a difference between the two?
But unlike Xbox vs Playstation, there is a clear winner here.
Agile development helps teams manage their workload far better than waterfall development methods. This enables team members to work better and boost productivity while remaining within budget.
Agile development teams can also react better to any updates or changes made to the original project plan.
But this is the tip of the iceberg.
From predictability to adaptability, there are many more reasons why you should choose agile development over waterfall development and that’s what this article is going to show you.
Completing Work That Matters
Instead of spending time creating a detailed plan that aims (but will probably fail) to meet all the expectations of the project, agile development teams start with small sections or work. From there, they will assess any progress that has been made.
Once positive feedback has been received, they can progress.
The Agile Manifesto lays out the principles of how to work in an agile team. The guidelines were created by software developers themselves to show managers and clients what they can expect.
Iterative work is one of the areas that agile development teams work on. They complete jobs in short cycles, finishing small portions of the project at a time.
This means that less time is wasted on work that doesn’t really need to be done.
In the event that something changes within the project, it’s likely that teams will only have to re-work tasks to the minimum. Compare that to waterfall development where if you go down too far and something changes, you need to start all over again, taking up more time and resources.
More Efficient Teams
Agile development teams are highly efficient. Once they start a job, it gets done. This is because agile teams share workloads to ensure tasks are completed on time, creating a healthy working culture that people love to be a part of.
When the entire team is on the same page and knows what the most important task is, the project can move forward in one smooth, uniform motion.
There is a direct correlation between collaboration and efficiency. An article by Forbes shows that companies that promoted collaborative working were 5 times as likely to be high performing.
Looking into this a little more and you see that agile teams are all connected by these sets of characteristics. The same cannot be said about waterfall development.
Agile Is Scalable
According to Pranjal Bora at Digital Authority Partners, two of the main factors that determine whether or not a mobile app development company can progress are time and money.
This means it’s important to understand what can be done with existing resources and how to distribute team members that provide more value to the project.
One of the main tasks of a manager is to ensure that team members and resources are all being used to the best of their ability.
Agile development ensure that businesses can scale a project efficiently.
Project managers can analyze each team member to understand where they best fit into the project, without having to bring in new people or spending extra money on an external contractor.
On the other hand, they must also be careful distributing resources and not actually getting the value they thought they would.
To overcome these problems, companies that don’t follow agile development tell their team members to work longer hours. This has a negative impact on the working environment. While it may work as a short-term solution, over time team members will be overworked, leading to fatigue and reducing morale
The end result is almost always worse productivity and a drop in working standards.
For these reasons, agile development is necessary – particularly for larger companies.
According to Orthogonal, agile principles can be applied over a number of project areas to ensure this doesn’t happen. Managers analyze productivity to identify any areas of improvement and move quickly to address and solve the problem.
Since agile teams are collaborative, resources can be assigned to the urgent task.
Agile Teams Are Adaptable
While it’s impossible to predict the future, it’s not impossible to prepare for changes or updates to a project. This is a cornerstone of agile project management.
In the event of these changes, executives can enjoy the fact that agile project managers can remain within budget and ensure their teams remain on track.
This keeps everyone happy; managers can trust in their teams to deliver the product and executives and shareholders don’t have to worry about overspending to meet a deadline.
Predictability
The success of a company is measured by how much it brings in compared to how much it spends. If the potential return heavily outweighs the costs, it’s highly likely that the company will proceed with the project.
However, if the cost of the project is unclear, it is impossible to predict if that project will be a success.
This means that it’s so important to have a structure in place that gives you the best shot at knowing where the project is heading.
Agile development ensures that by using agile techniques, they take enough time to measure and plan the job. That way, they can calculate if they should proceed with the project.
This is different from the waterfall development approach where costs are totalled as the project evolves. What was once thought of as a successful project can turn into a failure without the proper advanced planning.
Conclusion
Agile development works because of the many characteristics it embodies and encourages team members to practice. Using agile for your mobile app development will make you successful. And the best part is that the agile movement is still evolving. It will only continue to get better over the years, keeping your team happy and motivated in a thriving, productive working environment.
This article was contributed by Julian Gnatenco at JGBilling
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