Over the course of a project, youll make hundreds of decisions. And one of the first decisions youll make is choosing which project management methodology to follow.
From Agile to Scrum to Waterfall to Kanban, there are a variety of different project management frameworks. Some, like Scrum, follow a more rigid, structured methodology. Others, like Kanban, are easier to introduce and implement on top of existing processes. They all have pros and cons, so how do you know which one to choose?
This article will cover the differences between Agile vs Scrum vs Waterfall vs Kanban. Well talk about the advantages, disadvantages, stages, and when you should use each one. In this article
Agile software development is based on an incremental, iterative approach. Instead of in-depth planning at the beginning of the project, Agile methodologies are open to changing requirements over time and encourages constant feedback from the end users. Cross-functional teams work on iterations of a product over a period of time, and this work is organized into a backlog that is prioritized based on business or customer value. The goal of each iteration is to produce a working product.
In Agile methodologies, leadership encourages teamwork, accountability, and face-to-face communication. Business stakeholders and developers must work together to align the product with customer needs and company goals.
Agile refers to any process that aligns with the concepts of the Agile Manifesto. In February 2001, 17 software developers met in Utah to discuss lightweight development methods. They published the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, which covered how they found “better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it” and included four values and 12 principles. The Agile Manifesto is a dramatic contrast to the traditional text A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and standards.
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When starting a new project one of the most important decisions is which project management methodology to use. The four most common approaches are agile waterfall, scrum, and kanban. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s crucial to understand the differences between them before deciding which is best for your particular project.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll examine agile, waterfall, scrum, and kanban methodologies in depth. We’ll look at what each entails, their pros and cons, and when each one makes the most sense to implement. By the end, you’ll have all the information you need to confidently select the right approach for your next initiative.
What is Agile?
Agile is an iterative approach to project management that focuses on continuous releases and incorporating customer feedback throughout the development cycle. Rather than a rigid, linear process like waterfall, agile is designed to be flexible and adapt to changing requirements.
Some key aspects of agile include:
- Iterative development in short cycles or sprints
- Daily standup meetings to discuss progress and obstacles
- Continuous integration and testing to ensure quality
- Heavy focus on customer collaboration and rapid feedback
- Empowered, self-organizing teams over rigid processes
- Ability to add, change, and prioritize features at any time
Instead of predefined phases, agile teams work in iterations of typically 1-4 weeks, prioritizing the most valuable features first. At the end of each sprint, a working product increment is delivered for stakeholder review and feedback.
This emphasis on quick adaptation makes agile a popular choice for software development, website design, marketing campaigns, and other projects with rapidly evolving requirements.
Advantages of Agile
- Faster time to market due to continuous delivery
- Increased flexibility to change direction
- Higher customer satisfaction through collaboration
- Continuous feedback and improvements
- Issues identified and fixed early and often
- Better team morale due to sense of progress
Disadvantages of Agile
- Scope creep can lead to missed deadlines and over budget
- Less predictability due to changing priorities
- Lack of documentation can cause knowledge gaps
- Daily standups reduce focus time for developers
- Requires customer availability for feedback
What is Waterfall?
Waterfall is a linear, sequential approach to project management. It proceeds through a predetermined sequence of phases, with strict guidelines about when each phase begins and ends.
The basic phases in waterfall are:
- Requirements – Define project scope and objectives
- Design – Create technical specifications and plans
- Implementation – Develop, code, and configure the project
- Testing – Perform integration and system testing
- Deployment – Release the finished product
- Maintenance – Provide ongoing support and fixes
Waterfall emphasizes meticulous upfront planning, with all requirements defined early on before any development begins. Once a phase is complete, the project proceeds to the next predefined stage. There are no iterations – after deployment, any changes have to go through a strict change control process.
This rigid, linear approach works well for projects with fixed requirements and technology, such as construction, manufacturing, and enterprise software rollouts. The emphasis on documentation and sign-offs makes it popular for projects with regulatory compliance needs as well.
Advantages of Waterfall
- Strict requirements control scope creep
- Easy to manage with phases and milestones
- Lets you track progress accurately
- Documentation provides information stability
- Works well when requirements are fixed
Disadvantages of Waterfall
- No working software until late in the lifecycle
- Difficult to accommodate changes after requirements set
- Integration issues from delayed testing
- Customer only sees product at the end
- Not suited for complex or undefined projects
What is Scrum?
Scrum is one of the most popular agile frameworks. It prescribes specific roles, meetings, tools, and best practices for delivering products iteratively and incrementally.
Some core aspects of scrum include:
- The product backlog – Prioritized list of project requirements
- Fixed-length sprints, typically 2-4 weeks
- Daily 15-minute standup meetings within each sprint
- At the end of each sprint, a shippable product increment
- The scrum master role leads the agile process
- The product owner represents stakeholders and prioritizes the backlog
- Scrum teams are cross-functional and self-organizing
Rather than fixed phases and roles, scrum focuses on flexibility, adaptability, and continuous improvement. Work is divided into short, repeatable sprints so the team can constantly assess progress and adjust based on feedback.
The structured rituals and clearly defined roles make scrum a popular agile approach for product development, engineering, and other teams delivering complex, rapidly changing projects.
Advantages of Scrum
- Increased transparency from daily standups
- Continuous feedback and improvements
- Motivated teams from sense of progress
- Clear prioritization from product backlog
- Reduced risk through iterative development
- Flexibility to change direction rapidly
Disadvantages of Scrum
- Scope creep without proper product owner
- Daily standups reduce individual focus time
- Scrum master role can be hard to fulfill
- Challenging for distributed teams
- Requirement for shippable increment each sprint
What is Kanban?
Kanban is a workflow management approach designed to help visualize work, maximize efficiency, and continuously improve processes.
The main components of kanban include:
- The kanban board – Columns represent each stage of work, cards represent individual tasks
- Work in progress (WIP) limits – Constraints on amount of work for each stage
- Continuous delivery – Move cards smoothly through the workflow
- Transparency – All team members can view progress
- Focus on flow – Smooth, continuous movement of work
Rather than timeboxed sprints, work progresses through each stage continuously, with new items added as capacity becomes available. This pull-based approach helps balance demands with available capacity and highlights bottlenecks or inefficiencies in the process.
Kanban is often used in IT, software development, and operations to manage requests, bug fixes, releases, and more. The highly visual nature and focus on process improvement also makes kanban popular for departments like marketing, sales, HR, and finance.
Advantages of Kanban
- Visualization improves transparency
- Smooth workflow and faster delivery
- Identification and removal of bottlenecks
- Flexibility to add work at any time
- Promotes continuous process improvement
- Less prescriptive than scrum
Disadvantages of Kanban
- Lack of time boundaries can lead to stagnation
- Requires discipline around WIP limits
- Team autonomy can lead to confusion
- Less structured than other frameworks
- Not ideal for defined delivery milestones
How to Choose the Right Methodology
So which approach is right for your particular project? Here are some key factors to consider:
Project Uncertainty
- Agile or scrum for rapidly changing scope
- Waterfall for defined, regimented projects
Team Experience
- Waterfall provides structure for junior teams
- Scrum needs experienced agile practitioners
- Kanban provides flexibility for varied experience
Release Frequency
- Scrum enables regular delivery cadence
- Kanban facilitates continuous flow
- Waterfall focuses on one major release
Team Distribution
- Waterfall works for dispersed teams
- Agile struggles with distributed teams
- Kanban can work through strict WIP limits
Requirements Upfront
- Waterfall demands detailed specifications first
- Agile and scrum can start with a product vision
- Kanban starts with existing process definition
Compliance Needs
- Waterfall provides formal approval gates
- Agile struggles with external compliance
- Scrum rituals improve visibility
- Kanban can incorporate approval workflows
As you assess your particular project, consider how it aligns with each methodology’s strengths and weaknesses. For many initiatives, a hybrid approach drawing elements from multiple frameworks may be the best fit. The important thing is to understand the key differences between these four options so you can make an informed decision.
Wrapping Up
Whether you choose agile, scrum, waterfall, kanban, or a hybrid approach, the most important factor is picking a methodology that enables your team to deliver. Focus on open communication, continuous improvement, and adapting as you learn. With the right framework in place that fits your project’s needs, you’ll be well on your way to success.
To recap, here are the key differences between the four main options:
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Agile emphasizes flexibility, rapid iterations, and incorporating continuous feedback.
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Waterfall is structured, linear, and predicated on rigorous upfront planning.
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Scrum introduces specific roles, rituals, and artifacts to enable iterative delivery.
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Kanban improves workflow through focus on visualization and WIP constraints.
Hopefully this overview has helped provide clarity on these common methodologies. Don’t be afraid to evolve your approach over time – the goal is always to find what works best for delivering high-quality work efficiently. With the right methodology guiding your team, the sky is the limit.
12 Principles of Agile Methodology
The Agile Manifesto lists 12 principles to guide teams on how to execute with agility. These are the principles:
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
- Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with preference to the shorter timescale.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Agile evolved from different lightweight software approaches in the 1990s and is a response to some project managers’ dislike of the rigid, linear Waterfall methodology. It focuses on flexibility, continuous improvement, and speed.
Here are some of the top advantages of Agile:
- Change is embraced: With shorter planning cycles, it’s easy to accommodate and accept changes at any time during the project. There is always an opportunity to refine and reprioritize the backlog, letting teams introduce changes to the project in a matter of weeks.
- End-goal can be unknown: Agile is very beneficial for projects where the end-goal is not clearly defined. As the project progresses, the goals will come to light and development can easily adapt to these evolving requirements.
- Faster, high-quality delivery: Breaking down the project into iterations (manageable units) allows the team to focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. Conducting testing during each iteration means that bugs get identified and solved more quickly. And this high-quality software can be delivered faster with consistent, successive iterations.
- Strong team interaction: Agile highlights the importance of frequent communication and face-to-face interactions. Teams work together and people are able to take responsibility and own parts of the projects.
- Customers are heard: Customers have many opportunities to see the work being delivered, share their input, and have a real impact on the end product. They can gain a sense of ownership by working so closely with the project team.
- Continuous improvement: Agile projects encourage feedback from users and team members throughout the whole project, so lessons learned are used to improve future iterations.
How Waterfall Deals with Software Requirements
Waterfall projects define all software requirements upfront. The project cannot proceed unless these requirements have been identified and documented.
Some Waterfall projects may have a dedicated team to capture, collect, and gather these requirements. They may use questionnaires, face-to-face or phone interviews, white boards, and software tools to capture stakeholder and customer requirements.
Once the initial requirements are defined, the team should produce a requirements specification document (sometimes they may create more than one). This document defines what needs to be delivered so everyone understands the scope of the project.
Scrum vs Kanban – What’s the Difference?
Is Kanban a good tool for agile vs waterfall?
Kanban works well to: Perhaps the most important thing to remember from an Agile vs Waterfall vs Kanban vs Scrum comparison is to recognize how Kanban can be useful to the Scrum process. Scrum teams can use Kanban boards to plan and visualize their sprints and track any backlogs discovered during Scrum retrospectives.
What is the difference between agile vs Kanban?
As well, in Agile vs Kanban we explain that Agile projects can use Kanban without adopting the Scrum approach. Similarly, Kanban boards can help project managers visualize their progress within a Waterfall framework.
What is the difference between agile & waterfall?
Here’s a concise explanation of the key differences between Agile (Scrum & Kanban) and Waterfall: Structure: Waterfall is rigid and linear, with phases completed sequentially. Agile (Scrum & Kanban) is flexible and iterative, adapting to change. Planning: Waterfall involves upfront planning for the entire project.
Is Kanban better than scrum?
When comparing Kanban versus Scrum, there is no definitive winner. The best framework depends on your project, team, and your goals. Because both Kanban and Scrum are flexible Agile methodologies, you could easily take principles from each and apply them as you see necessary.
