Nowadays, Agile has a tremendous potential advantage over businesses, it’s important not to get lost in some of the hype that exists about Agile management style. One must also need to take more time to understand what problem Agile can potentially solve and how it will benefit your business.
Agile can pose challenges for many companies and project managers. Many organizations have an existing management system or a project management approach that is based on a traditional, plan-driven method or what is sometimes called the Waterfall model . Once the Project managers are in, they revolve around different choices like whether to continue with the traditional approach which has an emphasis on managing costs and schedules or move with the Agile management approach which can offer many benefits including faster time-to-market and higher business value. However, both have their risks associated with either losing control of projects or less focus on managing costs and schedules.
The major problem is that many companies see the agile management approach as a better option, while they make mistakes of attempting to force-fit their projects and business to either one of these extremes. It’s like attempting to plug an appliance requiring AC power into a DC outlet. The methodology may not be well-suited to the project and it might also not fit well with the company’s business environment and culture.
According to the CHAOS report 2019, “Agile Project Success Rates are 2X Higher than Traditional Projects”.
Agile has huge benefits but comparing Agile to Waterfall is misleading. It creates the impression that Agile can replace the Waterfall model. Saying Agile is Better than Waterfall is like saying A Car is better than a Boat . Each has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation and the environment you’re in. Neither Agile or Waterfall is inherently good or bad.
The level of uncertainty in a project is a major factor in choosing the right approach.
If the level of uncertainty is relatively low, a traditional plan-driven approach based on a predictive control model may be very appropriate. For example, If you are planning to build a bridge across a river, it would be ridiculous to say We’ll build the first span, see how that comes out, and then we’ll decide how to build the remaining spans .
On the other hand, if the level of uncertainty is high; a traditional plan-driven approach doesn’t work well and a more Agile or adaptive approach is probably needed. For example, if you are planning to find a cure for cancer, Would it make sense to develop a detailed plan for the effort? There are too many unknowns and uncertainties. You might need to develop a high-level plan based on what you know and possibly some assumptions to test and validate, but most of the effort would be based on a trial-and-error approach and the plan would evolve as you went along based on the results of those trials.
Both of these approaches are usable and excellent. Once you’ve decided to go with a particular methodology, this can be further refined to fit with the project goals.
