This post is from leadingagile.com by Dennis Stevens.
Agile versus Waterfall
These words have become completely overloaded when discussing product development. Lots of conversations about helping organizations improve their product development processes go sideways based on individual perspectives about the meaning of Waterfall and Agile. At this point these words don’t provide a distinction that is helpful when we are trying to figure out how to build products in organizations. It’s a red-herring contradiction. When I hear someone say “we need to do that Waterfall” or “that wouldn’t work in Agile” or “we can use Agile for that project” then I want to stop and ask “what does Agile mean to you?” or “what do you mean by Waterfall?”
I want to break down this debate into a clearer discussion around specific characteristics; Type of Effort, Upfront Planning, Sequencing and Feedback, and Composition of Teams. Then talk about how understanding these characteristics helps us improve the ability to be predictable and achieve the fastest time to ROI.
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