Agile vs Waterfall: Which is Better? | Deliver Projects Using Agile or Waterfall with Examples

it is time for p.m Wars we're going to be having the battle of the methodologies today in this video I'm going to be sharing all about agile and waterfall and we're going to be discussing which methodology is better so let's go hey there welcome back to my channel my name is Gaga Johnson hi to all my subscribers hey and if you're new here on this channel I share everything about a career in project management including life lessons from my project management career so if you're interested in learning about projects management and starting or advancing your project management career then click on the Subscribe button and let's learn together so like I said we're going to be having the battle of the methodologies agile versus waterfall now what are these about now agile and waterfall are project management methodologies that I use to deliver projects so as a project management professional you can decide to use any of the project management methodologies to develop and to deliver your project now when you use the waterfall methodology it's also called pretty active and that's because you can literally say and predict the different stages of how your project will go so for example you want to deliver or build a software using the waterfall methodology you probably do a feasibility study that's like the first stage and then you do let's say design you do build you do tests and you do deploy so basically you have different phases that your projects will go through in order to deliver the software at the end of the project okay so it follows a systematic process and pattern to get to the end and in waterfall um you know you plan your project from the very beginning like every single stage from the very beginning most times in a waterfall project and it's really used for projects that the process for delivering the project is very structured it's known and it's more like established like this is the way you just have to do it for example if you want to build a house you know you just need to do a foundation you need to erect the structure you need to put the roofings you need to do the you know the plumbing the electricals you need to plaster and they need to do all the Interiors like the lighting the painting and all that so that is already like a very established method of delivering a construction or a new build project so waterfall is the kind of Mythology you choose for stuff like that and then agile that is like the buzzword and you know almost everyone's mouth and that's why lots of people want to be like an agile coach or a scrub Master because the tech sector is booming and mostly you know in terms of in the tech sector you see the agile methodology employed in that sector so with agile it's agile is like a blanket term for the mindset when anyone's doing the mindset of you know an agile person in terms of you are constantly delivering value you have a plan where you're not planning everything at the beginning right your planning systematically like as you go on the project you're planning you're quickly adapting to changes because you're not saying oh no this is how we planned it we cannot change no you're very adaptable and flexible and easily change things and you're regularly interfacing with your stakeholders whether it's your sponsor your clients your customers when you're developing and building the project together so that is the kind of you know agile space and agile is really used for products that are like complex projects that you may not really know the full scope of what you want to do in terms of you're not clear on the requirement so you want to be able to change and adapt in terms of the project requirements as you go on as long as you're delivering value and also people in terms of companies love doing it because you can easily deliver value quickly so let's say I want to build an e-commerce website and there are three main features I want on this website this is what will make my website complete in terms of the project I want to have live chat support functionality I want to have obviously the function to um get you know the product and make payment and then I also want to have the functionality for you to um favorite you know an item and save it to purchase for later so these are the three main features that I want let's say feature a which is a live chat support will take two months to build and incorporate feature B which is to actually build the website the e-commerce website to have the products and the possibility to pay will take um two months and then feature C which is to be able to favorite an item and you know say before later I will take one month right it means that two months two months one month that's five months to actually launch this e-commerce website okay so that's it with waterfall you can build it like that and get it ready however if you're using agile what I could say is okay which one is most important and then you know the client will say you know what the most important is for the ability to purchase a product so the first functionality has a PM that I will ensure that is done is the functionality for the products to be on the website and just the ability to pay so without the live chat support you know function without the function to favorite and save an item for later I can in two months whatever it takes two months in two months this e-commerce website can be released because all I will do in the first release in terms of the first MVP minimum viable products the meaning of MVP the best MVP release what I will do is to release the e-commerce website where you can pick your products and you can just make payments that's it and then in two months time I will include the feature because let's see the next thing that the client says is important is I need life support so if they have any questions they can get that answer immediately so that they don't have to leave the website wait for a response via email and then come back and make payments you may lose a lot of people so you want to really chat with them instantly so that if they have any questions you answer them live instantly so that they don't leave the website they make that payment okay so you can say that's the next step so in two months I will plan to release another feature which is the 24 7 live chat support on the website now before a while I'm using that two months to build it customers can already start using the e-commerce website because it's already live and you have the capacity and the capability to pick a product and make payments so I'm already getting value and making money from my website I don't have to wait five months for everything to be done before releasing it and then in four months guess what now I have that live chat support so people already using the platform think these people are getting me they know that I need live chat support maybe you know you already complained hey I need to get my answers quickly and then you have the live chat support like yes these people are really good so and then after that one month later after the four months I make another release for you and guess what it is the ability to favorite items and do what say for later to buy you're obviously excited so within the space of two months because I use the agile methodology we're able to release your products you know go live into the market people already making purchases and two months after you release the 24 7 live chart and then a month later You released another feature where people can favorite items and then save to pay or to buy later so I'm giving you value quickly with agile right but in the waterfall you would have had everything at a time but at the end of five months now I love using agile and I think agile is a great methodology because it helps you to start getting value you know from your project in terms of the benefits from your project as quickly as possible which is great for any business however not all projects can be delivered using agile I can put it in this category when you're doing anything related to physical structure it might be best to use waterfall because you can't um you know mix and match it has a process for doing it right but when you're doing things related to software things are not related to physical components then you can really use agile for any of that because you can start from the end it doesn't matter and then do the front later on and then join them together because the software you know they don't have a particular structure so you can use agile to do it so that is why when you talk about waterfall versus agile and people say oh everyone should start using agile or agile is the best methodology as a PM it's your responsibility to decide based on your project the requirements the scope which methodology you would use on your project now if the project timeline is not too long and I know all the requirements in terms of not necessarily all the requirements because you know as projects go along you might need to change things but if I know the requirements you know maybe 80 show that they wouldn't change and it's taking just three months I could decide even if it's a software project I can decide to use 104 because in three months will be ready the requirements are not meant to change I could just plan everything from the beginning and just you know execute it as it goes and deliver it at the end of three months now if I'm not sure of the requirements I love to make changes as I go just based on you know what will work best you know demo things that know what to work best I could decide to use the agile methodology because I want to be able to make changes and adapt to changes and respond to changes quickly and I want that customer feedback regularly because I'm not sure how things will go it depends on you know as we go on we know better so I may use agile okay so that is agile this is waterfall I hope this video was able to explain those two methodologies help you to know the difference between them how to use them to deliver a project and know which one to choose for your next project thank you so much for watching and if you have any questions drop them in the comment section and I'll be sure to respond don't forget if you like this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe and share with friends and family so I have other videos where I share about a career in project management how to start or Advance your career in project management and how to grow your career or just really general knowledge on project management click on any of them and I will see you in the next video bye now

Channel: Ogaga Johnson (Project Management Coach)

Views: 8,163

Keywords: project management, projectmanagementcareer, careercoach, role of a projectmanager, certification, pmp, pmi, project management certification, scrum, agile, safe, scrum master, project manager, scrum master job, project manager job, program manager, project management methodology, waterfall, hybrid

Id: 39WSA1Olbrs

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023