This is the Difference Between Agile and Waterfall model

What is Agile model – The ever so fun debate between agile methodologies and waterfall for IT development. Take a deep breath. Not only is this a big debate, but it’s often very heated. Waterfall was the way to go for many, many years. The certification in Agile is a big plus.

Agile is quick and fast response to market

The traditional practice of project management, often referred to as “waterfall” project management suffers from various drawbacks, especially when it came to meeting the needs of complex projects where the requirements cannot be stated fully till the time a prototype is developed or on wider projects where there are multiple facets of the product being produced.

In addition, when planning happens much in advance, there are chances that requirements may change by the time project comes to closing phase rendering the product ineffective or partially effective.

Compare this to a project where one module is developed in short period of time (may be 2–3 weeks), is implemented, feedback taken from users, any shortcomings identified, and feedback and identified shortcomings built in as requirements in to the next short phase of development. The benefits of Agile Project Management thus become apparent.

Waterfall is slow response to market needs

What is Waterfall model – The waterfall model is a sequential (non-iterative) design process, used in software development processes, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, production/implementation and maintenance.

Despite the development of new software development process models, the Waterfall method is still the dominant process model with over a third of software developers still using it.

The waterfall development model originates in the manufacturing and construction industries: highly structured physical environments in which after-the-fact changes are prohibitively costly, if not impossible. Because no formal software development methodologies existed at the time, this hardware-oriented model was simply adapted for software development.