Perhaps the first and most obvious reason that Agile methodology is seen as the winner in the Waterfall Vs. Agile debate by its proponents is that Agile's origins stem from the shortcomings of the former. Rather than using a more traditional sequential design process, Agile breaks things down into incremental modules and allows for testing and collaborative brainstorming as each individual module is developed, rather than one big team effort at the end of the development cycle.
This process encourages team unity and allows for customer feedback throughout the process. In itself this can be viewed as quite an advantage because solutions can be made to design flaws and customer complaints before the product is deemed final. This can result in significant cost savings because there is much less of a need to backtrack or the worst case scenario, which is to start all over.
Agile also allows for updates and features to be added to stay current with emerging industry trends. Sometimes with the Waterfall approach, before a product is actually released to the target audience it is outdated and a catastrophic fail because it doesn't allow for updates during design. Because product evolution is built into the Agile environment, vital changes can be made on the fly, implemented appropriately, tested, and successfully added to the final product before its release.
Another advantage lies in the fact that defects can be discovered early on and solutions can be implemented during the development process, making for far less disappointing surprises at the end stage of a product developed with the Waterfall methodology.
Detractors of Agile complain that the focus of it is on principles rather than relying on a high quality process. In the end, it really becomes a choice of collaboration versus an undying belief that your process is better than everyone else's. Only you can decide which is right for your organization.
"Contensive" is an information technology company that specializes in developing easy solutions to complex problems. Please contact us today for more information on any of our services including web development, mobile applications, online integration, and responsive design.
Open Up Feed