What is Agile?

Agile is a time-boxed, iterative approach to software delivery that builds and delivers software incrementally instead of all at once at the end of the development cycle.

It works by breaking projects into little bits of user functionality called user stories, prioritizing them and then continuously delivering these stories in short two week cycles called sprints.

What is Waterfall?

Waterfall is a style of project management that treats analysis, design, coding, and testing as discrete phases in a software project.

This was good for back when the cost of change was high. Times have now changed and with the cost of change being lower than ever, the waterfall approach now actively hurts the development process instead of helping it.

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Agile vs Waterfall

Pros of Agile

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• Quality improvements due to testing being done from day one
• Client side visibility improves because the client is always involved in every step of the process
• Risk is reduced because the client are getting feedback early and consistently
• Clients are happy because they can request changes to the software being developed at anytime without paying a premium for it

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Cons of Waterfall

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• Delivers a product of lesser quality compared to Agile
• Reduced visibility from the client side
• Higher risk since it's all delivered at once
• Low capacity for change and costly even then

We at USITplus can help you implement the Agile process
in your company.

The picture below visually describes the
software development process with Agile/Scrum
management in place.