Agile or Waterfall: Which Software Development Methodology is Best Suitable For You?

22 Jun 2016

Managing the projects effectively is one of the most important & critical aspects of any organization. Every company has wide range of projects that require the involvement of entire departments. Every project comes with a tight deadline, and it is quite imperative for your company to deliver the project within the stipulated timeline. That is why the project development process needs a sure fire methodology that can take care of the timeline, minimize the risk factor, and improve the resource efficiency.

When you opt a fool-proof project methodology, you never need to analyze the processes each time you begin the project; you just need to follow the process of methodology step by step. Software Development India shares two different world accepted software development methodologies.

1. Waterfall Methodology: This methodology includes a sequential approach to project completion. Sequence that is generally followed in waterfall methodology:

• Requirement accumulation
• Design
• Simple Coding
• System testing
• User oriented testing
• Sort out the issues and fixing the bugs (if any)
• Project delivery

 All the aforementioned phases are crucial for competitive quality software development project. Every thing has some pros and cons and same with the waterfall methodology of software development.

The Pros of the waterfall methodology:

• raightforward planning as clients & software experts are on the same platform of the development lifecycle.
• Scope of work and efficiency are well defined in advanced, therefore, it is quite easy to scale your project’s output and performance

 The Cons of the waterfall methodology

• This approach sometime lacks flexibility and adaptability, as it is more strict.
• The final output of the project is extensively based on the requirement gathered and documented in advanced, which means the client can't see what is going to be delivered till it is actually delivered.

 2. Agile Methodology: It is more flexible and works towards breakneck completion. The approach does not consider defined tasks, schedules, rather it integrates time-frame sprints that are repetitive & team based. The methodology is flexible and so, the work can be re-prioritized.

The Pros of the Agile Methodology

• The client has ability to review the work at any time, which allows them to make changes during the project development process.
• This process allows for a quick time-to-market, with the release of a basic version.

 The Cons of the Agile Methodology

• There is a great chance that some of the deliverables are not ready by the defined time-frame.
• If the team members have same physical working space, then working is quite easy. But, when they are working in remote, the coordination may be slightly difficult and tedious.