Agile Meets Waterfall

Agile Meets Waterfall:Bringing Teams and Projects Together : 

Agile Meets Waterfall:Bringing Teams and Projects Together Jim Flanagan ITMGMT 500 Spring 2009

Introduction : 

Introduction What is Waterfall? What is Agile? Comparing Agile to Waterfall Merging Teams Merging Projects The Bottom Line Q & A

What is Waterfall? : 

What is Waterfall? Sequential development process Discrete steps Requirements Design Implementation Test Long running, typically months but may span years Well documented design Emphasis on knowing everything upfront Can be rigid and inflexible Theme: Measure twice, cut once

Slide 4: 

Sample Waterfall Project

What is Agile? : 

What is Agile? Short timeframe, iterative development cycles (Sprint) Daily communication (Scrum) Emphasis on small, cross functional teams Face-to-face rather than written documentation "Releasable" code after every Sprint Can be dogmatic Theme: Iterative refinement

Slide 6: 

Sample Agile Project

Comparing Agile to Waterfall : 

Comparing Agile to Waterfall Strengths of Waterfall Communication with outside groups Strategic planning Lot's of documentation Strengths of Agile Tight control over schedule and milestones Focus on customer features Integrated development and testing Observation Agile is good for implementing features Waterfall is good for implementing product

Bringing the Team Together : 

Bringing the Team Together The Challenge Merge 2 teams Remote development team uses Agile Local development team uses Waterfall Mutual despise The Observation Most seasoned developers naturally use Agile!  The Plan Ditch the ideology...focus on the way people work Be flexible

Bringing the Project Together : 

Bringing the Project Together The Challenge Lack of strategic product plan Lack of coherent test plan Lack of release process Lack of documentation   The Observation A Waterfall project has all of these!   The Plan Use Waterfall to plan, document, and release the product Use Agile to develop the software

Slide 10: 

Merged Agile/Waterfall Project

The Bottom Line : 

The Bottom Line Is it working? Yes! Projects are shipping on schedule   Is it perfect? No...but it works better than either process before!   Are people happy? Yes! Developers can focus on feature development Product Management can plan a release QA has time to test Senior Management has accurate status My team is focused and engaged

Q&A : 

Q&A