One Pager Cheat Sheet
- This tutorial offers a comprehensive overview of the Waterfall and Agile development methodologies, discussing each of their
advantages
anddrawbacks
as well as the types of projects for which each of them are best suited. - The Waterfall methodology sequentially arranges distinct phases of software development from requirements to maintenance, provides estimations of the project's cost and effort, and is plan-driven with any changes requiring a restart.
- The Waterfall method is a
plan-driven
process that allows for the entire budget of a software development project to be estimated at the start, but any later changes during the course of the project would require a restart. - The Waterfall methodology has
straightforward
planning and design, better design overall, and defined roles and scope of work, but can struggle with changes, customer engagement, and large-sized projects. - One of the signficant advantages of the
Waterfall methodology
is the ability to provide clear roles and ensure bettercommunication
andcollaboration
, leading to successful projects. - Agile software development provides an iterative and
cross-functional
alternative to the Waterfall method, where sprints of a fixed duration determine the deliverables and adjust to changes as they come. - Agile software development involves breaking projects into
sprints
of fixed duration and prioritizing deliverables based on customer-determined business value. - The
Agile
methodology can providefaster software development
,increased customer satisfaction
, andbetter communication
, but requires strong commitment from the customer and can lead to additional costs. - Customer involvement in Agile methodology can be beneficial but can also be a
disadvantage
when the customer is unwilling or unable to become actively involved. - For choosing the right methodology for a project, it is dependent on the type of project, the organization, and the team; however, Waterfall is best for stable projects with a tight deadline, budget, or regulatory requirement, whereas Agile is the way to go for projects that are more flexible or require collaboration.