Agile Vs Traditional Project Management – Why Agile?

Things and Practices have their own lifecycle and lifecycle is bound with the phases, with the change of time, phase change happens. Things and practices which are fit and hit in a certain phase may need change and evolution to be fit and hit again to meet the purpose in the next phase. Problems and the Pain areas, Learnings, and the experiences of the previous phases when understood and further incorporated to evolve and change then it makes the Things and Practices fit and adaptable in the next phases.

Though Agile came into existence and manifesto was born around two decades ago in 2000, the majority of the organizations started adopting this practice in the last 10 years when Industry started moving at a faster pace to fulfil the rapidly changing customer needs. It became important to match up with rapidly changing needs to remain in the race and to go early in the market to reap out the benefits. Organizations following the Waterfall and other traditional Methodologies were unable to shorten the development time and found themselves unable to quickly respond to the changing customer needs during the development phase.

This all contributed to the low acceptance and preference of the Waterfall Model and the future of Development changed forever. Time got changed, Season got changed and finally, the Episode got changed, A Manifesto is born and Agile comes into the Focus.

Agile is a buzz world nowadays and there is a lot of buzz around Agility and its adoption across the industry.

To make a fair case to influence Management & Leadership Team to move to Agile from traditional management, further will distribute the rest of the writeup in four parts:

1.????Comparison between Agile and Waterfall on different aspects in simple Tabular format

2.????Why Agile is better than Waterfall

3.????Brief Presentation of Agile touching on the Bigger Values and positives of it

4.????Impression with the Pilot run and Data-Driven Statistics

Why Agile is better than Waterfall

1. Fewer Chances of Functional Defects and Gaps in the Expected Results:

Following Agile methodology, the working product gets Quickly Ready right from the first sprint and further gets incrementally built with additional features sprint by sprint. This way the Product is being consistently tested and Defects and Errors are being fixed intermittently and it does not cause complete failure when the final product is delivered.?In adverse to this, in the Waterfall model, Value delivery and the final product would be ready at the end of the project and there could be the chances of complete failure.

Hence Agile Eliminates the Chances of Failures.

2.????Edge of Flexibility, Openness to change, and Additions:

In the Waterfall model, it is not possible to go back once a step is completed however Agile gives the flexibility to shape up the product with the help of the MVP concept and iterative approach to follow and change if anything is left.

Also, at any stage of the product development, Agile Welcomes the changes and gives the flexibility to adapt and accept the change and Additions as per the customer’s needs.

3.????More Predictable End Product and Transparency in Progress:

In the Waterfall model, the Product is tested when it is ready for the test phase and If any customer requirements were not captured correctly and got slipped then making any adjustments in the product is too late, and getting those changes done at this stage may result in delay and extra budget to get it done however in Agile, testing happens regularly at every sprint through the whole process, and customer periodically?checks that the product is what they envisioned. This way with regular checks by Customers, it is more predictable that what would be the End product. Sprint by Sprint progress is visible to all stakeholders and brings Transparency in Product Progress.

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4.????Customer focussed and High Customer Satisfaction:

The waterfall model does not facilitate to cater the evolving customer needs and in case any change is identified at later stages, it is tough to accept it in the waterfall model as all the phases are so tightly coupled that making change at any stage would impact all others and it needs to restart from the initial and in such states, the customer feels locked because processes and contracts are like this which are not helpful.

In adverse to this, the Agile model is more customer focussed where Customer needs are supreme. Deliverable and planning could be adjusted with Priorities and requirements of Customer to ultimately meet the customer Goals and end up with High Customer satisfaction.

5.????Empowered Teams and Opportunity for Creativity to add Exciters:

In the Agile world, Teams are self-organizing and motivated towards meeting the Org Goal They work as a connected unit and work in a collaborative environment with the involvement of every stakeholder, this gives a real feeling of Team. Every team member is visible, and every-one feels important. The team is given the responsibility to deliver the project and this allows the team members to define and deliver their work in their own way as it fits.

Learning is encouraged and when the team is allowed to work how they want it gives the opportunity for creativity and it might result in some new features to be added as Exciters to the whole delivery.

Whereas in the Waterfall model, Team members are bound with the given documented requirements and they need to deliver it as it is mentioned in the Project contract within the agreed timelines which kills the creativity and scope for learning.

Brief Presentation of Agile touching on the Bigger Values and Positives of it:

1.????Agile is an Empirical Process – Agile Manifesto says it all which is very practical:

Agile Manifesto itself is the strong influencing presentation of Value and culture that Agile recommends.

It is very practical and made based on Empirical experiences which give more value to People rather not to Robots.

4 Manifestos supported by 12 Principles says it all about what Agile is and going through it in detail, changes the mindset and makes a lasting impression and I guess this is enough to influence anyone.

2.????Fail Fast, Succeed Faster:

Agile gives the flexibility to decide the Iteration length (Sprint Length) and based on the type & Nature of the Project (I.e., Complex Project -Short Iteration Length, Medium Sprint Length Project, etc) once Sprint length is decided, it helps to retrospect quickly for failure and to fix it quickly to avoid it to appear very late in the project cycle. This way Agile helps to Fail Fast which is ultimately enabling to Succeed Faster.

3.????Psychological Safety and Greater Team Collaboration:

Agile is all about the mindset and the Culture. It creates a great Team Culture and open environment where Team Members feel free to express themselves and connected as an extended family. If we talk about SCRUM the most popular framework of Agile, it has 4 Scrum ceremonies 1. Sprint Planning, 2. Daily Stand-ups 3. Sprint Review 4. Sprint Retrospective

Each of the 4 ceremonies has maximum engagement and it all carries a definite purpose. A-Team is called Team when it has collaboration and connection within team members, Agile lays the platform of collaboration and enables the Team to achieve it.

As soon as culture changes, People understand their roles and responsibilities and start acting with a bigger sense of ownership and commitment and it generates the feeling of Psychological Safety.

4.????The Biggest Deal:

In the current world, it is a race of reaping out early benefits, who so ever quickly react and accept the changes, wins the race.

Now when things are rapidly changing, It is adding the complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainties in the requirements, and Agile fits best here.

Agile enables the capability to create and adapt to change for competitive advantage in the VUCA environment. (V- Volatile, U- Uncertain, C- Complex, A- Ambiguous).

Things would not be clear at the start however in a progressive elaboration with the time, it all gets clearer and the untidy bits get joined.

And Agile deals with this biggest deal in Product Development.

Impression with the Pilot run and Data-Driven Statistics:

Finally running through with all the comparisons, salient features, and Positives of Agile, the last nail to influence Higher Management and leadership, is the Data-Driven statistics and a Pilot run. ?

If possible, prepare for a Plot run on a small requirement and let the outcome speak its own with the data stats.

To learn from other’s experiences and success stories after moving to agile, collected a few of the statistics to influence Management: (Sources Google)

1.????Surveys show 49%?of the?Agile projects are successful. However, this percentage is restricted to 14% in Waterfall.

2.????55% of Agile Projects got delivered on time.

3.????57% of Agile Projects generated higher customer satisfaction.

Few Bigger players in Industry following Agile:

Amazon, Hp, Accenture, PayPal, etc

Ultimately the Story-Driven, Value-Driven, and Data-Driven aspects are presented to influence the Management and Senior Leadership to move to Agile from the Traditional Management.

Once you start influencing, Agile Starts and if you are able to change the Mindset and align it towards Agile Mindset then the job is done and the rest and next would be the automatic outcome because

“Agile is a Mindset and Agility is a capability”.

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