Traditional Versus Agile Project Management: Which One is the Right Fit for You?

In this fast-paced and extensively competitive world, project management is the most significant pillar helping all businesses to run, avoiding all the possible hindrances in their processes. Small- and large-scale enterprises from place to place depends upon project management systems from the production to delivery of their products/services successfully. Team workflow management or timing, these practices assist and ensure that the functions' flow is carried out in a hassle-free way while achieving the set objectives.

From the various project management styles, it boils down to the two most effective approaches, which are the most suitable for nearly all the businesses, namely, Traditional and Agile Project Management. Dynamism is the only constant these days, and to keep up with that, Agile Project Management is winning the race. Let’s discuss some of their features and benefits, and decide which one is more effective.?

Traditional Project Management?

Traditional Project Management is the approach where there is a predetermined sequence that is to be followed. This concept highly relies on predictable tools along with experience. Every project trails a similar life-cycle comprising stages like planning, designing, building, checking, production, and support.??

The whole project is planned without any room for altering the requirements. Assumptions of this approach are that cost and time are the variables, and requirements are static. The rigorous nature of this method is the main reason why it is not suitable for huge projects and takes away all the scope for improvement or altering the requirements as and when the project development begins, due to which it faces budget and timeline issues.?

Advantages of Traditional Project Management

• The traditional project management style lays out?clearly defined objectives?that are strictly followed by the organization.
• This approach has?complete control?over all the processes, which is both the boon and bane.?
• Clear documentation?is an important feature of this approach so as to covey all the crucial information with utmost simplicity and clarity.??
• It involves?more accountability?as well as a responsibility than any other style.?

Agile project management

The agile project management approach, commonly used for software development, give prominence to teamwork, collaboration, and flexibility so as to be able to instantly respond to change whenever required. This approach’s emphasis is more on interactions and individuals instead of tools and processes. Comprehensive documentation is given much less importance as working software is more vital. Customer collaboration, as well as adaptive planning, are the features making it stand out and the favorite of all the managers globally.?

Rather than recklessly following a predetermined rigid plan, this approach allows changes that are essential in this constantly changing and fast-moving world. Agile follows a type of process in which projects are segmented into sprints of shorter duration. Contrasting the traditional approach, planning and prioritization are given less amount of attention and time as agile is more elastic in terms of development and changes.?

Advantages of Agile Project management

• Attention can be flexibly prioritized on some non-recent information which can be beneficial for the organization.??
• In this approach, early and predictable delivery is guaranteed, along with proper customer collaboration.?
• The quality tends to improve if the organization is following this approach of project management.?
• It allows more transparency in the organization, which always wins the trust of its employees as well as customers.?

Why is Agile Project Management preferred over the traditional approach??

Most of the project managers prefer Agile over traditional because of variety of reasons which are:?

• Self-organized?

Agile Project Management strongly believes in teamwork rather than rigorously managing the employees by a central line of control. Each and every team is trained to be managed by itself with the minimum amount of external guidance. Teams interact within themselves for the discussions and processes of the project, as they otherwise lack self-sufficiency.?

Generally, this approach comprises of three parts, namely the product owner, the most important person who supervises the projects; the scrum master manages all the processes involved; lastly, the team, which is the backbone of every project. These three make the running of projects extremely simple and smooth, hence achieving the goals even before time.?

• Transparency

In agile methodology, each and everything is transparent. The decision-makers, as well as the clients, are actively included in the commencement, planning, evaluation, and testing phases of a product. While in the traditional approach, only the project manager makes most of the important decisions making it quite complicated to be transparent.?

The agile methodology lets the team members view and evaluate their progress right from the beginning to the end. This high level of transparency plays a crucial role in creating a healthy work atmosphere.

• Project complexity?

As discussed above, the linear approach of the traditional project management approach, due to that and its rigidity, is only suitable for small-scale projects and some medium-scale as well.?

Whereas Agile is the best option when it comes to large-scale and complex projects as it allows sudden changes and is also flexible in terms of development in the specifications as and when required.?

• Adequate Room for feedback?

With the high acceptance of feedbacks and criticism, Agile methodology has become the preference of nearly all project managers and software developers. As in the traditional style, the predetermined processes don’t leave any space for feedbacks as it might result in a delay in meeting the required targets, while in Agile project management, regular attention is paid towards customer requests which makes this methodology even more desirable.?

Parameters to be considered while choosing the methodologies

In reality, there isn’t a single methodology that is suitable for every organization or project. The selection of a methodology basically depends on factors like the nature, size, and available resources of the project.?

Smart project managers mostly decide which methodology is more suitable during the commencement or initiation of the project. The ultimate call in the agreement is taken by the project manager along with other project people and sponsors involved in the planning process. Below are some factors listed that you should take into consideration in selecting the right methodology for your project:

• If the requirement of a project is unclear or tends to change, go for the agile methodology. And, the traditional methodology is best for a project where there are clearly defined and well-understood requirements from the first go.
• The technology involved in the business plays a very important role in deciding the style of project management, technology involves experiments that can be possible with Agile only, but for the projects involving less technological aspects, the traditional approach is also considerable.?
• If the project remains prone to unwanted risks, without any doubt, Agile is the methodology you should go for over the traditional management.?
• Another significant factor is the availability of resources. The traditional approach is more suitable for complex and big teams and projects. While an agile team generally consists of a limited number of knowledgeable and skilled team members.

Endnotes

In this constant war going on between traditional and agile project management, the latter is evidently the winner. In lieu of the continuously changing nature of businesses in the present times, there are variations in every next moment; selecting and sticking to agile methodology will prove to be a beneficial option for organizations.