Understanding the Agile Methodology and the Waterfall Development Method and Their Comparison

Agile vs. Waterfall Methodology of Software Development

This essay discusses the agile method of software development which is widely used globally by millions of software development companies to help save valuable time, money and resources. This essay also discusses the traditional method of software development, also known as the waterfall development method and compares it with Agile methodology.

To understand the benefits of agile software development, let us first look at waterfall methodology of software development. This was the traditional software development methodology before agile became main- stream.

It is called waterfall due to its sequential order of processes, which gives it a shape of a waterfall. As we can see here, it consists of analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment and lastly maintenance. The biggest flaw in this methodology is that testing is done at a far later stage in development. Thus, it is late to make any changes to the system at that point in time. As by the testing stage, the software is almost fully developed.

So, if any bugs are detected in the system at that time, the entire development process may have to be re-initiated. It is too late to implement new feature or make major changes without costing more money and even completely missing the deadline. Would it not be helpful if any flaws in the system, or any addition of features, etc. could had been done early on? That would save a lot of time and money. And ensure that the job is completed within the deadline.

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Let’s see how Agile compares with the traditional waterfall methodology. Agile method of software development solves the issues not addressed by Waterfall. For one, Agile method of software development takes place via dividing the project into smaller tasks, as can be seen in this slide. So, any flaws in the system are detected by early-stage testing and fixed in a timely fashion. Secondly, in software development, constantly new features and functionalities are being added to a system. In agile, since development is done by dividing the project into smaller pieces, the system can be changed early on and new features and functionalities can be added. Thirdly, agile method of software development allows for the team to work on multiple sections of a project simultaneously. This leads to a swift, speedy and therefore agile development protocol. Lastly, since the development takes in small installments, it is possible to keep the client in the loop and get a feedback from the client and even other members of the team early in the development cycle.

Thus, if the client feels that the project is headed in the wrong direction, the development team will know that at much earlier stages and take steps the repair the same. Isn’t knowing all these things early on much better than knowing them at later stages, when it is more difficult to make any changes? So, now we can see why agile is preferred over waterfall. It helps software companies with their bottom-line, namely saving time and money. Thus, to conclude we can say that Agile methodology stands out due to its fail fast feature. Thus, the agile development protocol helps in detecting errors early in the development process.