Agile & Waterfall Application Development: Meant for Each Other?

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Agile   Applications Delivery   Information Technology  

In most IT circles, the mere suggestion of marrying agile and waterfall application development models into a seamless hybrid would be scoffed at, marginalized and even deemed an offense against those faithful to their respective ideologies. Through years of leading application development projects, I can attest with confidence that there is merit to the concept.

Before diving into this proposed merging of agile and waterfall, it is important to provide a general definition of each:

• “Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework that promotes foreseen interactions throughout the development cycle.” (From: Wikipedia)
• “The Waterfall model is a breakdown of project activities into linear sequential phases, where each phase depends on the deliverables of the previous one … In software development, it tends to be among the less iterative and flexible approaches, as progress flows in largely one direction (‘downwards’ like a waterfall) through the phases of conception,…

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