The Problem with Waterfall, Agile & ‘Other’

 

By Lynda Bourne

A couple of days ago, I received a survey from PMI asking about portfolio management. There’s nothing unusual about PMI undertaking a survey, but the types of project management approaches mentioned for the projects in the portfolio gave me cause for concern. The three choices offered were Agile, Waterfall and Other.

My response was ”Other”—the  portfolios I have direct experience with involve heavy engineering. Here is my perspective on the options offered by PMI:

Agile: A well-defined flexible process, based on the Agile Manifesto, applicable to software development and a wide range of other “soft projects” such as business change.

Waterfall: A five-stage software development methodology from the 1970s focused on designing a product (based on requirements) before starting development. The waterfall methodology is still used in some software development projects, but has never been applied to other types of projects.

Other: The vast majority of projects in the construction, engineering, oil & gas, defense, and aerospace industries based on the approaches described in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Sixth Edition.

These “other” projects generally have three phases:

1. A definition phase undertaken by the client organization to define the capabilities of the product being developed
2. A procurement phase where the client selects a delivery agent for the development of the product
3. A delivery phase where the delivery agent builds and delivers the product

The design of the product (ship, building, rocket, etc.) may be undertaken in full or in part during any one of the three phases. A minimum level of design is required to initiate procurement, but for simple buildings and civil engineering projects, it is not unusual for a complete design and specification to be provided by the client.

The procurement phase may be a simple pricing exercise, or a complex and phased design process (sometimes even involving the production of working prototypes), with selection being based on the capabilities of the design produced by the successful tenderer. In many projects, a significant amount of detailed design is still required during the delivery phase, including shop drawings produced by subcontractors and suppliers.

Similarly, the procurement arrangements vary widely. The client may choose to enter into some form of alliance or partnership with the preferred delivery agent based on shared risk and profits, or the client may choose a hard-dollar contract based on a fixed price to deliver a fixed scope, or some other setup. There are multiple forms of contract arrangement.

The only certainties are that the typical project approaches used for the vast majority of “other” projects bear no resemblance to the waterfall approach, and this “other” classification includes more than two-thirds of the world’s projects by value.

So, my questions are:

1. Has “waterfall” become a shorthand term for any project that is not agile? And if this is the case, what does the new “waterfall” terminology mean?
2. Is there a better term for this very wide grouping of projects that generally follows the concepts in the PMBOK® Guide (as it was up to the Sixth Edition)?

How should different types of project management be described? Your thoughts and ideas are welcome.