Waterfalls versus Agile Project Management

00:03 The world is a rapidly changing and constantly evolving place.

00:08 So it should come as no surprise that projects are becoming more diverse and complex, involving new technologies and more stakeholders from varying backgrounds and places.

00:18 A project manager can never rest on their laurels.

00:21 They must change and evolve with the projects in the world around them.

00:26 Let's take a look at how.

00:29 The Standard Project's planning can be done with a good degree of accuracy if done properly. However, with more intricate projects and scopes, it becomes increasingly difficult for stakeholders to describe what exactly they need. It may be easy on a high level, but not when it comes to the details. This is especially common in the IT field and software development.

00:53 Let's look at an example.

00:55 Imagine the scope of your new project is to develop and install a smart home application.

01:01 The owner wants to have certain gadgets connect to their smartphone, TV, air conditioning, lights, heating and so on.

01:09 And although you will have support from an experienced engineer, the homeowner has never used this kind of technology.

01:17 As you can imagine, there are a few scenarios that could occur as the work progresses in a project like this.

01:25 For example, the owner receives a new virtual assistant, Amy, as a gift.

01:31 Amy has a wonderful feature where she executes voice commands, like play music or turn off lights.

01:38 This is a nice feature that will be very useful and the owner wants this incorporated into the project.

01:45 Another possibility is that the I.T.

01:48 engineer discovers that the software for the air conditioning is slightly different to everything else and must take extra steps to successfully connect the device to the control app. Since the end goal is to have all devices connected. This will have to be done to.

02:05 Or what if the homeowner sees the first versions of the app and decides that it should have parental controls so the kids can control the TV and lights, but not things like the air conditioning and music.

02:19 After all, most kids have taste in music that parents usually find unbearable.

02:25 All these changes to the work are positive and essential to the end goal, which of course is satisfying the customer's needs.

02:33 However, they will lead to significant project inefficiencies, delays, additional costs, or wasted work.

02:41 There are two key reasons for the difficulties a project manager can face when creating a good, detailed plan in projects like this.

02:49 The first is that a development team's perspective may vary from that of the client leading to output that doesn't meet the exact needs or preferences of the customer. The second reason is the customer and other stakeholders are not able to specify exactly what their needs are.

03:07 Websites are a good example of projects like this.

03:11 Never in the history of the internet has anyone been happy with the first attempt at a website design.

03:17 Not to mention that most websites are constantly evolving and therefore the client's needs will always be changing.

03:24 You can imagine it doesn't make sense to spend the majority of your time planning for something that will inevitably change.

03:32 One in a standard project.

03:34 We aim to avoid these changes through detailed planning and the project manager prepares to deal with any if they come along.

03:41 If a project is one which invites many changes, then the project manager needs a project lifecycle that suits this.

03:48 Introducing the solution.

03:51 Agile. All right.

03:54 We are now experts in the standard life cycle of project management.

03:59 The detailed planning is completed thoroughly before the execution begins.

04:03 The activities in the execution are themselves strictly defined in sequence two . We know exactly when they should start and when they should finish.

04:12 We know what follows each task and which are performed in parallel.

04:16 This structure is referred to as a waterfall structure as every stage flows to the next, and once a phase such as planning is complete, you rarely go back to it. Waterfall structures work great for projects like our showroom, but they are not ideal for other kinds of projects.

04:36 That's why Agile changes the approach.

04:40 With Agile, we do only high level planning at the beginning.

04:46 The execution, on the other hand, is broken into packages with a predefined duration. We call these packages iterations, and each iteration has its own detailed planning phase, which only concerns that part of the scope. After each iteration is complete, it is time for a review or a demo session.

05:08 These sessions serve as the monitoring and control activity and aim to ensure that the entire team is updated on the status of the project and is prepared for the next iteration.

05:20 Obviously when it comes to choosing the project structure, whether it be standard or agile, there is no better or worse choice.

05:29 It simply depends on the type of project.

05:33 With that said, let's have a look at what the Agile approach can offer us and our project. See you next lesson.