A comparative study on Agile vs Waterfall methodology for Business Analysis

Software development life cycle is a structured process used by software development team to design, develop, test and deploy high quality software in systematic approach. Team go through seven steps to build a software. The steps are planning, analysis, design, development, testing, deployment and maintenance. A software development methodology is a framework that structure, plan and manage software development process. Its goal is to make sure the delivery of the software aligns with project specifications like time, budget and scope and to minimize the risks. While developing an application or a project organization follows the software development life cycle. There are seven common methodologies in software development life cycle. These models are Waterfall or sequential model, Agile model, Iterative model, Spiral model, V model, Prototyping and RAD model. Among these most of the organizations follow two popular methodology which are waterfall approach and agile approach. Waterfall methodology follows traditional and linear approach which means before moving to the next phase team has to complete the previous phase. Once the phase is completed then only team can forward to the next one. Team assumes no error for the completing phase and move on. There is no going back to the previous phase. This model does not allow any changes once it is done. This model is simple, structured and easy to manage. Waterfall model has different phase through which a project is completed. The phases are requirement gathering, requirement analysis, design, development, testing, deployment and maintenance. The other popular methodology is Agile methodology. It is widely used by organization for its easy way of managing. Agile methodology follows flexible way of developing a product in small increment. In this approach features are delivered smaller part. So, team gets continuous feedback from the stakeholders which help them to make the product without error. This methodology is flexible as agile allows requirement changes at any stage of the cycle. Testing also happens with the development simultaneously. So, bugs and defects are found during the time of development which helps team to deliver the feature on time. In agile scrum team plans sprint goal at beginning of sprint. Continuous discussion happens on daily basis during the sprint about the progress of the work, completed features and obstacles that blocking progress. Product grooming meeting is conducted to prioritize and refine the requirement. During the sprint review team demonstrate the completed features to stakeholders and collect feedback about the increment. Sprint retrospective is the discussion about what went well, learning lesson and improvement areas for future sprint. All these ceremonies help to deliver a product in a better way minimizing errors. But in waterfall methodology testing happens after the completion of development. So, debugging defects kill time. Changes in requirement cannot be accepted once development begins. stakeholder is involved at the beginning of the project and at the end they provide feedback about the project which makes it difficult for technical team to change it. It also effects the project’s timeline and budget. So, this methodology doesn’t provide flexibility. It is challenging for large projects but small projects can be implemented using this methodology. While agile is very much flexible as well as it doesn’t require heavy documentation. It also focuses on people, team and communication rather than rigid rules and tools. In this process regular improvement is reflected. This is why agile methodology is best for larger project compared to waterfall technique.