What drives the choice between a predictive or agile approach to a project?
The project approach is determined by the type of product or project to be developed. We consider three options: predictive, agile and rolling-wave.
Choose the Predictive (or Waterfall) approach when you know what must be delivered and which technology must be used. Planning is front-loaded: the work is forecasted with great detail and accuracy. The Predictive approach takes the plans as the “Constitution” to be closely followed and minimally changed, if ever. Learn more about the Predictive Projects.
The Agile approach is used for complex products, those for which the requirements and/or the technology is uncertain, when the features of the product to be built must be discovered. Work happens in iterations of do-inspect-adapt. For example, Scrum iterations are Sprints. The Agile approach does planning but takes plans simply as a “Roadmap” to serve as a guiding line but leaving the necessary freedom to adapt as needed. Learn more about the Agile Projects.
There are other approaches, such as the Rolling Wave approach that is an iterative technique: it details plans for the near work, while leaving future work to be detailed later. It is rigid as the predictive approach when handling the short-term work while leaving space to adapt in later phases of the project.
