The world where we live is full of hustle and rapidly moves to advancement. In this scenario, project management seems somewhat crucial to do. Being an integral part of every sort of business, only superficial knowledge never leads to a handsome outcome. This is due to the lack of proper knowledge or unawareness about that. But no more worry! Because now I’m going to make a vast comparison between two slang terms of project management. Agile project management vs traditional project management is now the topic of discussion about which one will be apt for your business to grow.

If you ascertain a successfully running business or an organization, you will come to know that it’s their strong project management approaches that ensure a smooth system. It shows that the importance of project management for any business is inevitable. But are you still confused to opt for the best approach among agile project management vs traditional project management? So, you have to identify their pros and cons first. Let’s explore them.

Take an overview of Agile & Traditional project management.

Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management is a way by which a project can be managed by breaking it into several sprints. It allows the team to release segments of the project that are completed.

The Agile project management process does not require a project manager to have central control. The Agile project model comprises several small cycles. We get a mini-project at the end of each stage.

Product Backlog: it experiences new features, changes in the existing features and several other improvements in the project.

Sprint Backlog: it has a list of tasks that has to be completed during each sprint

Sprint: sprint consists of planning, designing, execution, testing, and the resulting stages. At the end of each sprint, a mini project is delivered. With every sprint, new features are added to the product, which plays a significant role in the overall project growth.

Final product: after all the sprints and all the validation of the development, the final deliverable has a few chances of failure.

Traditional Project Management

It shows a waterfall model that is pretty straightforward and linear. It is a sequential method that follows a top-bottom approach that is well-suited to the software development model. This model has various phases.

1. Requirements Gathering & Analysis: This is a way that you gather the requirements from clients for the development and application. And after you gather those requirements, try to analyze them.
2. Design & Documentation: You have to prepare a blueprint of the software. In this phase, you think about how the software is going to look like…?
3. Implementation: When the design is ready, next you have to move on to the implementation phase. Where you begin the decoding for the applications, the team of developers works together on various components of the application.
4. Testing: Once the application is developed, it is tested in the verification phase. There are various tests that are conducted on the application. Such as indication testing, performance testing, stress testing and so on. Once all these tests of application are done, it is deployed live on the production service.
5. Maintenance: In this phase, the application is monitored for performance. Any issues related to the performance of the application are resorted to in this maintenance phase.

So, this is all about the traditional waterfall model in a nutshell.  

Agile project management vs Traditional project management: Choose the best approach by figuring out the key factors

Why is Agile Project Management more suitable than Traditional one?

If you still want to get the best verdict by figuring out agile project management vs traditional project management, you have to do some deep analysis over those approaches. Just move down and determine why Agile is a preferable approach.

1.     Response to change:

As the name suggests, Agile is all about being responsive to changes. Being responsive, even while adapting changes into its core plans, is something where Agile puts its focus. Whereas when change is required in traditional project management, it requires the manager to step forward. The prerequisites for managerial intervention slow the process.

2.     Focus on customer satisfaction:

Agile is all about customers. At each and every interaction, the product is controlled, tested, and then presented to the customer so that the customer gets what he really wants. On the other hand, the traditional approach puts adherence to a plan first. In the beginning, planning is completely done, and then all the focus is given to the plan completion. The demands of the customers are not taken into much consideration. Therefore, the finished product mostly does not match customers’ expectations.

3.     Best controlling system:

Agile provides control over the teams at all levels, making them self-sufficient and self-manageable. Thus, teams can perform better and faster. But in traditional product management, the control is dependent on hierarchy. The speed of the project slows down due to this. Consequently, such practice can affect the delivery time of the product.

4.     Give value to the customer:

Agile always measures its success solely on one metric: the value provided to customers. All other metrics are secondary to Agile. All the other metrics are not so important to Agile. In the traditional project management approach, sometimes so many metrics are followed that often it is forgotten at the end of the day; what matters is whether the customer receives what he wants.

5.     Highly customized:

Last but not least, Agile is highly customizable than the traditional approaches. Because of its focus on being responsive and due to the amount of control the teams have. It becomes easy to bring changes and customize the processes as per the need. But in the traditional method, the rigid structure, lack of control with the team and the hierarchy is followed. So, it is hard to bring changes in traditional project management.

Brands first Choice

Some of the well-known companies and organizations use the Agile Project Management approach. Such as.

➔ IBM

➔ Microsoft

➔ Philips

➔ Cisco

➔ AT&T

➔ Samsung

Conclusion:

By taking an overview of all the stigmas and pros & cons of agile project management vs traditional project management, I recommend the former one. Although the traditional approach has its own value, to get a more efficient result, choose an agile model.

Author Bio: Steve Parkar has extensive experience with Inbound marketing for various industries like eCommerce, Manufacturing, Real-estate, education, and advertising. Having worked with a reputed Digital Marketing Agency Bangalore, he has a stronghold on digital content creation, SME acquisition, and White hat link building techniques. Manasa has hands-on experience in Influencer marketing and worked with International influencers and content writers.