Scrum Vs Waterfall - How to Compare?

Scrum Vs Waterfall - The comparison varies from person to person. It differs as per the views of the person. In real IT industry, very few actually work using pure Water fall. It has many variations. Still, some thoughts that occur to me are as follows:

Scrum Vs Waterfall:

• Scrum has a prioritized product backlog from which one can execute Pareto rule. WF tends to assume 100% rule. It also tends to order the building of the product mainly because of technical dependencies.

• Scrum usually uses adaptive planning whereas Waterfall tries to stick to the initial plan. When using Scrum, one can get the feedback easily from the working software whereas in Waterfall, it doesn’t have working software until it’s late in the entire developmental cycle.

• Waterfall assumes that everything is known beforehand where as Scrum assumes there’s a lot that is yet to be known. It focuses on increasing the learning throughout the project.

• Waterfall tries to reduce the change whereas Scrum tries to increase the benefits of good change eg : learning and reduces the effect of negative change.

• Scrum assumes that change is normal and most of it cannot be controlled usefully. Waterfall thinks that change is bad and can be controlled.

• Waterfall, on the other hand, puts more responsibility on the project manager whereas in Scrum, team has the maximum responsibility. Waterfall uses a diffuse work group with only PM and its overall responsibility.

• In waterfall method, the project manager should plan the work and in Scrum, the team must plan the work. In case the plan fails, the team can then replan the work.

• Waterfall presumes that planning must be done from the center i.e. by the PM and the workers must execute the work that they are given.

• In Scrum, the team must organize its work on its own and make the use of the approach ‘full complex adaptive system”. It optimizes business value, time to market and quality. Waterfall optimizes the budget.

• People using Waterfall method for managing the projects, always think that if worked as per the plan, everything will go well and those using Scrum for managing the projects, think that they must rethink for themselves in every specific situation.

• It is a base framework of things that are essential for every effort. In Scrum, must always be done. Those professionals who are really “professional” use agile scrum ideas while managing the project.

In a nutshell:

The ideas and practices of Scrum Vs Waterfall are constantly in debate. These remain in real practice, boost progress as compared to Agile. All the above statements are based on the personal experience.

Other variations are always welcome. You can also share your ideas about Scrum Vs Waterfall with us. Let us know what you prefer the most and why. To get the accurate methods of project management, you can reach out to Lean agile training.

Get in touch to discuss ideas briefly. We love to share and accept ideas about any new or the currently in trend project management method.