Waterfall vs Agile Methodology
2 decades of experience has led us to successfully navigate our way through these opposing methodologies to find a blended methodology of our own.
Historically software projects were run in with a Waterfall strategy, which is to say a fixed-cost, fixed-deliverable agreement. The issues associated with this methodology are enormous:
- At the start of a project with any degree of complexity it’s next to impossible to understand the work needed until you're deep into the project, so quoting is done with huge risk mitigation (i.e. the supplier has to add huge margins to the work to cover the unknowns).
- As the development progresses, new information is uncovered - decisions are best made with as much discovery as possible, but Waterfall forces all decisions to be made upfront.
- In a similar way, because it’s fixed delivery no on-the-fly inspirational ideas can be folded in along the way - it reduces creativity in the process.
- The nature of the process makes it oppositional - the client has a fixed cost so is motivated to seek maximum deliverables in the grey areas, the supplier has fixed revenue so seeks to deliver the minimum in the grey areas to maximise profit.
The solution to these problems is to use an agile methodology - where while an estimate is given, the client is consulted through the process (and so retains control over spend), decisions are made as the project progresses and the client simply pays for time and materials. We have found however, that it’s not so suitable for new clients with larger projects. This is because it doesn’t guarantee any deliverables, requiring a hard-to-inspire level of trust from the client side where they carry all the risk.
Our blended model is to give a fixed cost, with fixed deliverables, but defining those deliverables in as loose terms as possible with both parties being content. That allows a huge amount of flexibility within the project for discovery and creativity, while also allowing the client to be able to know that at the end of the project they will have software that has accomplished their core aims. The guarantee from us as an agency is that we will invest every part of the budget judiciously on time from our team - so the question of price is "how much do you want to invest" and then for that investment we will deliver the most premium product we can.
This blended approach has delivered success time after time. And it is the start of building real trust between us and the client, that we hope then blossoms into a retainer which can continue to deliver success.