SDLC vs Agile

Good day...

Today I would like to touch base a bit on Agile methodology. Although I am not an expert in Agile, I have been practicing Agile methodology for around two years now. In addition, I am a certified Agile scrum master. Hence, I think it would be useful to share my view on Agile in comparison with SDLC methodology.

Agile is considerably a new project development methodology with iteration and prototyping as its unique proposition. With Agile, we can minimize the risk of re-working at a later stage of the project as what we face with a traditional SDLC. I found that that bi-weekly sprint (could be up to four weekly according to some practices) really helps the team to focus on getting a working product before introducing it to the market.

Another thing I found to be powerful in Agile is the team is expected to take accountability of their own works and achievements, without relying to an oversight by a project manager. Once the mindset is spread across the team, and the organization, we can see a high degree of responsibility of each team member in completing the work she committed the day before, or at the beginning of a sprint.

Having planning session, product demo, and retrospective session at the end of each sprint is also useful to build team collaboration and to ensure that the product is acceptable by the end user. I also found that team collaboration (and in most cases co-location) is a key success factor in Agile delivery. A punctual daily huddle (start and end at the agreed time)  has to be enforced to maintain high degree of discipline of the team.

Picture credit: morzaszum

With all of the positive factors discussed above, tell me why people are still doing SDLC today? For me, the answer is, not every type of project is suitable for Agile. For example, a project touching our core system is best to be managed using SDLC as this type of projects is usually need a big-bang go-live approach, supported by a full readiness of the process and people to start doing their work in a different way once the project goes live. While in my experience Agile is more suitable to end-user facing systems, such as digital channels.

So, when we come to the question of which one is better between Agile and SDLC, my answer is, both are good when applied in a suitable type of project.

Edwin