jonathan@researchcomputingteams.org
This resource first appeared in issue #31 on 03 Jul 2020 and has tags Strategy: Project Management, Strategy: Research to Development Maturity Ladder
Agile or Waterfall; a risk management perspective - Alfredo Motta
There’s been lots written about agile vs waterfall, and most of us operate so much in an agile mode that we don’t really think about it any more, but I think Motta’s article is a very clear description of the what and why of the two approaches, and a good reminder that there are absolutely places in research computing where waterfall is the right choice.
The Chaotic/Complex/Complicted/Obvious distinction is useful:
| The path is… | There are … practices for this work | The right approach is |
|---|---|---|
| Obvious | Best Practices | Waterfall |
| Complicated | Good Practices | could go either way |
| Complex | Emergent Practices | Agile |
| Chaotic | Only Novel Practice | Agile |
In research computing we’re often in the complex/chaotic side of things, but not always - if we’re setting up a new set of webpages or rolling out database migrations, setting up a new cluster, or designing processes for our teams to follow, there are best practices and using those and having a more waterfall approach to things can be perfectly appropriate. Most of us understand this instinctively but it’s good to have these distinctions explicitly in mind.
