Here’s a simplified look at Agile vs. Waterfall vs. Scrum for deeper insights into their unique differences. Understanding the differences is crucial to your project management success.

Agile uses small increments to deliver a huge project. Instead of one large launch, an Agile project chunks the tasks continuously delivered in short time frames, often 2 to 4 weeks. Chunking allows your team to adapt to changing priorities, respond to arising issues, lower costs, and eliminate inefficiencies.

Waterfall follows a sequential process from planning to deployment, proceeding through each phase linearly. With Waterfall, your team plans the entire project upfront, leaving no room to incorporate feedback. It works best for projects with clear goals and objectives where incorporating feedback may prove prohibitively expensive.

Scrum is a lightweight, iterative, and incremental process emphasizing teamwork, communication, and customer feedback. It’s a specific Agile framework to help you manage, complete, and deliver complex software development projects. Scrum assigns specific roles to your team to help them manage their work effectively.