When to use Agile vs Waterfall? .. crack PM interviews with this

With examples so that you can crack interviews

Agile

Keep moving fast! Is that what you think Agile is? Maybe — but not really!

Photo by Antoine Gravier on Unsplash

Waterfall

Move slowly, following process (aka stage gate) by process (stage gate). Maybe!

Photo by Ben Robbins on Unsplash

Those definitions of Waterfall and Agile may be right, but we need to know when to use Agile or Waterfall.

When to use Agile?

1. When customers need value sooner

Customers may need to see value sooner. Sometimes customers define requirements in June 2024, and 5 months later when they see the output

• their requirements could have changed,
• or the output may not match the original requirements,
• or the users may be overwhelmed with the review of multiple outputs — as many as 100 outputs

Agile is particularly useful in such scenarios.

2. When some requirements are known