Project Management modalities

waterfall_vs_agile_development.md

1. How does the Agile model compare to the Waterfall model? The Waterfall model is a sequential approach to working on a project - it moves step by step and generally has seperate departments for varying tasks. The Agile model is an iterative approach and requires that team members have skills in multiple disciplines. It takes small complete rotations of the final project and repeats those rotations, building the project outward from the first small interation. I think of the iterative approach like fractals - each iteration is a complete model of the whole.

2. Why do you think Agile is so popular in software developement? Because it promotes flexibility and collaboration. Like with anything, the more people can pool their resources the more successful they will be. When each person understands the whole entity instead of just a small piece, they are better able to make decisions that benefit the whole instead of just their one tiny microscopic view.

3. Do you think Agile is applicable in all industries. Absolutely. One of the fields that comes to mine is medicine. I am trained in clinical herbalism and nutrition and the model that we were taught in school was Agile. Most of modern Western medicine, however, is Waterfall. If a healer can look at the body as a whole and understand how all the components interact with each other and effect them, the more succesfull the healer will be.