Agile or Waterfall: Which Project Management Methodology Should You Use?

When you're leading a project, the way you manage it can shape your results. Some teams thrive with structure and detailed planning, while others need room to adapt as they go. That's where choosing Agile or Waterfall comes in. These two project management styles offer different paths to delivering results, depending on your timeline, resources, and team dynamics.

Understanding how they compare can help you take the next step.

What’s the difference between Agile and Waterfall?

Agile and Waterfall take two distinctly different approaches to project management. Agile is iterative and flexible, making it ideal for situations when objectives may change over the course of the project. Waterfall, by contrast, uses a structured, sequential approach that works well when you have clearly defined goals that are unlikely to change. Understanding these differences is critical when choosing how to manage your next project. The right methodology can help you stay on schedule, keep your team aligned, and deliver consistent value, even when goals or requirements shift.

The Agile versus Waterfall comparison table below breaks down key differences to help you decide which approach fits your team's structure, risk tolerance, and planning needs.

What is Agile project management?

Agile is a project management methodology built around short, repeatable work cycles that allow teams to respond to feedback and deliver results faster. Rather than relying on a step-by-step plan, Agile encourages flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Your team can adapt their goals and priorities as they learn more about what they are producing, making Agile especially effective in fast-changing environments, such as software development or product design.

Key features of Agile

Agile values working solutions over exhaustive documentation and real-time communication over structured planning. Common Agile frameworks include Scrum, known for its time-boxed sprints, and Kanban, which manages tasks through a continuous flow system. Both support Agile's core goal: staying responsive to change.

What can you use Agile for?

Agile is a great choice when your project involves evolving goals, you want frequent feedback, or you need to deliver a product quickly. You'll often see Agile used in software development, digital marketing, education, and product design. Explore how Agile excels in the following scenarios:

• Software development: If you're launching a new app or platform, Agile can help you deliver working features early, gather user feedback, and adjust priorities as needs change. This keeps development aligned with real user expectations.

• Marketing: When planning content calendars or running social media ads, Agile makes it possible to launch quickly, analyze performance, and iterate based on data. Teams can respond to what works—and stop what doesn't—without waiting for a full campaign to finish.

• Education: You can apply Agile when designing e-learning modules to roll out and improve course content in stages. This can help ensure better engagement and usability.

• Product design: If you're designing the user interface of a new product, you can use Agile to prototype, test, and update the design based on feedback. This helps reduce the risk of costly redesigns later on.

Pros and cons of Agile

Agile can be a strong choice for projects where flexibility, speed, and collaboration are top priorities. However, the fast pace and evolving nature may not suit teams that need strict timelines, detailed upfront planning, or clear documentation of the entire process. If you have limited access to stakeholders, work in a highly regulated environment, or have a team unfamiliar with Agile practices, you may face challenges adopting this approach. Weighing the advantages and trade-offs can help you decide whether Agile aligns with your goals and working style.

Pros

• Adapts quickly to changes in goals or requirements

• Encourages collaboration among team members and stakeholders

• Delivers usable components early and often

Cons

• Requires frequent communication and engagement

• May lack extensive documentation

• Budget and timeline can be harder to predict

What are the four principles of Agile?

The Agile Manifesto outlines four core values and 12 principles that guide how Agile teams work. Through these values, you see the importance of people, collaboration, and adaptability, especially in dynamic environments. According to the Agile Manifesto, the four core values include [1]:

- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

- Working software over comprehensive documentation

- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

- Responding to change over following a plan

What is Waterfall project management?

Waterfall is a traditional project management method that follows a structured, sequential flow from planning to completion. The process typically moves through six stages: requirements, design, testing, implementation, verification, and deployment. You must complete each stage before the next begins. Because it moves in one direction—like a waterfall—this approach tends to work best when you know the full project scope early on and expect it to stay the same. Waterfall prioritizes detailed planning, documentation, and control. It’s designed to ensure accountability, consistency, and clarity at every stage of the project lifecycle.

Key features of Waterfall

Waterfall emphasizes comprehensive documentation, defined project phases, and a fixed, step-by-step progression. It captures everything from initial requirements to final approvals, ensuring every decision, responsibility, and milestone is recorded. This makes it easier to track progress, meet regulatory standards, and provide a clear paper trail for audits or future maintenance.

What can you use Waterfall for?

Waterfall is a strong choice when your project has detailed objectives, fixed deliverables, and strict regulatory requirements. This approach is more effective when the final product is clearly defined, and you need to follow a structured process from start to finish, like in construction or manufacturing. In these industries, you typically avoid making changes after the project begins and prefer knowing what the stakeholders expect the final product to look like or how it should function.

You will often see Waterfall used in construction, manufacturing, defense, and health care. Consider how useful the Waterfall approach can be in the following scenarios:

• Construction: Building a bridge requires precise planning and coordination between engineers, architects, and contractors. Waterfall's structured phases ensure you follow through with each step, and the work aligns with safety codes and approved blueprints.

• Manufacturing: Designing a new car model involves detailed specs, testing protocols, and compliance with quality and safety regulations. Waterfall supports this by locking in requirements early and managing risk through rigorous planning and sequential execution.

• Defense contracts: Projects like developing aircraft systems must follow strict government regulations and security protocols. When you use Waterfall, you have the documentation, version control, and formal sign-offs needed to meet legal and operational requirements.

• Health care: Systems handling patient data must meet HIPAA standards. Waterfall helps you document system requirements, data flows, and security measures, which can make it easier to pass audits and avoid costly rework.

Waterfall pros and cons

Waterfall can offer stability and predictability, which makes it easier to manage complex tasks with fixed timelines and deliverables. It's a strong choice if you can outline everything the project needs upfront and don't expect major changes during execution. For example, projects driven by compliance standards, client contracts, or fixed budgets often benefit from Waterfall's structured timeline and thorough documentation. If your team needs a step-by-step plan with minimal surprises, Waterfall can help keep work on track and expectations aligned. 

Take a closer look at the benefits and limitations of this approach:

Pros

• Offers clear timelines, milestones, and scope

• Emphasizes thorough documentation

• Easier to manage progress with predictable steps

Cons

• Difficult to adapt once development begins

• Delays in identifying potential issues

• Limited stakeholder input during execution

Agile-Waterfall hybrid methodology 

Some organizations combine Agile and Waterfall into a hybrid model that blends the structure of Waterfall with the flexibility of Agile. This approach can provide the structure you need for compliance or budgeting while still supporting iterative development and stakeholder feedback.

In a hybrid model, you might use Waterfall to define requirements, timelines, and documentation. Then you can adopt Agile practices (including sprints or incremental releases) to adapt to feedback and deliver working components more frequently. This combination can work well in large enterprises, government projects, or industries like health care or defense, where regulatory planning is essential but adaptability is still valuable.

Some organizations use Scrum, a framework within Agile that organizes work into structured, short-term cycles, as part of their hybrid environment. Scrum is popular in hybrid models because it offers a clear process for iterating on features, incorporating feedback, and tracking progress while still aligning with a larger project plan.

A hybrid approach can work well when:

• You're working in a highly regulated industry, but still want to iterate

• Stakeholders require detailed documentation and predictable deadlines

• You have multiple teams working in different ways and need a common framework

By balancing clear structure with iterative delivery, hybrid methodologies offer a flexible option when no single framework fits all project demands.

Learn more about product management methodology on Coursera

Agile and Waterfall offer distinct ways to manage projects, and they vary in flexibility, structure, and the incorporation of feedback. Choosing the right approach can help you align your team's workflow with your project's scope and goals.

The Google Project Management Professional Certificate covers core project management concepts, including Agile, Scrum, and Waterfall. The program includes practical tools like Jira and Smartsheet and introduces key practices for project planning, communication, and risk management. Whether you're building foundational knowledge or strengthening existing skills, earning this certificate can help you gain perspective on how different methodologies align with various team structures and project goals.