kanban and waterfall product development methods are software product development methodologies. This article discusses two software development methods, their advantages and disadvantages as well as which software project management scenario is more suited for each software product development methodology.
In software engineering, a software development methodology is a set of rules to follow in the design and creation of software products. Each software development methodology comes with processes, strategies, templates and guidelines to ensure successful software delivery. Software engineering allows different sets of procedures based on requirements or user preferences making it difficult to identify one specific set of rules that apply to all projects.
There are several software programming languages used in software development but only a few methodologies among them stand out because most companies use them frequently with positive results. The main behind any software product tool selection happens deep into software engineering areas.
Software product development methodologies are the most important software tools to any software company offering software products to the market. They help decide which software programming language will be used by software companies, what software requirements management process they need to apply, how they handle project planning and prioritize tasks for effective software delivery, etc.
The different types of software development methodologies can be grouped in three main categories: Waterfall Product Development Methodology, Agile Product Development Methodology and Kanban Product Development Methodology. This article discusses each group further explaining their differences based on popular expert opinions that have studied them over time.
kanban product development method:
Kanban software development is a software delivery process that enforces “just in time” task management, meaning software tasks are only assigned an owner when they are needed. This kind of software development methodology aims at reducing waste, because it eliminates the risk of creating extra work for software developers who might have to do something that turns out to be unnecessary. With this approach, teams create vertical or horizontal workflow boards called Kanbans where tasks are represented by cards which are placed on columns. Planning is done at the column level and not for each specific task within a column. Vertical Kanbans typically have 3-5 standard columns while horizontal structures allow for more flexibility with features like design, coding and testing being split into separate lanes. One main limitation of this software development methodology is that it does not allow for parallel processing.
Advantages
– very high predictability because tasks are completed sequentially and in order
– software developers know exactly what to work on at the moment
– allows software developers to properly schedule their workloads and plan their time accordingly (focus work increases productivity) and avoid context switching as much as possible – software testers can easily keep track of software bugs
– easy to limit WIP (work in progress) because there’s only one lane per column, forcing teams to prioritize tasks more carefully Disadvantages – software developers cannot do two things at once on a vertical Kanban even if they have free time which results in decreased flexibility and increased variability
– software testers usually don’t contribute to the software development process at all in this model – software developers need to know how long software tasks take in order to properly schedule them, limiting their efficiency
Waterfall product development method:
Waterfall product development method is one of the software development methodology which is used to manage software product development projects.
The software waterfall method is more or less like the typical systems engineering development process (waterfall) that moves down through phases of definition, design, implementation and testing. A variation on software waterfall methodology is the Define-Design- Code-Test-Deploy (DDC TD ) model. This technique provides a continuous feedback loop at each stage of software system development effort.
