Agile, Lean, and Waterfall Design

Agile, Lean, and Waterfall Design

Agile Design

There are many different design methodologies, but the most common methodologies in GIS and WebGIS designs are Agile, Lean, and Waterfall.

Agile design is a flexible and iterative approach to design, and one of the most recently implemented. It incorporates collaboration, feedback, and adaptability. This design methodology will iteratively update different parts of a design throughout the process, instead of completing one step and moving onto another step. This can be visualized as a cycle instead of a linear process.

Figure 1: The agile design process, in which design is an iterative approach with frequent feedback and revisions

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Ananda et al, 2016.

Waterfall Design

Waterfall design is a linear and sequential process in which step 1 must be completed before moving onto step 2 and beyond. It is one of the earliest design methodologies. It focuses on development, system design, deployment, and then maintenance, but does not incorporate user feedback or iteration into the initial design process. 

Figure 2: The linear Waterfall design process, in which step 1 must be completed before step 2, and no iterative feedback is incorporated into the process.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Anana et al, 2016.

Lean Design;

Lean design emphasizes saving time and maximizing value in the design process, but also incorporates user feedback, user needs, and efficiency. Lean design focuses on eliminating wasteful resources in the design process by eliminating unnecessary steps. It focuses largely on user feedback and continuous improvement.

Agile and Lean Design often go together and are sometimes referred synonymously as Agile/Lean Design, since both focus on users' feedback and iterative design.

Figure 3: The lean design process, which focuses on iteratively incorporating user feedback at each step in the process

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Anana et al, 2016.

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