What Is Waterfall Project Management?
Introduction to Waterfall Project Management
The Waterfall methodology has long been recognized as a structured and sequential approach to project management. With its roots in traditional project management practices, Waterfall provides a systematic framework for managing projects from initiation to completion.
In this comprehensive article, we will talk about the various stages of Waterfall project management, as well as its pros and cons.
Before we begin, you can unlock a free trial with Wrike right away to try out Waterfall project management for yourself.
What is Waterfall project management?
Waterfall project management is the most straightforward way to manage a project. It maps out a project into distinct, sequential phases, with each new phase beginning only when the previous one has been completed.
It is the most traditional method for managing a project, with team members working linearly towards a set end goal. Each participant has a clearly defined role, and none of the phases or goals are expected to change.
Waterfall project management works best for projects with long, detailed plans that require a single timeline. Changes are often discouraged (and costly). In contrast, Agile project management involves shorter project cycles, constant testing and adaptation, and overlapping work by multiple teams or contributors.
You can also watch the video below to learn more on the topic.
The typical stages of Waterfall project management:
- Requirements: The manager analyzes and gathers all the requirements and documentation for the project.
- System design: The manager designs the project’s workflow model.
- Implementation: The system is put into practice, and your team begins the work.
- Testing: Each element is tested to ensure it works as expected and fulfills the requirements.
- Deployment (service) or delivery (product): The service or product is officially launched.
- Maintenance: In this final, ongoing stage, the team performs upkeep and maintenance on the resulting product or service.
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The pros and cons of Waterfall project management
One downside to Waterfall project management is that since each step is preplanned in a linear sequence, the strategy is relatively inflexible. Any change in stakeholder priorities or needs will disrupt the order and require a revision, or possibly an entirely new blueprint.
Waterfall project management is less effective for knowledge-based projects, such as computer programming. However, what it lacks in flexibility it makes up for in replication possibilities; waterfall workflows can be easily copied for future, similar tasks.
Optimize Waterfall project management with Wrike
Have you decided if Waterfall is right for your team? Whatever methodology you choose, you need a reliable project management solution to implement it. Enter Wrike.
From Gantt charts with task dependencies to workload charts, Wrike empowers teams to seamlessly navigate the sequential nature of Waterfall, ensuring timely delivery. By integrating Wrike into your Waterfall project management approach, you can maintain project visibility and ensure you follow all the right steps to project completion.
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