Agile vs. Classic Waterfall - What's the best Project Methodology for IoT Projects

So the question I address in this blog article is which project management methodology is best for IoT projects?

I have been working in and around IT projects for a long time. I've also done project management for a long time and I've been PMP certified for almost 15 years. Having done Projects in the Waterfall and Agile methodology I think I am qualified to talk about both.

I would have to say that as a Project Management practitioner I have often tended towards the Waterfall style of Project Management. That is probably because as a consultant that is what my customers have preferred. There are lots of differences between Waterfall and Agile but not the least of which is the difficultly in Agile of ensuring the project will stay within a certain budget. As a consultant you are often contracted to deliver a fixed scope for a fixed price. Which by inference means you need to have clear view of scope.

Agile on the other hand is often used by internal IT organisations who as a fixed overhead are not as concerned about cost but are more concerned about reacting to ill defined processes and changing business user needs. Agile is ideally suited for this type of environment.

IoT as a newer technology is not well understood by most IT departments. More importantly the business processes around IoT are typically not well defined either. In my view then Agile is the better methodology to adopt for IoT projects but there are several modifications that you need to make to the standard agile approach to address the risks inherent to IoT both technical and business process related.

These include but are not limited to adopting a platform approach, having a good architectural design which addresses many IoT specific technical and security issues, starting with pilot projects to test project requirements and business processes and developing an IoT centre of excellence. There are many other ways to reduce risk and improve project benefits realisation for IoT projects. These will be covered in a number of future blog articles.

So the short answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this blog article is to say that a "Modified Agile Method" is the way to go. Watch this space.