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Disadvantages of Agile Project Management

 

Agile has substantial advantages, and it's important to know the disadvantages, limitations, and risks it brings.

• Documentation tends to get sidetracked, which makes it harder for new members to get up to speed

• It's more difficult to measure progress than it is in Waterfall because progress happens across several cycles

• Agile demands more time and energy from everyone because developers and customers must constantly interact with each other

• When developers run out of work, they can't work on a different project since they'll be needed soon

• Projects can become ever-lasting because there's no clear end

• Scope creep and experience rot

• Clients who work on a specified budget or schedule can't know how much the project will actually cost, which makes for a very complicated sales cycle ("Until iteration ends," is not something clients like to hear)

• The product lacks overall design, both from a UX and architecture point of view, which leads to problems the more you work on the product

• Teams can get sidetracked into delivering new functionalities at the expense of technical debt, which increases the amount of unplanned work

• Features that are too big to fit into one or even several cycles are avoided because they don't fit in nicely into the philosophy

• You need a long-term vision for the product and actively work on communicating it

• Products lack cohesion, and the user journey is fragmented because the design is fragmented. The more time passes, the more disjointed the software ends up becoming

• Short cycles don't leave enough time for the design thinking process, so designers have to redevelop the experience over and over due to negative feedback.