Are monthly releases, waterfall in disguise?

Question

I am starting my deep-dive into agile and had questions on how certain companies promote their releases. I need input on whether the community agrees that monthly release cycles for services is the same, in theory, as waterfall? My reasoning is that if a team bundles up several service changes/features and makes one mass monthly release then it's the same as waterfall. Wouldn't the "agile way" be to release each change/fix/feature as they are merged?

Answer 1

One of the agile values is responding to change over following a plan.

Note that it doesn't specify that you need to release according to a particular frequency or method. This is because Agile is an approach and is not a framework nor is it a methodology.

One organisation might be able to release monthly and still respond well to change. A lot will depend on the nature of the product and the environment. Another organisations might need to release as soon as a change/fix/feature is ready. Both organisations can still be following the Agile approach.

As an extreme example, imagine a product that is only ever used by its customers at Christmas. There is still value in releasing frequently as the this helps to reduce technical risk, but it might be considered overkill to release every time a new feature is completed.

Answer 2

The original book on Scrum, "Agile Software Development with Scrum," specified monthly sprints. However it and other methods disconnect sprints from releases--that is, development from delivery--by specifying that each sprint creates a "potentially shippable product." The product is supposed to be in a state that could be delivered to customers, but for business reasons the company may not choose to do so. (One reason I have witnessed, by the way, is that the customer only wanted quarterly releases for anything except security patches.)

On the flip side, although this is debated in the Agile community, Continuous Delivery need not be blocked by sprint dates: You could deliver as often as desired, getting acceptance on the fly, and use end-of-sprint ceremonies to show stakeholders everything that was approved and delivered over the sprint.

Speaking as an Agile coach who maintains his waterfall certification (PMP) because waterfall is appropriate for some types of projects, I believe saying Agile is a subset of waterfall is a misperception based on tying deliveries with cycles, which isn't necessary.