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Incremental vs. Iterative Development.
What’s the difference?
Leaning Scrum and agile concepts can be a bit overwhelming at first. There are so many new ideas and terminology. You may be wondering:
Are incremental and iterative approaches different? Which do I need?
As we answer those questions, we’ll see how they’re different and work together. This article will cover three essential topics to help you.
- Defining incremental and iterative approaches.
- Examples of how to apply each approach.
- How to choose what’s right for your team?
Defining incremental and iterative approaches.
Let’s explore two terms you will hear around Scrum. Iterative and incremental. They have a lot of similarities, but there are also some key differences.
Incremental and iterative both describe how we deliver value throughout a project. We’ll look at the definition of each and consider how they apply when practicing Scrum.
Incremental
In Scrum, the term “increment” usually refers to the completed work delivered at the end of a sprint, and it is a finished piece of the work that could be released to the customer and provide some kind of value.
Delivering one complete piece at a time is core to an incremental approach. This could be providing a set of self-contained features each sprint. Or it could be delivering completed design assets or finished elements of a marketing campaign. The whole product isn’t complete, but this piece is.
Whatever the team releases, you could take it and use it. You may not want to yet because other completed pieces are missing, but it is complete in itself. Potentially releasable doesn’t mean you have to release it. It just means you could.
Iterative
Where an incremental approach delivers finished work in pieces, an iterative approach delivers unfinished work as a whole. It’s all there, but it’s not yet developed.
Think of a low-fidelity prototype for an app. You could draw it on a piece of paper and can see the whole screen with all the features. None of them…
