What About Timeboxing a Waterfall Project?

Timeboxing is a powerful feature of agile. Rather than make scope static, you fix time and resources and modify scope to get the maximum value in the minimum amount of time and cost. Instead of estimating task duration, you use fixed time periods and adjust the scope accordingly. Here are the principles you can follow to achieve benefits of timeboxing in waterfall projects:

• Principle 1: Break down phases into smaller chunks. Instead of treating each waterfall phase as one large block, divide it into smaller, manageable timeboxed chunks. For example, collect requirements for one area of the business in a two-week timebox, a second area in the next two-week timebox, etc. Within each timebox, prioritize areas for requirements collection using parameters such as importance and complexity. 
• Principle 2: Add a buffer between timeboxes. Include small buffer timeboxes in the project schedule. This provides time to reflect, learn, and plan the scope to address in upcoming timeboxes. In addition, focusing on smaller task areas and taking time to learn and prioritize between them ensures you are working on the most important phase elements. (In this example, the most important requirements.)
• Principle 3: Adjust scope, not time. If a task or set of tasks isn’t completed within their timebox, adjust the scope or move lower-priority items to a later timebox instead of extending the time. For example, during detailed planning, focus first on the areas deemed most important by project stakeholders and shift detailed planning for less important items to later timeboxes. If the planning phase schedule gets too long, stop planning and move forward with the project with a reduced scope (the most important ones).
• Principle 4:Multiple sub teams work in parallel, each with a pre-determined timebox duration. Once team members get accustomed to working in timeboxes, multiple teams can work in parallel on their own tasks until the waterfall phase is considered complete. This is where timeboxes differ from sprints in agile. Timeboxes don’t have to yield a usable product, like sprints. Because waterfall projects often involve bigger scope than agile, many project sub teams can work in parallel. The need for frequent validation from management, vital for agile, might not be needed. In a waterfall environment, multiple teams can progress without that constraint, because they aren’t making frequent business-vital decisions. Yet, they still take advantage of the focused scope and periodic short reflection and learning buffer periods.

Take advantage of the timebox approach through each waterfall phase. Requirements and planning can be broken down and allocated to sub teams working within timeboxes. The build stage is also ideal for this concept: working on business processes, various tools, and documentation can be assigned to teams working in parallel. Testing can work the same way, with sub teams testing various areas or sub-products before a final testing session to validate the entire project deliverable set.

Look at one of your past projects or your current one and think about how you could handle it with timeboxes. Consider how you might need to change other processes like communication and reporting when you have sub teams working simultaneously,

For more about timeboxing, check out Doug Rose’s Agile Foundations course.

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