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Beware of Waterfall in disguise proposed by Gartner

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Discover where Waterfall is hiding in this process designed by Gartner to combine Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile.
Let’s use this flawed idea as an opportunity to dig deeper into the foundations of lean and agile.




If you are in a hurry you may want to jump to part two now.




In 2016 Gartner published the diagram of a process that combines Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile.

I was initially attracted to it because it combines different approaches and practices instead of contrasting them with the goal to pick one in the end.
It was only later while I was reexploring the foundations of lean and agile that I realised Gartner’s process was in reality Waterfall in disguise, because of three underlying fundamental misunderstandings about Agile.

This below is a cut-down view of the Gartner’s linear and sequential process, that starts to highlights the flaws.



It should be read from left to right, from the initial need/goal (left) to the product delivery and operation (right). The overall process is a sequence of sub-processes loosely connected.

Can you guess what’s wrong with it? The answer is here: Part two.


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