Stop Asking “Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

# PRINCE2

Why governance and delivery are not the same thing and why the problem is not the choice, but the comparison

August 27, 2026

Tomos Jones

Stop Asking “Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

Why governance and delivery are not the same thing and why the problem is not the choice, but the comparison

Article focus Many organisations compare Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 as though they are competing solutions. This article explores why that comparison is flawed and why successful projects often combine governance and delivery approaches rather than choosing between them.

This article explains the difference in three steps: first, it defines Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 by the problem each one solves; second, it shows why comparing them as alternatives creates confusion; and finally, it offers a better way to choose governance and delivery approaches for real projects.

Every few weeks, someone asks a question that sounds sensible but hides the real problem: “Should we use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

It sounds like a sensible question.

It isn’t.

Not because Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2 are bad approaches, but because they were never designed to solve the same problem.

The flaw is easier to see in a different context. Asking whether to use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2 is a bit like asking whether to use a steering wheel, a sat-nav or the Highway Code.

Most people would immediately recognise the flaw in the question.

A steering wheel helps you control the vehicle.

A sat-nav helps you navigate the route.

The Highway Code provides the rules and controls needed to travel safely.

Nobody would seriously compare them because each solves a different problem.

Yet that is exactly what we continue to do in project management.

Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 are not competing solutions to the same problem.

Agile and Waterfall primarily help us decide how work should be delivered.

PRINCE2 helps us decide how projects should be governed and controlled.

The problem is not whether one approach is better than another.

The problem is the comparison.

Before we can answer the question, we first need to understand what each approach is designed to do.

Key message The biggest mistake is not choosing Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2. It is believing you have to choose only one.

What is Agile?

Strictly speaking, Agile is not a single method.

It is a set of values, principles and practices often applied through frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban or scaled Agile approaches.

In this article, Agile is used in its common organisational sense: an iterative and incremental way of delivering products and solutions.

Rather than attempting to define the entire solution upfront, Agile teams work in short cycles, regularly gathering feedback and adapting their plans as more information becomes available.

Agile is particularly useful when there is uncertainty about requirements, when priorities may change, or when stakeholders are likely to learn more about their needs as the project progresses.

Typically, time and cost are fixed for a given iteration or sprint, while scope remains flexible.

Techniques such as MoSCoW prioritisation help teams focus on delivering the most important requirements first and make informed trade-offs when constraints arise.

Agile works well when:

Requirements are likely to evolve

Frequent stakeholder feedback is available

Early delivery of value is important

The solution can be developed incrementally

Learning and adaptation are expected throughout delivery

Example

Imagine an organisation developing a new customer portal.

At the start of the project, stakeholders know they want customers to access information, submit requests and track progress, but they are less certain about the detailed functionality, user experience and reporting requirements.

Rather than spending months defining every requirement upfront, the team delivers the portal in small increments.

Stakeholders review working features every few weeks, provide feedback and refine their priorities.

New requirements emerge, some existing requirements are dropped, and the solution evolves as the organisation learns more about what users actually need.

Quick takeaway Agile is a delivery approach that helps teams respond to uncertainty, feedback and changing requirements.

What is Waterfall?

Waterfall is a predictive, linear and sequential delivery approach.

Work typically progresses through a series of phases, such as requirements, design, development, testing and implementation.

Each phase is largely completed before the next begins.

Waterfall is often appropriate when requirements are well understood, relatively stable and unlikely to change significantly after approval.

It can also be beneficial where regulatory, safety, engineering or contractual constraints require a high degree of upfront specification and control.

Waterfall works well when:

Requirements are well defined from the outset

Change is expected to be limited

Significant upfront design is required

The cost of rework is high

The solution must be right the first time

Example

Imagine a project to design and construct a bridge across a river.

Before construction begins, engineers must understand exactly where the bridge will be built, how long it needs to be, the weight it must support, the environmental constraints and the safety standards it must meet.

Making major design changes once construction is underway would be potentially expensive.

As a result, considerable effort is invested upfront in requirements, design and planning before moving into construction.

The bridge is delivered through a series of planned phases, with each phase building on the completion of the previous one.

Quick takeaway Waterfall is a delivery approach that works well when requirements are stable and the cost of change is high.

What is PRINCE2?

Unlike Agile and Waterfall, PRINCE2 is not primarily concerned with how products and solutions are developed.

Its focus is different.

PRINCE2 helps govern and control the investment. It provides a structured framework for deciding why a project exists, who is accountable, how progress is directed and controlled, and whether the investment remains justified throughout its lifecycle.

It defines roles and responsibilities, decision points, management stages, tolerances, reporting requirements and governance controls.

These help ensure that projects remain aligned with business objectives and continue to deliver value.

PRINCE2 helps answer questions such as:

Why are we doing this project?

Is it still worth doing?

Who is accountable for decisions?

How should progress be monitored and controlled?

When should issues and risks be escalated?

What level of governance is appropriate?

Example

Imagine an organisation implementing a new customer relationship management system.

The technical team may choose to build and configure the solution using Agile delivery or a more predictive Waterfall approach.

Regardless of how the solution is delivered, senior leaders still need answers to questions such as:

Is the project still justified?

Are costs and timescales acceptable?

Are risks being managed?

Are the expected benefits still achievable?

Should we continue investing?

PRINCE2 provides the governance framework that helps answer those questions.

Quick takeaway PRINCE2 is a project management method that provides governance, control and accountability regardless of how the work is delivered.

Spot the difference

Before deciding between Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2, let’s look at the problem each one is trying to solve.

Question	Agile	Waterfall	PRINCE2
How should we deliver the work?	✓	✓
How should we respond to changing requirements?	✓
How should we deliver work through a planned sequence of phases?		✓
Who is accountable for decisions?			✓
Is the project still justified?			✓
How should progress be governed and controlled?			✓

Looking at it another way:

Approach	Primary purpose
Agile	Adapt delivery as requirements evolve and feedback is received
Waterfall	Deliver work through a planned, sequential series of activities
PRINCE2	Govern, justify and control the project throughout its lifecycle

Governance and delivery operate at different levels

PROJECT
GOVERNANCE AND CONTROL PRINCE2
AGILE Iterative and adaptive	WATERFALL Predictive and sequential	HYBRID Intentional combination

Notice something interesting?

Agile and Waterfall are primarily delivery approaches.

PRINCE2 is a project management method.

They are not competing solutions to the same problem.

Key message Agile and Waterfall primarily help us decide how work should be delivered. PRINCE2 helps us decide how projects should be governed and controlled. The problem is not the choice. The problem is the comparison.

Why this debate refuses to die

Despite decades of project management guidance, organisations still ask:

“Should we use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

The debate keeps resurfacing because many people compare these approaches at the wrong level. Agile and Waterfall are often discussed as delivery choices, while PRINCE2 is discussed as a project management method. Once those labels are treated as equivalent, it becomes easy to mistake different layers of decision-making for competing options.

Part of the confusion comes from the way these approaches are discussed.

Conferences compare them.

Training courses contrast them.

Job adverts ask for one or the other.

Over time, people naturally assume they are alternatives.

They aren’t.

The damage caused by the wrong question

The wrong question often leads to the wrong decisions.

When organisations compare Agile, Waterfall and PRINCE2 as though they are competing solutions, misunderstandings follow.

Myth 1: “We’re Agile, so we don’t need governance”

Imagine spending £500,000 developing a product through multiple successful sprints.

The reviews are well attended.

Velocity is healthy.

Stakeholders seem happy.

Then someone asks:

“What benefits have we achieved?”

Nobody knows.

Nobody has measured them.

Nobody is tracking them.

Nobody knows whether the investment is still justified.

The delivery may be Agile.

The governance is missing.

Lightweight Agile frameworks are primarily designed to support product development, feedback and adaptation.

They do not remove the need for appropriate project governance.

Myth 2: “We’re using PRINCE2, so we must use Waterfall”

Imagine a project building a customer-facing mobile app.

Months are spent producing detailed requirements, plans and forecasts before users see anything.

When they finally do, the response is:

“That’s not really what we wanted.”

The project followed every approval process imaginable.

What it lacked was feedback.

The governance was not the problem.

The delayed learning was.

PRINCE2 did not cause the delay.

The delivery approach did.

PRINCE2 governs the project.

It does not dictate how products and solutions must be developed.

PRINCE2 did not prevent iterative delivery.

The organisation simply chose not to use it.

Myth 3: “Waterfall is old and Agile is modern”

Imagine engineers designing a bridge.

The sponsor asks:

“How long will it be?”

The engineers reply:

“We’ll discover that as we go.”

The sponsor asks:

“What weight will it support?”

The engineers reply:

“We’ll learn that through iteration.”

Confidence is unlikely to improve.

For many engineering, construction and infrastructure projects, substantial upfront planning is entirely appropriate.

Waterfall is not old-fashioned.

It is simply suited to different types of work.

Myth 4: “We need to choose one method”

Imagine asking a surgeon:

“Which tool will you use?”

The response:

“Scalpel.”

That’s it.

No context.

No diagnosis.

No consideration of the patient.

Most professions choose tools based on the problem being solved.

Project management sometimes does the opposite and tries to fit the problem around the chosen methodology.

The best organisations do not choose sides.

They solve problems or maximise opportunities.

Learning point Project success rarely comes from committing to a methodology. It comes from selecting the right combination of governance and delivery approaches for the situation.

The better question

Instead of asking:

“Should we use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

ask two separate questions.

Question 1: How should we govern the change?

This includes questions about:

Accountability

Decision-making

Business justification

Risk management

Assurance

Escalation

This is where PRINCE2 can help.

Question 2: How should we deliver the work?

This includes questions about:

Uncertainty

Requirements

Feedback

Adaptability

Design

Delivery

This is where Agile, Waterfall or a hybrid approach becomes relevant.

Quick takeaway Governance questions and delivery questions are not the same thing. Treating them as though they are often creates unnecessary debate and poor decisions.

What about hybrid approaches?

At this point, someone is probably thinking:

“That’s fine in theory, but we’re hybrid.”

For some organisations, hybrid means:

PRINCE2 governance with Agile delivery

PRINCE2 governance with Waterfall delivery

Agile development combined with traditional governance

Different delivery approaches across different workstreams

A mixture of Agile and Waterfall practices within the same project

In reality, hybrid is not a methodology in its own right. It is a deliberate design choice that combines the governance needed to control the investment with the delivery approach best suited to the work.

Many organisations have worked this way for years, even if they have never described their approach as hybrid.

The reality of modern projects

Most projects are neither purely Agile nor purely Waterfall.

A customer relationship management programme might:

Use PRINCE2 governance

Use Agile techniques for configuration

Use Waterfall techniques for data migration

A simple decision model can help.

Use PRINCE2 to define governance, decision rights, tolerances, escalation and business justification.

Use Agile where uncertainty is high, feedback is valuable and requirements are likely to evolve.

Use Waterfall where requirements are stable, dependencies are predictable and the cost of change is high.

Key message Hybrid is not a methodology. It is the intentional combination of governance and delivery approaches to suit the situation.

A simple test is to ask whether the uncertainty sits mainly in the product being created or in the investment being governed. If the product is uncertain, delivery may need to be iterative. If the investment needs stronger direction, the governance needs to be clearer. In many projects, both are true.

A final thought on hybrid

Ironically, once organisations stop asking:

“Should we use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

many discover they have been using a hybrid approach all along.

The objective is not to be Agile.

The objective is not to be Waterfall.

The objective is not to be PRINCE2.

The objective is to deliver successful outcomes and measurable benefits.

Sometimes that means using the best parts of all three.

Conclusion

The question was never:

“Should we use Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

Agile and Waterfall help decide how the work should be delivered. PRINCE2 helps decide how the project should be governed and controlled.

They are not competing answers to the same problem.

In many organisations, the most effective solution is not Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2.

It is an appropriate combination of governance and delivery approaches tailored to the situation.

So perhaps it is time we stopped asking:

“Agile, Waterfall or PRINCE2?”

and started asking:

How should we govern this change?

How should we deliver this work?

Once those questions are separated, the answer usually becomes much clearer.

Final thought The problem is not the choice. The problem is the comparison. Agile and Waterfall help deliver the work. PRINCE2 helps govern the investment. Successful organisations do not choose between governance and delivery. They choose the right governance and the right delivery approach for the situation.

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