Traditional and Agile

There is a recurring dispute between these two approaches for software development process: traditional and agile. Which one is better? It depends on the goals you want to reach and on the context of the project, the organization, including its professionals: the experience and skills that they have, and those that they do not have. Concerning the project, it makes a great difference if the project is for a critical safety system or an e-commerce website.

I certainly agree that there are advantages in each approach, but there is not a one-fits-all approach, the decision of which one to use depends on the entire context: business strategy, type of system to be developed, type of development, requirements to be addressed, characteristics of end users, skills of professionals, size of development team, limitations (on time and cost, for instance), time to market, competition, etc...

Could we say that agile is appropriate only for smaller teams? Should we say that traditional suggests a larger methodology? I would certainly prefer a less restrictive point of view. Whether you are more formal or more lightweight, it is advised to consider the context before making a decision.

I will come back to this topic, so if you have any stories of applying one of these approaches, share them with us!