Do we work according to waterfall or agile methods?

Eating your own dog-food is a classic quote, and we try to adapt to this maxim.

When we started with Architecture Corner a year ago, we didn't have a method or ways-of-working in place. We just shot a few episodes, edited them and published them one by one.

The initial episodes were more a proof-of-concept were we tried the idea of Architecture Corner as a complement to Gregers blog and my own blog.  

Ways of working

Today, we have a established process for each episode with six clear steps. 

Our process for video production with six distinct steps and clear decision points 

This process diagram looks very much like a waterfall processes and we could easily use PROPS or PRINCE as project methods for each episode. I think we all can agree that each activity has to be more or less ready until we start next phase. 

The more we do in idea creation and pre-production, the more efficient we are at the shooting location in production . The production is where the most resources as used together at one place and at one time, so to minimize this is important from a logistics and resource perspective.

The more you plan, the more creative you can be at the shot location.

For example, we have to shoot a whole interview at one, but we can shoot B-foto or do voice over after we started with post production. But, once published we can't make changes to the same video on YouTube. (It's possible to upload a adjusted video on Vimeo, but this is not out primary channel.)

After publishing is done, we can edit the text, image and other metadata for the video on YouTube, as well as add sub-titles, not anything else.  

Of course, follow-up can't be done on something we haven't published. 

But on a high-level, per season, we don't plan in more detail than number of episodes, dates and general topics to discuss like in the video Prelude to season 3.

The answer to the initial question is that we work more according to waterfall within each episode, but are rather agile on a high level.  

Light-weight project management

We are using a kanban board (Trello) to keep track of each activity from idea creation to publishing and follow-up.  Other than this, we use e-mail and different messaging platforms together with Dropbox and Google drive to share information during the whole process. 

As this series of episodes are produced without a formal budget, and by using available time slots in our calendars, we don't allocate resources or follow used time or other expenses.  

Therefore, the PM role is very thin.