Chapter 9 - Hybrid Project Management

What is hybrid project management?

Hybrid project management is a combination of elements (methods, roles, processes, artifacts, …) from two or more PM standards or process models.

Can occur intentionally or unintentionally

For example

■ Traditional + agile

■ Agile + agile

■ Traditional + traditional

List the types of hybrid project management.

○ Bimodal

■ Parallel

■ Sequential

○ Evolutionary

○ Best-of-breed

○ Other

Describe parallel and sequential

Parallel - agile and traditional at the same time in different paths of the project

Sequential - switch between agile and traditional for different phases of the project

Describe evolutionary, best-of-breed, and other.

○ Evolutionary - starting in traditional mode and switching to agile later on – or vice versa

○ Best-of-breed - integrated mix of agile and traditional concepts (a.k.a. cherry picking)

○ Other - any other arrangement that combines agile and traditional PM

Give examples for each hybrid type.

○ Parallel - For a new car system, the hardware is developed using a waterfall approach while Scrum is used for software development.

○ Sequential - For a new apartment building, design planning is performed in agile mode. When the plan is final, the actual construction process follows traditional methods.

○ Evolutionary - At the beginning of a large project, several Scrum-like Sprints are performed. Later the project switches to traditional methods that the customer prefers.

○ Best-of-breed - Some teams decide to have daily standup meetings and use Kanban-like task boards. Other teams implement regular Retrospectives even though they don’t work in Sprints.

○ Other - In a company where projects are managed traditionally, a small development unit decides to try out Scrum. However, management still requires them to plan budgets and milestones as before and to deliver monthly status reports. The unit is forced to use dual methods until management is convinced that Scrum really works

● What is AgileFall?

○ Attempting to implement agility while really sticking to waterfall methods

○ Follows agile processes (sprint, daily standups…)

○ But team is not open to change and disruption

○ Category:

■ Other

■ Agile + traditional - unintentional - problem

What is Water-Scrum-Fall?

○ Waterfall approach for requirements and planning as well as deployment and maintenance

○ Scrum for development phase

○ Category

■ bimodal – sequential

■ agile + traditional – intentional – solution

○ Advantages

■ Flexibility

■ Stakeholder comfort

○ Disadvantages

■ Increased complexity

○ Possible Applications

■ Software development

When does traditional and when does agile work best?

Traditional

■ Scope and requirements fully known

■ Changes unwelcome

■ Extensive documentation required

■ Solution path well known

Agile

■ Scope and requirements uncomplete

■ Solution path unclear

■ Changes expected and welcome

■ Early delivery of value preferred