Executive Summary

In more recent years in project management, the agile methodology has become increasingly popular. Many companies preferred it to other methods such as waterfall because customers could see results and changes within a short timeframe while being very flexible. The agile method tends to prioritize speed to market and change readiness over processes, plans, and documentation. However, this method wasn’t perfect and wouldn’t work with all projects. As more managers realize that agile isn’t the answer for everything, they begin to shift towards a hybrid of standard methods and agile. As agile and other project management methodologies become more common, we should become familiar with a larger spectrum of methods in order to incorporate the best hybrid method in our work. In the further paper, we will discuss the strengths of traditional, agile, and hybrid methods, common considerations and criteria for selecting a hybrid approach, and how to implement the approach.

Introduction

Many of us do not think of ourselves as project managers, but for the most part, we all do it at some point in our lives. Whether you are a student balancing different assignments for a class or a professional working towards a set goal for a deadline, project management is part of that process. Project management is any temporary event that has a defined beginning and end, as well as a defined scope and resources. For the student, the resources are the teachers, books, internet; the scope is to finish the assignments as specified before the due date. In the professional world, however, although the concepts are the same, we introduce some complexities in the form of certain tools, skills, and techniques. These techniques can be applied to many forms of projects whether it be to build a house or to rollout new programs and software within your company. Every project is different and has a unique set of parameters that poses a problem for managers: what methodology should we use? While some may want to use a traditional waterfall method, others may feel the newer agile methodologies may better suit their needs. Since there is no ‘one size fits all’ project method, many professionals are foreseeing trends that show that a hybrid of both traditional and agile methods are starting to be utilized. As stated in the abstract, the purpose of this is to delve deeper into the techniques within project management and seeing how trends are pushing towards more hybrid methods.

Choosing a Project Life Cycle – Waterfall or Agile? 

When trying to determine which project methodology to use for your needs, it is important to analyze the project life cycle.  First let’s investigate one of the more traditional yet most popular project management methodologies today: the waterfall method. The waterfall method takes a linear approach to project management. In a waterfall life cycle, also referred to as a predictive life cycle, the project scope, time, and cost are determined by the early phases of the life cycle. The bulk of the planning happens upfront while the rest is executed in a single pass. We can see the steps to a predictive life cycle (Project Management Institute, 2017):

  • Analyze -> Design -> Build -> Test -> Deliver

Any changes to these are carefully managed. Quality control activities are performed at specific times, usually towards the end of a project or phase. To use a waterfall or traditional method the following characteristics for your project should be met (Project Management Institute, 2017):

  1. Your main goal should be to manage to cost of your project
  2. The delivery method requirements for your project is single delivery
  3. Activities should be performed once for the entire project
  4. Requirements should be fixed.

One can see the from the activities and delivery method that this is meant to be a cost managing solution to project management, as it tries to plan everything beforehand and perform all the activities just once. This method takes advantage of the problems and issues that are known and proven. The lessened uncertainty and complexity allow the team to plan out the project steps and timing into predictable groupings. The method itself is straight forward as it clearly lists out all the steps by phase so you know exactly when to start, end a certain phase, and what is to be done. With very few back and forth conversations about activities and requirements, it makes costs more transparent and can be determined in advance.

These strengths to waterfall however do not come without some flaws. First, waterfall seems to have difficulties with working with much larger projects. Change is also rarely welcome in the waterfall method, once the beginning design phase work in complete and testing commences, it is costly to go back and redevelop or redesign elements as well as significantly pushes back the timelines. Fixed requirements and actions also result in less flexibility since this is a linear method.  Finally, we do not receive a working version of the software or product until the end of the project.

An agile approach differs greatly from a waterfall method. Agile is not a linear method, instead it uses a more cyclical approach.  Where waterfall results in a product all the way at the end of the project, agile methods allow for this to happen much faster, more frequent, and with more communication. While waterfall spends a lot of time in the design phase, agile does not, instead they spend less time in the design phase and more time with frequent inspections and adaptations.  We can see the agile life cycle below (Project Management Institute, 2017):

  • Requirements, Analysis, Design, Build, Test -> Requirements, Analysis, Design, Build, Test -> Repeat as needed … ->

The approach focuses more on the business needs of the clients and company goals, giving adequate updates, and multiple deliveries. It also focuses on eliminating waste and improving transparency by forcing to align customer and company needs, empirical demonstration of results, while having the customer present.  Agile methods tend to be more responsive to market changes as well and result in higher customer satisfaction. All this sounds great, but again, the agile methodology is not suitable for every project. Below are some characteristics of an agile project (Project Management Institute, 2017):

  1. Your main goal should to add customer value via frequent deliveries and feedback
  2. There will be frequent small deliveries
  3. Activities will be repeated until they are correct
  4. Requirements are dynamic

Projects that would fit an agile methodology would have unclear or unknown requirements, uncertain risks, high rates of change and a final goal that may be hard to describe. (PMBOK) The scope and schedule of the project tend to be more flexible. 

After learning some of the distinctions between these two methods we can ask ourselves the following when it comes to choosing for our project: is this waterfall project where risk processes can be followed sequentially and iteratively, or does it follow an agile approach where risk is addressed at the start of each iteration as well as during its execution? The answer is something one must figure out for themselves depending on their list of requirements and project scope. However, in some cases, neither of these methods may be the best for our needs. In this case what do we do?

Hybrid Methodologies

In situations where neither a traditional method nor agile method work for a project, many professionals are resorting to taking bits and pieces of both and creating their own hybrid method. In the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide, there are 4 approaches for the project life cycle: Predictive, Iterative, Incremental, and Agile. Previously we covered predictive and agile, but what if our requirements fall into one of the other categories? The PMBOK acknowledges that it is not necessary to use a single approach for an entire project. Using a combination of the predictive, iterative, incremental, and agile methods is a hybrid approach. We would use a hybrid method to bring together the strengths of both agile and traditional methods. A hybrid can result in shortened design, analysis and planning time frames but better define project frames than an agile method. It would also result in more collaboration and transparency.

There are many ways you can implement a hybrid method, and no one method may work on every project. Building a sound hybrid method really depends on the scope of your project and must be carefully put together. We will go over a sample in the following. In order to use a hybrid method, in most cases we should do the following (Rodov & Teixido, 2016; Project Management Institute, 2017):

  1. Use old waterfall method for initial project definitions. Although the agile method of frequent deliveries has much higher success, it is important to at least try to get a clear definition of the scope, goals, and definition of the final product as best as possible. Designs should be developed with a waterfall approach. It also helps to identify: ID, product feature / user story, business purpose, priority, sprint no, activity/deliverables, and supporting documents.
  2. Hybrid project schedule development. Customers nowadays are demanding, they want the quick deliverables available through agile but using the thoroughness and predictability of a traditional waterfall method. Project deliverables should be prioritized, have forecasts of releases, while building a long-term schedule to anticipate potential slippage. Priorities and ‘must-haves’ must be managed.
  3. Apply visual management to project teams. As generations of professionals come and go, we noticed that younger generations want to read less and visualize more. The most effective way of communication is face to face. The agile method is about more frequent communication of changes and deliveries. While we still need to use bulky waterfall documents to have requirements in, managers will have to reply on more to get younger generations.
  4. Use earned value management in agile. These tools have been around even in waterfall methods but are thought to be agile only. These tools allow for forecasting in hours spent and scheduling and so forth.
  5. Understand your change efforts. Figure out how much effort is worth spent on managing incremental changes versus the benefits you get from doing that. You may even need to make some historical process adoptions.
  6. Increased informal collaboration. More informal (one on one) conversations forces the team to be more efficient and everyone to participate. In a one on one convo rather than a large group conversation, others are more likely to be vocal and share their opinions.

Conclusion

Both Agile and waterfall, also known as traditional, methods have their strengths and flaws. Agile methods spend less time in the development and design phases and more time on the overall testing. They provide more deliverables, transparency into their projects, and collaboration between the customer and business. Waterfall methods are more traditional and spend more time in the planning phases. They have on continuous cycle and are not very flexible but can be cost effective. While many people were leaving traditional methods to practice agile methods, nowadays trends point towards using more hybrid methods of the two, encompassing the strengths of both methods.  There are many ways to implement a hybrid method, however in most cases it is common to use the more thought out planning process from waterfall methods combined with the collaborations and flexibility of agile methods.

Biography:

Tanweer Ahmed is an MBA graduate from Montclair State University with his Bachelor of Science in Public Health / Health Administration from Rutgers University. As a recent MBA graduate he continues to build his business analytics and project management knowledge to further his Analyst role at Ernst & Young. Get to know more about the author here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedtanweer18/

References:

Brownlee, D. (2019, July 22). 4 Project Management Trends On The Horizon…Are You Ready? Retrieved October 14, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2019/07/21/4-project-management-trends-on-the-horizonare-you-ready/#367a46976769.

Fair, J. (2012). Agile versus Waterfall approach is right for my ERP project? Retrieved October 14, 2019, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/agile-versus-waterfall-approach-erp-project-6300.

Project Management Institute. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (6th ed.). Newton Square, PA.

Rodov, A., & Teixidó, J. (2016). Blending Agile And Waterfall Keys To Successful Implementation. Retrieved October 14, 2019, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/blending-agile-waterfall-successful-integration-10213.

Stobierski, T. (2019, August 9). 5 Project Management Trends Emerging in 2019. Retrieved October 14, 2019, from https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/project-management-trends/.