Project Management: Foundations to Practice · Agile, Scrum, and Hybrid Delivery
Hybrid Approaches and Choosing a Delivery Model
Few real projects fit neatly into a purely predictive or purely Agile model. This chapter covers how hybrid approaches split work by genuine uncertainty, and how PMBOK 8 formally accommodates this.
Few real-world projects fit neatly into a purely predictive or purely Agile model, which is why hybrid approaches, combining elements of both, have become increasingly common. A typical hybrid pattern uses predictive, plan-driven methods for well-understood elements of a project, such as regulatory approvals or physical construction, while using Agile iteration for elements with higher uncertainty, such as software features being built alongside that infrastructure [1].
- Hybrid approaches combine predictive methods for well-understood work with Agile iteration for higher-uncertainty work within the same project.
- PMBOK 8th Edition is explicitly approach-agnostic, applicable across predictive, iterative, adaptive, and hybrid delivery models.
- Delivery model choice should be driven by how well-understood and stable the requirements are, not organizational habit or trend.
- Sophisticated hybrid implementations make the predictive-versus-adaptive choice separately for each distinct component, not uniformly across the whole project.