The Moment of Truth: There Is No Hybrid Agile

Nima has years of experience in coaching teams and championing continuous improvement. He applies double-loop agile to coach teams and help them build up flexible cultures. Nima has worked with a wide range of clients from small start-ups to big corporations. Previously, Nima worked as a Scrum Master and as a Product Owner, and successfully launched a vast array of products from light iPad apps to giant enterprise solutions.

  Agile   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

There are many things we wish were real, like Santa Claus. Who doesn’t like the sweet guy that brings your kids gifts and make them happy? But he is not real. Bummer!

What about hybrid agile? It looks like a great middle ground between our established ways of doing things and trendy agile methodologies. We keep our current employees happy since they won’t need to abandon their old skills and habits.

At the same time, we tell our clients that our team has adopted agile. Wow! We will look super cool. Besides, there are few agile technics and meetings that I truly love to apply. Every one is going to be happy. But hybrid agile is not real. Bummer! Why?

I know you hear the term a lot, but I give you four reasons why what is called “hybrid agile” is not indeed agile—and thus not qualified to be called “agile” in any way.

1. Each methodology comes as a package. All present methodologies have evolved over a long time. Project management veterans and theoreticians conceptualized and developed components such as values, technics, tools and ceremonies for each methodology. All the components of each methodology work together and complement each other to deliver a coherent system for project management.

Then each methodology has passed years (if not decades) of tests in the real world. Tens of thousands of teams have tried new …

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