Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Many organizations are embracing hybrid delivery, combining predictive planning with agile execution. But is this a sustainable model, or just a temporary compromise on the path to full agility?
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa Excellent question and one that strikes at the heart of modern project management evolution.
In my experience, hybrid models are not a bridge, they are a landscape.
They represent the maturity to recognize that different parts of a system evolve at different speeds.
Some domains demand predictability (compliance, infrastructure, safety), while others thrive on adaptability (innovation, design, change).
A truly sustainable hybrid model is not a compromise, it’s an integration logic: the ability to align structure with context, agility with governance, and delivery with purpose.
When done consciously, hybrid delivery becomes a regenerative architecture - flexible enough to adapt, disciplined enough to deliver, and intelligent enough to learn.
I believe the future of project delivery will continue to lean toward a hybrid model rather than moving entirely to full agility.
In today’s fast-paced and dynamic business environment, organizations need adaptability while still maintaining structure and predictability. A hybrid approach offers the best of both worlds, leveraging the strategic foresight and risk management strengths of predictive planning while embracing the flexibility, responsiveness, and iterative learning of agile execution. This balance allows teams to manage complex projects with clear direction while remaining open to change and innovation.
Ultimately, hybrid delivery is not just a temporary compromise but a sustainable and practical evolution that reflects the diverse and rapidly changing nature of modern organizations. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Lissette, full agility doesn’t suit all industries or projects equally. For example, in sectors like construction, aerospace, or manufacturing, a high degree of upfront planning is not just preferable, it’s essential. These industries deal with physical infrastructure, strict regulatory requirements, and long lead times, making a purely agile approach impractical, especially in the early stages of a project.
That’s why, in my opinion, hybrid delivery is not just a temporary compromise but a sustainable model. It allows organizations to maintain structure where needed while staying adaptable in execution. Rather than being a stepping stone to full agility, hybrid models often represent the optimal balance for delivering value effectively in complex, real-world environments.
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1 reply by David Portas
Oct 30, 2025 8:14 AM
David Portas
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Rami mentions manufacturing. Agility as mindset, as enterprise culture and as way of working began in the manufacturing industry (the Agile Manufacturing Enterprise Forum, circa 1992).
My own area of expertise is software, data and technology. In that space, and in my experience, Agile ways of working are pretty much required, essential and ubiquitous, meaning at the very least that empowered cross-functional delivery teams, early and frequent iteration, inspection and adaption are things that everyone rightly considers to be best practices and that most organizations expect to see carried out.
Maybe I am missing something about "hybrid" but whenever that word is mentioned in the context of software and tech it seems to mean nothing more than "planning" or "governance", i.e. someone apparently thinks that agile ways of working don't adequately accommodate longer-term planning and governance and that those things require something else called a hybrid. That always seems to me like an odd misunderstanding of agility. Agile teams I have been involved with were quite successful at long-term planning and governance - nobody ever called them hybrid. I wonder if the term hybrid just arises as a kind of security blanket or hedge? A way of placating people who are inexperienced or otherwise nervous, perhaps because they have heard of bad experiences with "agility"? Or does the idea of hybrid just arise because some people assume that agility = Scrum and so they want to address some of the limitations of Scrum?
Aaron made a good point about mixed frameworks, such as Scruban for example, Kanban and XP, or Kanban and PRINCE2. Those kinds of hybrid are not somehow less agile in my experience.
I agree with Rami that different industries require various models to meet their goals. I also believe that the hybrid model will remain effective as long as it continues to provide value. Saving Changes...
I've always maintained that pure predictive and pure adaptive approaches are appropriate for only a very small fraction of projects. Nearly all projects have contexts falling somewhere along the continuum between these two extremes so hybrid approaches (life cycles, practices, or techniques) are the norm not the exception.
One distinction to keep in mind is that not all hybrid approaches are agile/waterfall. There are several, agile/agile hybrid approaches. The first two that come to mind, both of which have been around a while, are Scrum/Kanban (Scrumban) and Scrum/XP hybrids. Kanban and Lean have also been used together successfully. Disciplined Agile is a hybrid approach, as well.
Alternatively, there are also Waterfall/Waterfall hybrids. Prince2/PMBOK, Waterfall/V-Model, Waterfall/Critical Chain, and more. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason many people think waterfall is so strict is because of one or more hybrid approaches.
In short, hybrid models have been around a while, aren't going anywhere, and are more than just a bridge between agile and predictive.
Full agility is a broader conversation. Enforcing a single approach to project management isn't going to make a business agile, even if it's an "agile" approach. The right project management approach can help, but if a company's overall culture, governance, leadership, and strategy are rigid, the company cannot be fully agile. This is assuming that full agility is 1) desirable, 2) possible, 3) sustainable, and 4) replicable. Spotify, ING Bank, and Zappos are examples of attempts at full agility that didn't last. Balancing adaptability and stability is probably a better objective to pursue that might look something like:
- Strategic agility at the top of the company
- Operational agility in product and service delivery
- Intentional stability in governance and finance
...balancing adaptability (where it creates value), with stability (where it reduces risk). This will look different across organizations. Saving Changes...
From my perspective, hybrid models are here to stay. They offer the flexibility of agile while maintaining the structure of predictive approaches, which many organizations still need. I see them not as a temporary bridge but as an adaptable framework that can evolve with each project’s complexity and organizational maturity. Saving Changes...
Lissette, full agility doesn’t suit all industries or projects equally. For example, in sectors like construction, aerospace, or manufacturing, a high degree of upfront planning is not just preferable, it’s essential. These industries deal with physical infrastructure, strict regulatory requirements, and long lead times, making a purely agile approach impractical, especially in the early stages of a project.
That’s why, in my opinion, hybrid delivery is not just a temporary compromise but a sustainable model. It allows organizations to maintain structure where needed while staying adaptable in execution. Rather than being a stepping stone to full agility, hybrid models often represent the optimal balance for delivering value effectively in complex, real-world environments.
Rami mentions manufacturing. Agility as mindset, as enterprise culture and as way of working began in the manufacturing industry (the Agile Manufacturing Enterprise Forum, circa 1992).
My own area of expertise is software, data and technology. In that space, and in my experience, Agile ways of working are pretty much required, essential and ubiquitous, meaning at the very least that empowered cross-functional delivery teams, early and frequent iteration, inspection and adaption are things that everyone rightly considers to be best practices and that most organizations expect to see carried out.
Maybe I am missing something about "hybrid" but whenever that word is mentioned in the context of software and tech it seems to mean nothing more than "planning" or "governance", i.e. someone apparently thinks that agile ways of working don't adequately accommodate longer-term planning and governance and that those things require something else called a hybrid. That always seems to me like an odd misunderstanding of agility. Agile teams I have been involved with were quite successful at long-term planning and governance - nobody ever called them hybrid. I wonder if the term hybrid just arises as a kind of security blanket or hedge? A way of placating people who are inexperienced or otherwise nervous, perhaps because they have heard of bad experiences with "agility"? Or does the idea of hybrid just arise because some people assume that agility = Scrum and so they want to address some of the limitations of Scrum?
Aaron made a good point about mixed frameworks, such as Scruban for example, Kanban and XP, or Kanban and PRINCE2. Those kinds of hybrid are not somehow less agile in my experience. Saving Changes...
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