mix agile development with waterfall project management and get fragile

Waterfall Project Management is perfect…

…for the right sort of project.

When it’s not the right project, the search for an alternative can* take two directions:
* (of course there are other directions, like RUP, but the point being made is about what happens between the two listed)

1. Choose another breed of methodology
2. Allow a hybrid mix of Waterfall and “Agile”

I would like to name the latter “Fragile”. The following lists some of the reasons why I think the name is a good fit.

• Misalignment of plan and reporting with activities
  • Inevitable set of missed milestones / failed gates
    • Leads to blame culture and low morale
    • High degree of effort in re-planning (chasing a moving target)
    • Rolling activity with little or no agreed prioritisation and change control
      • Little or no predictability

Here’s my view of the life-cycle for the perfect Waterfall, the perfect Agile…

…and what evolves between the two if not thought through – Fragile.



Carefully thinking through using Agile throughout the whole vertical Project Management stack, must include everyone. That’s developers, business & systems analysts, testers, customer managers, IT and business, all the way to the board.

It’s a significant culture change for everyone, but it’s much better than the Fragile process and therefore worth the effort. There are of course, many experts in Fragile and only a few experts in Agile. Here are a couple of the latter and their work:

Ken Schwaber – The Enterprise and Scrum

Jochen Krebs - Agile Portfolio Management

Mike Cohn – Agile Estimating & Planning

Agile Project Management is perfect, for the right sort of project….

…Fragile Project Management is good for nothing.

Let’s stop giving Agile a bad name.

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