Maybe Hybrid’s Okay (Temporarily)
It’s no secret I’m not a fan of the idea of ‘hybrid’ project management.
To me, anything that falls under the category of ‘delivering an outcome’ is simply *project management*.
So Agile, predictive, phased, event-based… even Design for Six Sigma, are methods of ‘project management’.
However, over the weekend Pierre La Manh (PMI President & CEO) posted an interesting comment; one I’d like to play Devil’s Advocate with and explore a bit.
In response to my comments re: how some concepts and terminology have become confused, Pierre said “My perspective on this is that sometimes presenting an old concept as “new” by reframing it more effectively is also a powerful way to make progress.”
Now, this is nothing new. Old ideas get repackaged all the time. And while frustrating to those who have successfully used the ‘old’ idea, every generation has an innate need to ‘add to’ the body of knowledge of their chosen field. It’s not going to stop.
So what if we approach this differently – that Hybrid is less the idea of a new ‘method’, and more an (acknowledged) repackaging to make entry into project management easier? Remember, to many of us this isn’t ‘new’, but to many just entering the field the first things they see or are exposed to are the holy wars of Waterfall vs Agile – the idea they have to make a choice, or that there’s a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
In this context, ‘Hybrid’ actually provides an avenue for new PMs’ to not have to make a ‘choice’ (which is what most of us have been saying anyway).
If we follow this path over a few years, then ‘project management’ describes the ‘field’, ‘hybrid’ becomes a way to describe ‘the best approach to manage your project’, and the holy wars disappear. I also think, over time, the word ‘hybrid’ would fall off since all ‘good’ project management would be seen as ‘hybrid’, making the descriptor unnecessary.
Viewed this way, ‘hybrid’ becomes a way to overcome the persistent Waterfall vs Agile problem, and get back to ‘project management’.
In this context, I think I’m less opposed to the idea of ‘Hybrid’, PROVIDED, Hybrid isn’t put forth as a ‘branded/labeled’ methodology with the associated certs, training, etc.
Originally published on LinkedIn