Hybrid Agile – Moving Agile Development to the Next Level

As the Agile movement enters its second decade it needs to move beyond its early focus on small development teams and prove that it can scale up to handle much larger projects and scale out to address the entire value chain from requirements gathering and programming to testing and production rollout. In fact Agile needs to go beyond just systems development and address the alignment between IT and business and the design and operation of entire companies.

I explored these challenges with Jim Highsmith, a well known thought leader in the Agile movement and executive consultant at Thoughtworks, and Mik Kersten, leader of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project and CEO of Tasktop Technologies. Jim spoke of the issues around scaling Agile and Mik described the kind of tools that are needed to support that scaling. They both agree that Agile will become a hybrid collection of best practices from various methods such as XP, Scrum and Kanban as well as practices from traditional waterfall development methods.

[ I do lively presentations on this and related topics - mhugos@yahoo.com ]
 
Agile Methods and Techniques
 
Jim described a model of agile practices composed of four layers and noted that different agile methods have techniques that speak to the different layers. He said the first layer of the model, technical skills, is well addressed by techniques in Extreme Programming (XP). The second layer, Iteration Management is well served by Scrum. A methodology known as Dynamic System Development Methodology (DSDM) speaks to needs in the third layer, Products and Projects; and ideas from his book Agile Project Management address the fourth layer, Portfolio Governance.
 
He said that people and groups just starting out with agile development often lock in on one set of agile practices and become rigid in their outlook. He called that “prescriptive agile” because people prescribe one agile method for all development projects. As people gain experience though, they usually realize the need to move on to “adaptive agile” which is a hybrid approach tailored to the needs of each situation and each project.
 
He used The Motley Fool as an example of a company that employs hybrid agile. They use the Kanban method for system maintenance and enhancement activities because Kanban can streamline workflows and reduce work in process. They use Scrum and XP for new system development work because those methodologies provide effective techniques for technical design and iterative building of systems.
 
Tools to Support Hybrid Agile
 
Mik Kersten noted that Agile has gone from a bottom-up movement where small groups of developers began using it on individual projects to a top-down policy where executives are starting to adopt Agile as a company standard. However, attempts to scale Agile to the enterprise level are generating a backlash, “at conferences you see the Agile enthusiasts; but back at the shop there are a lot of other developers who are not so enthusiastic,” he said. Between a half to a third of all developers are not presently using any kind of agile method in their work and these people will not totally abandon the way they currently do development work.
 
Over the years companies and people have developed standards around the use of certain tools for gathering system requirements and planning and managing projects. These tools have worked well and are often geared toward a more traditional waterfall process. So companies want to keep using them, and that

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