From time to time, articles keep emerging on our feed that Agile teams are failing. A popular article by Deloitte, “How fragile is your Agile,” covers the six common pitfalls teams face when using Agile for project management. 

But at the same time, statistics say Agile is the supreme project management methodology of all time. 70% of the companies in the U.S. are using Agile as of 2022 with a success rate of 64%. It provides the flexibility to respond to change, increases development speed, and fosters better connections between end customers and project teams.         

So, what is the truth about whether Agile is failing or not? Is Agile enough for project success or not?

Well, the answer lies in the context. Both lines of thought are true. Agile is failing in some scenarios and is not enough for project success. But for scenarios it is designed for, Agile is super-successful and more than enough.

In this post, we will look at the scenarios when Agile is not enough for project success and what you need to do in those scenarios.

4 Scenarios When Agile is Not Enough for Project Success

The key here is to understand where Agile is suitable and where it is not. Here are the four scenarios when Agile is not enough for project success:

1. Projects with fixed outcomes and linear workflows

Agile is not designed for long-term projects with fixed outcomes that follow step-by-step processes for completion in a linear workflow.

For example, a construction project where you have a clear idea of what you want and there is a well-defined, tested, and proven process of building a house.

You cannot apply Agile here. The four values and 12 principles of Agile are designed to embrace change.

These are projects where:

• Project outcomes are fixed.
• You have fixed deadlines, budget, and scope.
• Your clients need certainty related to cost, deadline, and budget.

If you apply Agile in this scenario, you will be asking for trouble.

In these scenarios, you should go for the Waterfall approach, which can provide you with better control of the project costs, timeline, and delivery.  

Agile is a good choice of project management methodology for projects with changing requirements. It provides you with the necessary flexibility to help you with ever-changing scope management.

2. A project team not skilled in Agile

Agile teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. This means they are responsible for deciding how much work they can do and delivering it. One team member in the development team can take multiple roles.

Most of the employees in the real world cannot take multiple roles. You need to find a cross-functional project team to truly apply Agile values.

For example, a developer should be able to test, code, and deploy, and a tester should be able to code and deploy if required.

The Agile development team does not have any team roles. They are just developers.

And when we say self-organizing, an Agile team has to decide its workload for the sprint or cycle. Thus, it is mandatory for every team member to participate in assigning story points to each story in the presence of the Scrum Master and Product owner. Not all employees take this additional responsibility of completely assigning and tracking their own work and progress.

3. Multiple teams working on a project

Managing a single Agile team working on a project is a completely different experience from managing multiple Agile teams working on a single project. It requires a whole different level of collaboration, transparency, and individuals taking responsibility.

Unless your organization is trained in Agile scaling frameworks, it is hard to manage the work and coordinate with multiple Agile teams. Thus, you have to go beyond Agile recommendations and hire a manager to assign and delegate tasks, manage deadlines, check employee statuses, and more of such administrative tasks for project success.    

4. Long-term projects with a need for planning and direction

Agile does not focus heavily on building the documentation for the project upfront. It is because the framework needs the freedom from rigid processes, documentation, and approvals to be flexible and focus more on what end-users actually want.

But if you are working on a long-term project with multiple stakeholders who have some idea of project outcomes, you have to engage with stakeholders and build the documentation. Practices of the Agile framework will not be enough here. That’s why you see a fair share of companies using the hybrid project management approach to manage projects. They combine the Waterfall (during the planning phase) and the Agile (during the execution phase). 

The most suitable example of hybrid project management is managing a marketing project. There are multiple stakeholders involved and you have defined goals you want to achieve from the marketing campaign. But during the execution phase, you need to iterate and find which marketing strategies work and which are failing.

To channel efforts and create and maintain resource and budget forecasts, you need direction that is provided from the documentation.

These are the major scenarios where Agile is not enough for project success.

What to Do when Agile Isn’t Enough for Project Success?

Agile is not the suitable choice for project management in every project scenario or every industry. When Agile isn’t enough for the project’s success, you have two options to approach your project:

• Either choose some other standalone methodology to manage projects such as Waterfall, Lean, and PRINCE2; 
• Or opt for a hybrid project management approach to make full use of the practices from a blend of the combined frameworks.

In a hybrid approach, you can combine Waterfall with Agile, Scrum with Kanban, or perform a certain set of operations in Waterfall and others in Agile. 

When done right, hybrid project management methods can deliver performance and project results as good as any predictive or agile methods.

– The PMI Blog 

However, the biggest challenge here will be the successful implementation of project management methodology. You need a skilled project manager who has the expertise to choose the right project methodology as per the project needs. Once you have chosen the project management methodology for your project, the next step is to make sure your project team understands the practices, artifacts, rules, and ways of working of the methodology so that you can actually implement the new project management methodology for the project’s success.