Agile and traditional project management : comparing agile, traditional and hybrid project management practices

Abstract

The study researches the use of the hybrid project management approach in practice. The challenges of both agile and traditional project management models represented by 15 established project management Critical Success Factors (CSF) were used to examine the differences between traditional, agile and hybrid project management practices. Although other studies have investigated the CSF in traditional and agile project management, this study is the first to review 15 CSF for hybrid project management. The research takes a quantitative approach using a survey as the research method. The primary data for the present study were collected in Germany by an online survey. These primary data were collected with the participation of project management professionals from the German Chapters of the Project Management Institute (PMI). In the subsequent analysis of the online survey data, 15 hypotheses for hybrid project management were formulated, in addition to the existing body of knowledge of traditional and agile project management. Project management models make change possible where simple, complicated and complex kinds of project management are required and academia benefits from this work through its insight into the increased need for flexibility in this context. This research shows that neither traditional project management nor agile project management is wholly similar to hybrid project management. The main finding of this research is that its similarity depends on the CSF. As a research outcome, the guiding principles have been formulated for showing which situations merit hybrid project management. The research also benefits practitioners, since it will guide project managers who are not sure when and where to use a certain project management paradigm. As an outcome, the research implies that project managers will better understand why and in which situation traditional approaches should be chosen, and why and when agile or hybrid project management approaches should be preferred.