Giant Talk: The World‘s First OKR Podcast

S10: E2 The battle between waterfall and agile methodologies

Jan 29, 2024

Exploring the battle between waterfall and agile methodologies in project management, discussing the need for a hybrid approach. Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez's insights on combining OKRs with project management for success. The challenges of managing modern projects and the importance of collaboration between different methodologies. Antonio's research on hybrid project management and ways to contribute to the study.

28:22

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Quick takeaways

Combining waterfall and agile methodologies can lead to a more effective project management approach that considers both detailed planning and adaptability.

Both waterfall and agile methodologies have their strengths and limitations, with waterfall being more suitable for projects requiring clarity and agile for projects with uncertain outcomes.

Deep dives

The Need for a New Approach to Project Management

Antonio Nietto discusses the need for a new approach to project management, highlighting the high failure rate of transformation projects. He emphasizes that using the same methods without adaptation is not leading to different results. Nietto suggests a hybrid approach that combines the best of both waterfall and agile methodologies. This approach involves using the most suitable tools for each project and phase, taking into account factors like clarity of requirements, efficiency in execution, estimation of cost and timelines, documentation needs, and stakeholder involvement.

Introduction

3min

Evolution of Project Management Methodologies

10min

Comparing Waterfall and Agile Methodologies

11min

Exploring the Origins of the Strategy Implementation Institute

3min

Community Membership and Project Collaboration Post-OKRs

2min

We're clearly big fan of OKRs, but we're not so blindly fanatical that we don’t accept they are only part of the picture when it comes to strategy execution.

OKRs signpost and help to chart progress at a high level but don’t do a great job at defining and tracking the details; they need to interface with the next level, and that’s often project management.

At TBG we've had a lot of involvement with project management over the years, both in a “traditional” waterfall sense and also agile, and have seen how either tribe (as that’s how it appears sometimes) seems to hold the other in disdain. Because of this, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’s HBR paper on how Waterfall and Agile should learn how to work together better caught our eye.

Join us as we explore the challenges of managing modern projects and how Antonio believes a “hybrid” combination of waterfall and agile is now needed.

Antonio is the author of the HBR Project Management Handbook, he also writes for the WSJ and is one of the founders of https://www.strategyimplementationinstitute.org/

Antonio is currently conducting research into hybrid project management so if you are interested in contributing, you can do this via https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NXK2TCF

You can find his website at http://antonionietorodriguez.com/

He has a LinkedIn newsletter at https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/lead-projects-successfully-6820596029113565184/

And a selection of free courses on LinkedIn learning at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/antonio-nieto-rodriguez

Enjoy the episode!