Michel, could you tell me which project management approach do you prefer when you are driving projects? Are you rather a Waterfall of Agile enthusiast? I prefer a blend. It is more as I say in English “horses for courses”, it depends on the circumstances. If you have well-defined objectives, you do not think they will change and you think that you can predict the outcome, then probably Waterfall is the best solution, or traditional project management as we say. If there is a possibility that things may change because you are working in a turbulent and complex environment, also maybe because requirements have not been well-defined at the beginning, then it is preferable to work in a more Agile way where you can adjust as you go. But again, in the Agile approach, when you have a sprint, each sprint is fairly well defined. In program management each cycle of the program should also be well-defined, but the program as a whole is a series of cycles where you cannot really predict the end, like in Agile you cannot predict the end of the project – you can only predict the next sprint. So that is where I think I would see the mix and the harmonization.

An interview with Michel Thiry conducted by Andrzej Kacperski. When Agile became popular many companies started to use it just because they wanted to be Agile like everyone else at the market. The use of Agile is not as easy as it seems, for example Scrum is “simple to understand but difficult to master”. Fortunately, a lot of companies managed to implement it successfully. I believe that mastering of the hybrid approach may be much more complicated. Aren’t you afraid that initially this approach will be harmless for the organizations as they will not be able to implement it properly?