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Agile Hybrid, Is Wagile Even a Thing?



Wagile is certainly a thing


When a company or a team decides to go Agile but they are not ready, they start by adopting certain Agile Practices without giving up on control completely, trying to play it safe. The result of this combination of traditional management and the new Agile practices is what we call WAgile. WAgile or Agile Hybrid is a commonly defined vicious blended methodology that has Waterfall software development processes with Agile-like practices and ceremonies.


But, what are the scenarios that foster a WAgile approach? Usually, apart from a company only adopting some Agile practices, it is also the fear of a company that has previously tried to implement Agile but failed and doesn’t want to repeat those mistakes, so they stick or start falling back to the waterfall process.


How does a Wagile environment look like?


Take a look at the following characteristics:

  1. Kick-off meetings

  2. Requirements are explicitly described, well-formatted, and owned by business analysts, but are in the form of user stories

  3. Project managers fill the role of Scrum masters:

  4. Team size is more than 20 people

  5. Virtual Agile teams

  6. Daily status reports

  7. Dealing with vendors

  8. Waterfall mindset vs, continuous integration

  9. MVP vs. Complete delivery


Do you identify any of these characteristics in your work environment? If you do, here are some words of wisdom that our speaker Arthur Zigman conveyed in our session last Wednesday:


“When you find yourself in a waterfall process, take it, and execute it in an Agile way. Think in terms of Agile Values, products, and value streams rather than processes.”


Indeed, sometimes the company is not ready, it doesn’t have the budget to fund it, or it is still having issues with finding value in an Agile transformation that could take years. In those common cases, as an Agilist, focus on delivering value within a Waterfall methodology or Wagile environment and look for results that will encourage leadership to move towards a true Agile Transformation in the long run. Instead of getting to the point of frustration, navigate with a different mindset. An Agile mindset.


If you are interested in how to get through your Wagile work environment, check out this video! Start understanding the benefits of the Agile mindset and how it can help you deliver Agile value to your teams and organization.


Key topics:

  • What is Waterfall?

  • Then, what is SAFe?

  • What is WAGILE?

  • Waterfall has many versions

  • HOW DO WE GET TO WAGILE AND HOW DO WE DEAL WITH IT?

  • Q&A

Watch the full meeting here:




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