Predictive
Often useful when: Much of the scope, schedule, and cost can be planned early and controlled against an approved baseline.
PM focus: Control requirements, dependencies, estimates, change, forecasts, and acceptance.
Use the approach that fits the work.
FI5E supports projects delivered predictively, adaptively, iteratively, incrementally, or through a combination. Agile is a broad mindset; Scrum is a defined framework; Kanban focuses on flow. They are related, but they are not interchangeable.
QUICK COMPARISON
Start with the work, not the label.
These are starting points, not a substitute for your organization’s method or an experienced delivery team.
| What is true about the work? | Approach to consider | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements stable and regulated handoffs dominate | Predictive or Waterfall | Facility renovation or equipment installation with approved drawings and inspections |
| Users must see working value and give frequent feedback | Agile; Scrum may fit a product team | Customer portal delivered and reviewed in usable increments |
| Requests arrive continuously and bottlenecks matter | Kanban | IT service, maintenance, or compliance-request flow |
| Physical work is sequential while software evolves | Hybrid | Capital equipment installation plus interface development |
| The same solution must improve through repeated learning | Iterative | Prototype, process redesign, or training experience refined through trials |
| Leadership must decide whether funding continues | Stage-gate | Product, research, or capital program investment decision |
Waterfall
Often useful when: Work moves through substantially sequential phases and later phases depend on approved earlier results.
PM focus: Make phase exits, handoffs, rework risk, and approval evidence explicit.
Agile
Often useful when: The solution benefits from learning, feedback, and adapting the work as value is delivered in smaller increments.
PM focus: Keep outcomes, stakeholders, priorities, risks, external commitments, funding, and organizational dependencies visible around the delivery team.
Scrum
Often useful when: A team develops a complex product through time-boxed Sprints using the defined Scrum accountabilities, events, artifacts, and commitments.
PM focus: Do not rename or replace Scrum roles. Connect product delivery to broader decisions, vendors, milestones, governance, and acceptance when those exist.
Kanban
Often useful when: Work arrives continuously and flow, work-in-progress limits, bottlenecks, and service expectations matter more than fixed iterations.
PM focus: Make workflow, blocked items, aging work, dependencies, and delivery expectations visible without adding unnecessary ceremony.
Hybrid
Often useful when: Part of the project needs predictive control while another part benefits from iterative or Agile delivery.
PM focus: Build one integrated view of milestones, releases, dependencies, decisions, readiness, acceptance, and handoffs across both systems.
Lean
Often useful when: The goal is to improve value, flow, quality, and speed by reducing delay, rework, handoffs, and work that does not contribute to the result.
PM focus: Help the team see the workflow, constraints, causes of waste, measures, experiments, and confirmed improvement.
Iterative
Often useful when: The team needs repeated cycles to refine the same solution as it learns.
PM focus: Define what each cycle will test, what feedback changes, and when the result is sufficient.
Incremental
Often useful when: The solution can be delivered in usable portions instead of one complete release.
PM focus: Keep the integrated outcome, interfaces, acceptance, and remaining scope visible across increments.
Stage-gate
Often useful when: Formal evidence and authorization are required before more investment or work continues.
PM focus: Define each gate, decision owner, required evidence, possible outcomes, and recovery path.
FI5E WORKS AROUND YOUR DELIVERY SYSTEM
The fundamentals remain connected.
Every approach still needs a clear result, responsible people, visible work, decisions, risk, communication, evidence, and acceptance. Apply those controls in a way that fits the project instead of forcing every project into one template.