Many Development Methodologies - Which one to choose, Hyrbid might be the ANSWER

Well, the time has changed like the speed of sound since the era when Waterfall model was considered to be best methodologies for Software Development.

But now in new information age, where frequently changing user requirements, challenging timelines, tight budget and competitive bids are driving factors, IT industry offers many methodologies namely Prototyping, Spiral, RAD, Rational RUP, Agile (Scrum, XP, DSDM - Dynamic System Development Method, FDD - Features Driven Development, Lean Software Development) and the list goes on.

Considering all the available options as Development Methodologies in today's world, it is increasingly difficult to choose a single methodology for all your projects inside a single organization. But having multiple methodologies in a single organization generally creates chaos and obscures roadmap for future projects.

"A slightly different approach to tackle this challenge is to adapt best practices from short-listed methodologies, which suits best for your organization and formulate a hybrid-development methodology specific to your organization."

To illustrate, lets imagine a Development Methodology, which has following features:

• Sprint approach of Scrum for handling features/requirements in quick turnaround
• Daily Scrum (or Standup Meeting) to check progress of the project
• Feedback, Continuous Integration approach of XP
• Monitoring/Control of Waterfall SDLC (specially of larger projects)
• Eliminate Waste of Lean software development

Though it needs a considerable amount of research and analysis for any organization to formulate such a hybrid development methodologies, it will pay-off in long run and established a clear roadmap for future development.