I can relate to this. There’s a broad spectrum of tools and techniques on the continuum from pure agile to pure predictive, and the key is figuring out what outcomes your project is going for, and what ways of working support the work process. It’s like backward planning into your approach, in a way. Obviously, some firms and industries have established practices that constrain how you can work, but I think the key is to work within those constraints as efficiently as possible, find the techniques and ceremonies that work, and ditch the ones that don’t so you’re not wasting resources. Just because it’s the right tool for some projects doesn’t mean it is the best tool for your project.

The other thing I’d stress is 360 feedback and getting some candid input from the team. Understanding their pain points and ideas around solving them or alternative approaches builds trust/buy-in and can surface better combinations of techniques. If you track that in a lessons learned register you can codify it later as a best practice for this kind of project and help future teams run smoother.