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Summary

Key points in a Nutshell [17]

• DAD is the delivery portion of the Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit, not just another methodology.
• If you are using Scrum, XP, or Kanban, you are already using variations of a subset of DAD.
• DAD provides six life cycles to choose from: it doesn't prescribe a single way of working — choice is good.
• DAD focuses on achieving common goals in an agile manner, not the production of specific work products, nor on following a prescriptive agile strategy.
• DAD address key enterprise concerns not described by mainstream methods such as Scrum.
• DAD is complementary to SAFe,[18] yet far less prescriptive and more practical for most enterprises. DA provides explicit strategies for improving upon SAFe, addressing the common challenges faced in those contexts.
• DAD shows how agile and lean works from beginning-to-end.
• DAD provides a flexible foundation from which to scale mainstream methods.
• While DAD's philosophy is consistent with that of the Agile Manifesto, it includes additional guidance to be effective in more complex enterprise situations.
• It is not difficult to get started with DAD.

Why DA?[19]

Our authors believe that you should consider adopting a Disciplined Agile approach when:

• You want a flexible and pragmatic agile tool kit rather than a purist agile method;
• You are successfully using Scrum or Scrum/XP and want to take it to the next level;
• You are using agile but have not been getting the results that you expected;
• You are out of compliance with your PMO and want to incorporate some lightweight governance;
• You are using Scrum but are unsure how to scale up;
• You are using Scrum and are unsure how to address fundamental activities such as architecture, testing, and analysis;

Moreover:

• You have looked at SAFe but it appears to be too expensive and risky for your organization;
• You have looked at either SAFe or LeSS, but realize that DA's strategy of starting with the organization you have and evolving from there is less risky and more likely to succeed in your organization;
• Your organization has adopted SAFe or LeSS but run aground because you didn't have a solid foundation in place for your agile delivery teams;
• You need to support several approaches to agile/Lean development within your organization; and
• You need to understand how to effectively blend agile/Lean initiatives with your teams that use a traditional approach.

Interestingly, the extensive BigBank case study finally concludes with a section titled: Preparing for the next release, i.e., Release #2. Here, the authors point out that:[20]

"When you keep a team together so that they can work on the next release, you find that the Inception effort becomes much less (i.e., the team is already together, the environment is set up, the architecture is in place, funding is usually in place, and so on). In fact most of the remaining Inception effort focuses on scoping and planning the next release, and that's typically a short effort."

Indeed, the case study contemplates and comments on up to four releases and beyond. It overviews how the team evolves from the Agile, Scrum-based project life cycle, to the Continuous Delivery: Lean, Kanban-based product life cycle.

Once the ball is rolling, there is no doubt that it is well worthwhile keeping it going. Especially from the software team's perspective, that's a lot better than having to seek employment elsewhere and effectively having to re-start your career all over.

But is that really project management? Or is it career crafting?

R. Max Wideman
Fellow, PMI

Footnote

I would like to take this opportunity of thanking author Scott W. Ambler for his very thorough review of my early draft of this paper. More particularly because he was kind enough to share with me a 2nd version of the original book, from which I worked, to one currently available but reassembled into a different format. The essential change was from a footprint of 5½ x 8½ to 11½ x 11, albeit with a larger print. Nevertheless, it changed all of the page reference numbers!

Downside

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