Advanced Disciplined Agile Delivery

DA Foundations

Disciplined Agile (DA)

A process-decision toolkit that provides guidance to help teams and organizations choose their way of working (WoW) based on context, rather than prescribing a single method.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

The part of DA that addresses the solution delivery lifecycle end to end, integrating practices from Scrum, Kanban, XP, and more into a coherent, goal-driven approach.

Choose Your WoW

The core DA principle that teams should deliberately select and evolve their way of working to fit their unique context, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all process.

Context Counts

The recognition that the right practices depend on factors like team size, distribution, domain complexity, and regulatory context; DA provides options for each.

Pragmatism over Purism

DA favors what works in context over strict adherence to any single framework, blending practices to maximize value.

Mindset

DA Mindset

A set of principles, promises, and guidelines — such as delight customers, be awesome, and optimize flow — that underpin disciplined agile ways of working.

Guided Continuous Improvement (GCI)

Improving your WoW by experimenting with options suggested by the DA toolkit, measuring results, and adopting what works — faster than trial-and-error alone.

Optimize Flow

A DA principle focused on improving the end-to-end flow of value across the organization, not just optimizing individual teams.

Enterprise Awareness

A DA principle that teams should act in the best interest of the whole organization, leveraging and enhancing enterprise assets and standards.

Lifecycles

DA Lifecycles

DAD supports multiple delivery lifecycles — Agile (Scrum-based), Lean (Kanban-based), Continuous Delivery, Exploratory (Lean Startup), and Program — so teams pick what fits.

Agile Lifecycle

A Scrum-based, iteration-driven delivery lifecycle suited to teams that benefit from cadence and defined ceremonies.

Lean Lifecycle

A Kanban-based, flow-driven lifecycle that limits WIP and pulls work continuously, suited to teams with variable or steady streams of work.

Continuous Delivery Lifecycle

A lifecycle where new functionality is released frequently — even continuously — supported by strong automation and DevOps practices.

Exploratory (Lean Startup) Lifecycle

A lifecycle for high-uncertainty situations that uses build-measure-learn experiments to discover what customers actually need.

Program Lifecycle

A lifecycle for coordinating a team of teams delivering a large solution together.

Choosing a Lifecycle

Teams select a lifecycle based on context and can evolve to another as they mature or as conditions change.

Process Goals

Process Goals

DA organizes decisions around outcome-oriented process goals (e.g., 'Explore Scope', 'Improve Quality') rather than prescriptive practices, each with options and trade-offs.

Goal Diagrams

Visual guides that lay out the decision points and options for each process goal, helping teams choose practices deliberately.

Inception Phase

The lightweight start of delivery where the team aligns on vision, scope, stakeholders, architecture strategy, and initial plan before construction.

Construction Phase

The phase where the team incrementally builds a consumable solution, addressing goals like producing a potentially consumable solution and improving quality.

Transition Phase

The phase focused on releasing the solution into production and to stakeholders, which may shrink to near-zero with continuous delivery.

Roles

DAD Roles

Primary roles include Team Lead, Product Owner, Architecture Owner, Team Member, and Stakeholder, plus supporting roles as needed.

Architecture Owner

The role responsible for guiding architectural decisions and facilitating the team's technical direction, balancing intentional and emergent design.

Team Lead

A servant-leader role that facilitates the team, removes obstacles, and coaches, similar to a Scrum Master but context-adaptable.

Advanced Practices

Tailoring Practices

Deliberately adjusting which practices a team uses for each process goal as context and maturity change, guided by the DA toolkit.

Scaling with DA

Applying DA's tactical scaling factors (team size, distribution, domain complexity, technical complexity, compliance) to choose appropriate practices for complex situations.

Measuring Improvement

Using outcome-based metrics and GCI experiments to verify whether a change to the WoW actually improved results.

DevOps in DA

Integrating development and operations practices across the lifecycle to enable frequent, reliable delivery of consumable solutions.

Consumable Solution

DA's emphasis on delivering solutions that are not just potentially shippable but genuinely usable and valuable to stakeholders.