Comparing Classic Scrum’s and Disciplined Agile’s Approach to Starting and Learning

 

Scrum is designed to be incomplete. Its philosophy is based on empiricism and confidence people can figure out what’s needed. Scrum was formulated when many universal truths of product development were not well known. However, they are now, and the downside of not providing these concepts at the beginning is that it requires extra work for the team while adding the risk they never figure out what’s needed.

Scrum was also designed for cross functional teams working on developing products. It requires teams be cross-functional and is based on time-boxing with the presumption that incoming requirements are longer than the sprint length.

The challenge is when cross cross-functional teams aren’t present, it doesn’t provide guidance on creating them. Furthermore, if you are in IT and are dealing with a continuous stream of small requests, sprint planning adds extra work without providing value.

Disciplined Agile takes a different approach. It provides an underlying model that both enables teams to choose a good starting point and how they should work. This underlying model also provides guidance on improving. By being based on Lean and Flow principles, guidance is provided without being prescriptive.