Project Management

Adopting a Full Lifecycle Requires Discipline

From the Disciplined Agile Blog
by , , , , , ,
This blog contains details about various aspects of PMI's Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit, including new and upcoming topics.

About this Blog

RSS

View Posts By:

Tatsiana Balshakova
Mark Lines
Mike Griffiths
James Trott
Bjorn Gustafsson
Curtis Hibbs
Scott Ambler

Past Contributors:

Joshua Barnes
Michael Richardson
Daniel Gagnon
Valentin Tudor Mocanu
Kashmir Birk
Glen Little
Klaus Boedker

Recent Posts

DA 5.6 is released

Disciplined Agile 5.5 Released

Choose Your WoW! Second Edition Is Now Available

Requisite Agility applied in Project Management

Disciplined Agile and PMBoK Guide 7th Edition

Categories

#ChoiceIsGood, #ChooseYourWoW, #ConsumableSolution, #ContinuousImprovement, #CoreAgilePractices, #experiment, #Experimentation, #GuidedContinuousImprovement, #Kaizen, #LifeCycles, #ProcessImprovement, #TealOrganizations, Adoption, agile, agile adoption, Agile Alliance, Agile Business Analyst, Agile certification, agile data, agile governance, agile lifecycle, agile metrics, agile principles, agile transformation, Agile2018, Agile2019, Agile20Reflect, AgileData, Analogy, announcement, Architecture, architecture, architecture owner, Articles and publications, Asset Management, Atari, Backlog, Barclays, being agile, benefits, bi, blades, book, Branching strategies, Browser, Business Agility, business intelligence, business operations, capex, Case Study, Certification, certification, charity, Choose your WoW, CMMI, cmmi, Coaching, Collaboration, Communications Management, Compliance, Compliancy, Conference, Construction, Construction phase, Context, Continuous Improvement, coordination, COVID-19, Culture, culture, Cutter, DA, DAD, DAD Book, DAD discussions, DAD press, DAD roles, DAD supporters, DAD webcast, DADay2019, Data Management, database, dependencies, Deployment, Development Strategies, DevOps, disaster, Discipline, discipline, Disciplined Agile, disciplined agile delivery, disciplined agile delivery blog, Disciplined Agile Enterprise, disciplined devops, Documentation, Domain complexity, dw, DW/BI, Energy Healing, Enterprise Agile, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Awareness, enterprise awareness, Essence, estimation, Evolving DA, Executive, Experiment, facilitation, FailureBow, feedback-cycle, finance, Financial, FLEX, Flow, foundation layer, Funding, GCI, GDD, Geographic Distribution, gladwell, global development, Goal-Driven, goal-driven, goals, Governance, GQM, Guideline, Hybrid, Improvement, inception, Inception phase, India, information technology, infosec, Introduction, iterations, Kanban, large teams, layer, lean, Lean Startup, learning, Legal Project Management, LeSS, Lifecycle, lifecycle, Manifesto, mark lines, marketing, MBI, Metaphor, Metrics, metrics, mindset, Miscellaneous, MVP, News, News and events, Non-Functional Requirements, non-functional requirements, Non-solo development, offshoring, Operations, opex, Organization, Outsourcing, outsourcing, paired programming, pairing, paper, People, People Management, phases, Philosophies, Planning, PMBoK, PMI, PMI and DA, PMI Chapter, Portfolio Management, post-format-quote, Practices, practices, Principle, Process, process improvement, process tailoring, Product Management, product owner, Product Owners, productivity, Program Management, Project Management, project-initiation, Promise, Quality, quality, rational unified process, Refactoring, Reiki, Release Management, release management, Remote Training, Remote Work, repeatability, requirements, Requirements Management, research&development, responsibilities, retrospectives, Reuse, Reuse Engineering, ride for heart, rights, Risk Management, Risk Management, Risk management, Roles, RUP, SAFe, sales, Scaling, scaling, scaling agile, Scheduled Workshops, SCM, scorecard, Scrum, ScrumMaster, SDLC, Security, security, self-organization, SEMAT, serial, skill, solutions software consumable shippable, Stakeholder Management, strategy, Support, Surveys, Teal organizations, team development, Team Lead, team lead, Teams, Technical Debt, Teleconferencing, Terminology, terraforming, test strategy, testing, time tracking, Tool kit, Toolkit, tools, traditional, Transformation, Transition iteration, transition phase, Uncategorized, Upmentors, Using PMI Standards, value stream, velocity, vendor management, Virtual Training, Workflow, workflow, workspaces

Date

linkedin twitter facebook Request to reuse this  

Categories: agile, DAD, Kanban, lean, lifecycle, Scrum


Despite some agilists reluctance to admit that projects go through phases the DAD process framework explicitly recognizes that they do.  Building serious solutions requires a lot more than just doing the cool construction stuff.  It takes discipline to ignore this rhetoric and frame your project within the scope of a full delivery lifecycle.  The Agile (Scrum-based) and Lean (Kanban-based) DAD lifecycles explicitly depict:

  1. Pre-delivery activities.  There are portfolio management activities which occur long before your project begins, including the initial identification of potential projects, their prioritization, and finding initial funding for the Inception phase.
  2. Three-phase delivery lifecycle.  Projects have phases that they go through.  All efforts are initiated at some point, all of them go through a construction effort (or a configuration effort in the case of purchased solutions), and hopefully some sort of deployment effort.  This is why the DAD lifecycles include explicit Inception, Construction, and Transition phases to respectively address these aspects.  We’ve confirmed via surveys that the agile teams invest time in project initiation/inception activities, often referred to as Sprint 0 or Iteration 0, and time performing release/transition activities.  From a product point they will go through at least the Construction and Transition phase many times throughout the life of the solution.
  3. Post-delivery activities.  The fact that your solution is operated and supported in production, or in the marketplace for commercial products, is included.  We do this to reflect the DevOps reality many DAD teams are in the position that they are working on a new release of an existing solution, and therefore are very likely to be getting defect reports and enhancement requests coming in about previous versions.  As a result they require the discipline to treat these things as potential new requirements and act accordingly.

Without a doubt construction is an important aspect of the overall Disciplined Agile Delivery process, but it’s not the only aspect.  Yes, for many people this is the fun part of delivery, it certainly is for me.  But the reality is that as development professionals we need to explicitly consider more than just construction if we’re to be effective.  It takes discipline to adopt a broader lifecycle that goes beyond the fun stuff that we would prefer to focus on.


Posted by Scott Ambler on: May 16, 2012 04:49 AM | Permalink

Comments (0)

Please login or join to subscribe to this item


Please Login/Register to leave a comment.

ADVERTISEMENTS

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception."

- Groucho Marx

ADVERTISEMENT

Sponsors