Evolving Disciplined Agile: Process Overview Diagram

 

We have recently updated our book, Choose Your WoW!, which overviews the Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit and provides a detailed description of the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) portion of it. Our primary goal was to bring the book into PMI publications so that we could offer it on PMI marketplace.  We also wanted to share with you the changes that we're making to the rest of the DA tool kit.  

In this blog I will focus on the changes that we've made to the DA Overview diagram.  Figure 1 shows the previous version of the diagram and Figure 2 our updated version.  When PMI purchased Disciplined Agile in August 2019 we had several streams of evolution underway at the time, all of which are reflected in Figure 2.  PMI also purchased Net Objectives so that we could merge their FLEX framework into DA, forming what has now become the Value Streams layer of DA.  Al Shalloway and I will go into more detail on this in future blog postings.

Figure 1. The previous Disciplined Agile overview diagram.

Figure 2. The new Disciplined Agile (DA) overview diagram.

In addition to modernizing the look of the diagram, you'll notice several important changes:

1. We simplified the diagram.  We simplified the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) layer into a single process blade.  Figure 1 shows the six lifecycles supported by DAD, but we've consistently heard that this overcomplicates the overview diagram.  The lifecycles still exist but we're not showing them at this level any more.
2. We've reworked the layers. The original layers (DAD, Disciplined DevOps, Disciplined Agile IT, and Disciplined Agile Enterprise) reflected the order in which the DA toolkit evolved.  The new layers are:

• The Foundation layer is where fundamental agile and lean concepts; our evolved approach to the DA mindset that is based on principles, promises, and guidelines; roles; and team structures are captured.  This layer encompasses concepts and strategies applicable across your organization.
• The Disciplined DevOps layer has pretty much remained the same, with the exception of the visual refactoring of the DAD layer into an explicit process blade.
• The Value Streams layer is where we have merged FLEX into DA.  Very exciting things are happening here that we'll cover in future postings.
• The Disciplined Agile Enterprise (DAE) layer encompasses the activities that support the value streams that your organization offers to customers.

3. We've evolved some process blades.  Several process blades of Figure 1 have evolved:

• Reuse Engineering has become Asset Management to better reflect common enterprise practice.  
• Procurement has evolved into Vendor Management to reflect the full lifecycle of VM, not just the procurement portion of it.  
• Program Management has been refactored, with a Program lifecycle being explicitly called out within DAD and Program Management itself elevated out of the software development space to address all aspects of Program Management (as per PMI's existing standard).  
• DAIT, formerly a layer, has become the Information Technology (IT) process blade which focuses on the coordination of IT efforts across value streams.    
• DAD is now a process blade rather than a full-fledged layer.  
• Control was renamed back to Governance.  We had a lot of feedback that Control didn't reflect DA's lean governance philosophy.

4. We've added some process blades. As you can see in Figure 2, we have introduced 3 new blades:

• Research and Development, a critical aspect of an organization's capacity to innovate.
• Strategy, to guide an organization over the long term.  We're adopting many great ideas from PMI Brightline.
• Transformation, to guide you in organizational change.  We've combined great strategies from our own transformation practices (pre PMI) at Disciplined Agile Inc., those of Net Objectives, and the PMI Brightline transformation strategy.

 As you can see, there is a long list of potential blog topics to describe how DA has evolved, and continues to evolve.  Next up will be an overview of our updated approach to describing the DA mindset. Please stay tuned!

Free Downloads

We have made several Disciplined Agile (DA) posters available to you for free download, including a Disciplined Agile Overview poster.