Ask me questions about Disciplined Agile

Hello Al,
My question to the prompt is one that concerns the knowledge domains of interest conferred upon in the Disciplined Agile methodology.
Are there specific knowledge domains that are more aligned with Disciplined Agile compared to some other PM approaches? How do these domains of knowledge inform the differences in the approaches?

Emily,
The best way to handle dependencies is to use MBIs
( https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/da-f...ness-increments ) so you know all the pieces involved and start them close to each other. But you still have the question of what do you do when a dependency blocks some work.

I've found it useful to put a blocked tag on the sticky. You can also move the work back into the queue column prior to the column that holds the work.

Thanks for the question.

I was not there when the name was chosen but I'll tell you how I think about it. For years Agile has been more of a "way of being" to many people rather than "what you do." I do believe the human aspect of knowledge work is critical - so "being" is important. But defining an approach based on being is a slippery slope. It becomes too easy to just apply the "no true Scotsman" argument in any discussion.

When "being" is in question, I have always preferred to ask "what does a person 'being' Agile look like?" Unfortunately, if one applies this to the Agile community you find that many of the actions are far from Agile. They include dogmatism (Defending Old Glorified Methods in Agile), cargo cult, idolization of creators of methods, ad hominem attacks on people who question the underlying foundations of an approach, and more.

DA is committed to not behaving this way but to be consistent with the intention of Agile - "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it." With the exception that instead of just developing software our domain is now enabling businesses to add value to their customers.

The "discipline" in Disciplined Agile incorporates the belief that, one, there is a discipline of knowledge to use. In our case, this has evolved to include theories of flow, Lean and Theory of Constraints as well as an understanding of organizational development and human behavior. We use this "discipline" in a pragmatic manner. We're not dogmatic about any particular practice as no practice is universal. So in addition to having a discipline, we believe in acting in a disciplined manner. That is, we always work in a pragmatic manner attending to the science and experience we, and others, have accumulated. This enables DA to be effective now and continue to evolve.

Hope this helps, and thanks again for asking.