The document discusses how Disciplined Agile (DA) could have helped avoid the failure of an airline's ERP project. It describes the case study where an airline wanted to develop a new web-based ERP system but the project failed because key integration requirements were missed. DA is presented as a framework that addresses people, principles, workflows and practices to help ensure all requirements are understood and delivered. The rest of the document illustrates DA concepts through automotive and scaling case studies and compares DA to other agile methods.

1. DISCIPLINED AGILE
Through a case study Lens
Nagaraja Gundappa | ACE
Chief Consultant

2. • Airlines ERP case study
• How Disciplined Agile could have helped
• Principles, People, Workflow and Practices
• Illustrating DA through Automotive case study
• How DA is different
• Scaling DA and career perspective
Overview
2

3. The Airlines ERP Case Study
• An international airlines company wanted to re-engineer their legacy ERP
system into a web based ERP system
• The project was awarded to an IT company
• The IT company followed Scrum and delivered the application on time
• As the potentially shippable product increments were being delivered the
end users kept inspecting the features and accepted them
• However, it was only in the end when the vendor said all features are
delivered, the end users realized that the new ERP doesn’t automatically
connect to central reservation systems (Amadeus and Galileo) and that
they have to use the native interfaces of CRS
• This resulted in an additional manual step, end users could not use native
interfaces and the new ERP system was scrapped - A PROJECT FAILURE
How could this failure have been averted?

4. How could this failure have been averted?

5. 5
DA – Choosing your WoW and process goal diagrams

6. The
Disciplined
Agile
Mindset:
Principles

7. Mindset
• Elements
of DA:
• Disciplined
Agile (DA)
is
described
in four
views
People
Practices
Flow
Roles &
responsibilities
Team structures
Lifecycles
Workflows
Goal diagrams
Principles and
guidelines

8. Building a
DA Team

9. Mindset
• Elements
of DA:
• Disciplined
Agile (DA)
is
described
in four
views
People
Practices
Flow
Roles &
responsibilities
Team structures
Lifecycles
Workflows
Goal diagrams
Principles and
guidelines

10. • Teams
should
choose an
appropriate
lifecycle
Program
Exploratory
Lean Continuous
Delivery: Lean
Continuous
Delivery: Agile
Agile

11. Disciplined
Agile
Life Cycles –
Agile

12. Analyzing
Your
Context:
Life Cycle
Decision
Tree

13. Mindset
• Elements
of DA:
• Disciplined
Agile (DA)
is
described
in four
views
People
Practices
Flow
Roles &
responsibilities
Team structures
Lifecycles
Workflows
Goal diagrams
Principles and
guidelines

14. Process
Goals for
Team Agility

15. Agile Practice:
Writing
User Stories
(Explore Scope
> Explore Usage)

16. Agile Practice:
Estimating
User Stories
(Plan the Release
> Choose
Estimation)

17. Mindset
• Elements
of DA:
• Disciplined
Agile (DA)
is
described
in four
views
1
7
People
Practices
Flow
Roles &
responsibilities
Team structures
Lifecycles
Workflows
Goal diagrams
Principles and
guidelines

18. DA through the Automotive case study lens
• An on-going engineering application in an automotive
company
• Follows scrum with 3-week sprints
• Customer complains about productivity of the team and
quality of the output

19. Root cause analysis – 5 why method
Bugs escape first test cycle (New bugs introduced in subsequent test cycles)
Productivity concern
Quality concern
Testing-fixing takes more time
Test cases coverage not adequate
Test cases are written for bug, not for corresponding requirement
Requirement traceability matrix doesn’t exist; bugs requirements test cases

20. Accelerate value delivery – Maintain
traceability

21. • And then
we head
to the
“Choose
Your WoW
book” for
details
of
“Maintain
Traceabil
ity”

22. Visualising an existing project through DA
Train existing
Scrum team in
DA
Start referring
to Choose your
WoW in
retrospectives
Refer to
customer
complaints and
map them to
corresponding
goal diagrams
and choose the
best options to
improve
Continue the
guided
continuous
improvement
journey
retrospective
after
retrospective

23. Comparing DA with other methods

24. No method ISO
CMMi /
PMBoK
Iterative /
Incremental
Scrum
Kanban and
SAFe
…
No
method
SSAD OOSE ??? ??? ??? …
Evolution of project execution methodologies
Evolution of software engineering
methodologies
Disciplined
Agile
• None among Scrum, Kanban and SAFe methods address the software engineering elements of software
projects.
• How to improve requirements elicitation / documentation, what are non functional requirements, what are good architectural and design
practices, how to ensure high quality in testing etc. are not touched.
• Disciplined Agile not only improves Scrum, Kanban and SAFe implementations, but also provides guidance for
improving software engineering practices in the areas of requirements, architecture, testing, deployment etc.
Why DA?

25. Shu Ha Ri of Agility
✤ Shu : Follow the example (learn)
✤ Ha : detach (break the limits)
✤ Ri : Be fluent (create, innovate)
You can leave the team alone for them to figure out everything only
if they are in the Ha or Ri phase
• Traditional processes pegs the practitioners counter productively to Shu phase
even when practitioners have matured to Ha or Ri phase
• Scrum and Kanban do not attend to the Shu phase
• DA provides the guidelines needed for the Shu phase and the flexibility
needed for Ha and Ri phases

26. Scaling DA

27. Complete spectrum of DA
Disciplined
Agile Tool
Kit Process
Blades

28. Program
life cycle

29. Where does
this Course
Fit into
Disciplined
Agile?
PMI-ACP
PMI Agile Certified
Practitioner®
DASSM
Disciplined Agile
Senior Scrum
MasterTM
DASM
Disciplined Agile
Scrum MasterTM
DAVSC
Disciplined Agile
Value Stream
ConsultantTM
DAC
Disciplined Agile
CoachTM
Gains
agile
experienc
e
Wants
general
agile
knowledg
e
Gains agile
experience
Any team
member
new to
agile

30. Thank you

31. Comparing DA with other methods
Challenge Scrum SAFe Kanban Disciplined Agile
Cost escalation
due to expanding
scope
No guidelines No guidelines No guidelines Explore scope options help
in better integration of
requirement engg practices
Predictability of
releases
Predictability a major
challenge when time
boxes don’t work
On demand release at
program level improves
predictability but
cadence within ART still
needs time box
Pull based
systems improve
predictability
Disciplined Agile uses
Kanban where pull based
systems are the best option
Business agility No guidelines Excellent guidelines Scarce guidelines DA Flex playbook –
improves upon even SAFe
Cost challenges
due to resource
underutilization
Suggests full stack
dev team, but that is
very costly and
infeasible at times
Same as scrum Pull based
system ensures
better flow and
utilization
DA leverages Kanban as an
option where resource
utilization is a challenge
Adoption Big bang Big bang Truly agile Truly agile
Anti fragile Low Low High Very high