Session Title : Choose Your Wow

1. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 1
Choose Your
WoW!
How Agile Software Development
Teams Can Optimize Their Way of
Working (WoW)

2. Scott Ambler
• Helps enterprise-class organizations around the world
to improve their processes and organization structures
• Thought leader of:
– Agile Modeling (AM) method
– Agile Data (AD) method
• Co-creator of the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework
• Author of 20+ books
• scott [at] scottambler.com
• Advisory Board Member
– SEMAT
– ScaleFree
– Architectural Thinking Framework
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 2
@scottwambler

3. Agenda
• Why Guided Continuous Improvement?
• Choosing Your WoW!
• Q&A
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4. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 4
Why Guided Continuous
Improvement?

5. Adopting a Prescriptive Method/Framework Helps a Bit
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 5

6. Adopting a Prescriptive Method/Framework Helps a Bit
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 6
You Actually Get
Recent study of 3,000+ teams within
155 organizations found:
• Teams adopting agile (mostly
Scrum) saw productivity increases
of 7 to 12% on average
• Teams adopting prescriptive scaling
frameworks, the most popular of
which is SAFe, saw average
productivity increases of 3 to 5%
InfoQ.com/articles/reifer-agile-study-
2017
You Are Promised

7. Continuous
Improvement
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 7
Identify a Potential
Improvement
Experiment with
the new WoW
Assess
Effectiveness
Adopt the new
WoW
Abandon the new
WoW
Share Learnings
with Others

8. Continuous Improvement: Short Term
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9. Continuous Improvement: Long Term
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 9

10. Guided
Continuous
Improvement
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 10
Identify a Potential
Improvement
Experiment with
the new WoW
Assess
Effectiveness
Adopt the new
WoW
Abandon the new
WoW
Share Learnings
with Others
Apply the
Disciplined Agile (DA)
toolkit to
identify better options

11. Guided Continuous Improvement: Short Term
© Disciplined Agile Consortium 11
Guided continuous
improvement results in
fewer failed experiments

12. Guided Continuous Improvement: Long Term
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13. You Can Combine Strategies
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14. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 14
Choosing Your Own
Way of Working (WoW)!

15. Tailoring Your WoW
• Initially:
– Understand the situation that you face
– Choose the most appropriate lifecycle
– Choose the best strategies/practices that your
team can perform
• Over time:
– Regularly reflect
– Experiment with new strategies
– Evolve your WoW
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 15

16. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 16
Choosing a Lifecycle
Agile
Lean
Continuous
Delivery: Agile
Continuous
Delivery: Lean
Exploratory
Program

17. Disciplined Agile Delivery: Basic Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 17
An enterprise-ready, Scrum-based project lifecycle.

18. Disciplined Agile Delivery: Lean Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 18
An enterprise-ready, Kanban-based project lifecycle

19. Disciplined Agile Delivery: Lean Continuous Delivery
Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 19
Lean on a
stable team.

20. Disciplined Agile Delivery: Agile Continuous
Delivery Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 20
Agile on a
stable team.

21. DAD Exploratory “Lean Startup” Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 21
A low-risk strategy to initiate development of a new product.

22. The Program
Lifecycle
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 22
A lifecycle for a team
of teams.

23. 23
Governance is Built Into DAD
• Governance strategies built into DAD:
– Risk-value lifecycle
– Light-weight milestone reviews
– “Standard” opportunities for increased visibility and to steer the team
provided by agile
– Enterprise awareness
– Robust stakeholder definition
© Disciplined Agile, Inc.

24. LeSS
XP
…and moreAgile Data
DA is a Hybrid Framework
24
Unified Process Agile Modeling
Kanban“Traditional”Spotify
DevOps Scrum
DA leverages proven strategies from several sources,
providing a decision framework to guide your adoption and
tailoring of them in a context-driven manner.
SAFe
© Disciplined Agile, Inc.

25. The Process Goals of Disciplined Agile Delivery
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 25

26. Disciplined Agilists Choose Their Practices
© Disciplined Agile, Inc.
26
Goal
Decision
Point
Advantages
Disadvantages
Considerations
* Option
Default Option
*
Explore Scope
Form Team
Address Changing
Stakeholder Needs
Source
Evolution strategy
Size
Structure
Member skills
Completeness
Longevity
Geographic distribution
Organization distribution
Time zone distribution
Support the team
Availability
Indicates a preference for
the options towards the top
Co-located
Partially dispersed
Distributed subteams
Fully dispersed

27. Goal: Form
Team
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28. Goal: Secure Funding
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29. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 29
Goal: Address Changing
Stakeholder needs

30. Evolving Your WoW: Practices
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 30
• Tailoring sessions
– Early in Inception for Inception
– Late in Inception for Construction
– Late in Construction for Transition
• Retrospectives
– Identify a problem area
– Look in the DA knowledgebase for suggestions
– Choose a likely candidate to experiment with
• Experiment
– Try out a practice/strategy in your environment
– Measure the results
– Aim is to determine whether the new strategy works
well for you

31. Evolving Your
WoW:
Lifecycles
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 31

32. © Disciplined Agile, Inc.
Parting Thoughts
• Context counts - Every team is unique, facing
a unique situation
• Choice is good - Agile teams own their own
process, they get to choose their Way of
Working (WoW)
• Pragmatism – There are hundreds of practices
and strategies to choose from, we need to
choose the ones that are right for us
32

33. Disciplined Agile In Bangalore
• March 18-23: Conference – Agile India 2019
– 19th: Presentation – Choose Your WoW! – Scott Ambler and Mark Lines
– 20th: Presentation - Agile Transformations – Scott & Mark
• March 22: Meetup
– Choose Your WoW! – Scott & Mark
• March 23: Workshop
– Disciplined Agile In a Nutshell: Certification Prep – Scott & Mark
• March 24-25: Workshop
– Implementing Disciplined Agile Delivery – Scott & Mark
Visit DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org for more information
© Disciplined Agile, Inc. 33

34. © Disciplined Agile, Inc. 34

35. Join Today
Sign up at DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org
and become a member
Have access to new and upcoming information about
Disciplined Agile strategies
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36. The Disciplined Agile Consortium (DAC) supports and evolves the Disciplined Agile
process decision framework.
The DAC site, DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org, provides information on curriculum
and learning resources for Disciplined Agile practitioners. It is also the home of the
Disciplined Agile certification program.
The Disciplined Agile blog, DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com, provides a wealth of
articles and blog postings about Disciplined Agile topics.
The Disciplined Agile discussion forum, LinkedIn.com/groups/4685263, is a meeting
place for Disciplined Agile practitioners to share their experiences and to get
questions answered.
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37. The Disciplined Agile Framework
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