Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a hybrid, end-to-end delivery framework within the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit. It integrates practices from Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP, Agile Modeling, and Agile Data, covering the full lifecycle from Inception through Construction to Transition into operations.
Origin and Purpose
DAD was created to address the limits of team-only frameworks. Its purpose is to help organizations define their Way of Working (WoW) contextually, guided by goals, decision options, and trade-offs. With PMI’s acquisition in 2019, DAD became part of the broader DA toolkit.
Core Elements
- Lifecycles:
- Agile Lifecycle (Scrum-based)
- Lean Lifecycle (Kanban-based)
- Continuous Delivery: Agile Lifecycle
- Continuous Delivery: Lean Lifecycle
- Exploratory Lifecycle (Lean-Startup-inspired)
- Program Lifecycle (multi-team coordination)
- Process Goals & Goal Diagrams: Outcome-based decision frameworks enabling practice choices with trade-offs.
- Roles:
- Primary: Team Lead (evolved Scrum Master), Product Owner, Architecture Owner, Team Members
- Secondary: Independent Tester, Domain/Technical Experts, Integrator
- Enterprise Awareness: Explicit focus on architecture, governance, data, security, operations.
- DevOps Integration: First-class treatment of CI/CD, automation, and operational feedback.
Application and Best Practices
- Context over prescription: WoW selected based on Process Goals, compliance, domain, and maturity.
- Just-enough inception: Prove risky architecture early via spikes or walking skeletons.
- Engineering discipline: CI/CD, test automation, WIP limits, and flow metrics are non-negotiable for success.
- Architecture moderation: Architecture Owner fosters incremental, documented “just-enough” architecture decisions.
- Outcome-driven governance: Define guardrails and measure results on value and risk, not output.
- Lifecycle evolution: Governed switches between lifecycles as teams mature (e.g., from Exploratory to Continuous Delivery).
Practice Examples
Finance: Agile lifecycle for customer-facing teams, lean lifecycle for platform teams. Compliance handled via lightweight extensions of the Definition of Done.
Medical devices: Exploratory lifecycle for early trials, shifting later to Continuous Delivery: Agile, with risk-based testing for regulatory validation.
Large IT programs: Program lifecycle across multiple teams, with Architecture Owner circles ensuring alignment.
Legacy modernization: DAD bridged Scrum feature teams and Kanban service teams via shared Process Goals and architectural roadmaps.
Criticism and Limitations
- Complexity: The broad toolkit and Goal Diagrams create steep onboarding; without coaching, teams face choice fatigue.
- Frankenstein risk: Arbitrary mixing of incompatible practices (e.g., stage-gates with CD) creates process inconsistency.
- Role ambiguity: Team Lead vs. Scrum Master, Architecture Owner vs. emergent architecture—when unclear, decisions stall and systems erode.
- Phase misuse: Inception and Transition misread as stage-gates lead to waterfall relapse and delayed learning.
vGovernance heaviness: In regulated industries a plus, but over-procedural in startups/SMEs unless lean governance is applied.
- Engineering dependency: Without CI/CD and automation, DAD devolves into meetings and documentation.
- Community reach: Less adoption and fewer case studies than SAFe, limiting benchmarks.
- Portfolio gap: DAD defines delivery/program lifecycles but not value stream or portfolio governance—organizations must add lean budgeting or portfolio Kanban.
Integration and Combination
- Scrum/Kanban/XP: DAD integrates these, not replaces them.
- SAFe/LeSS/Nexus: DAD is flexible and context-driven but lighter on prescriptive portfolio scaffolding.
- DevOps & Data: Explicitly built into Process Goals.
- Living Transformation® / Living Strategy: DAD provides a method toolkit; Living Transformation® and Living Strategy supply outcome-driven strategic direction.
CALADE Perspective
We apply DAD pragmatically where context sensitivity is critical: navigating Goal Diagrams, defining guardrails, embedding engineering excellence, linking DAD to portfolio governance, and securing outcome metrics. The result is a fit-for-purpose WoW, not dogma.
Cross-references to related glossary entries
- Scrum
- Kanban
- SAFe
- LeSS
- Nexus
- Lean Portfolio Management
- Built-in Quality
- DevOps
- Living Transformation®
- Living Strategy
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