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Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery: A Small Agile Team’s Journey from Scrum to Continuous Delivery
Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery provides a quick overview of how agile software development works from beginning-to-end. It describes the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) process decision framework and then works through a case study describing a typical agile team’s experiences adopting a disciplined agile approach. The book describes how the team develops the first release of a mission-critical application while working in a legacy enterprise environment. It describes their experiences from beginning-to-end, starting with their initial team initiation efforts through construction and finally to deploying the solution into production. It also describes how the team stays together for future releases, overviewing their process improvement efforts from their Scrum-based beginnings through to a lean continuous delivery approach that fits in with their organization’s evolving DevOps strategy.
The DAD framework is a hybrid of existing methods such as Scrum, Kanban, Agile Modeling, SAFe, Extreme Programming, Agile Data, Unified Process and many others. DAD provides the flexibility to use various approaches and plugs the gaps not addressed by mainstream agile methods. In a nutshell, DAD is “pragmatic agile.” DAD describes proven strategies to adapt and scale your agile initiatives to suit the unique realities of your enterprise without having to figure it all out by yourself.
Here’s an overview of what each chapter covers:
* Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter provides a quick overview of the book and a brief history of Disciplined Agile.
* Chapter 2: Reality over Rhetoric. This chapter explores several common myths about DAD and more importantly disproves them.
* Chapter 3: Disciplined Agile Delivery in a Nutshell. This chapter provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the DAD framework.
* Chapter 4: Introduction to the Case Study. This chapter introduces us to the team, describes the market opportunity that they hope to address, and describes the environment in which they’re working.
* Chapter 5: Inception. The team’s initiation effort includes initial requirements modeling and planning with their stakeholders in a streamlined manner, initial architecture modeling, setting up their physical work environment, setting up the start of their tooling infrastructure, initial risk identification, and finally securing stakeholder support and funding for the rest of the first release.
* Chapters 6 through 10: Construction. These chapters each describe a single Construction iteration, sharing the team’s experiences during each of those two-week timeboxes.
* Chapter 11: Transition. The two-week transition phase focuses on final testing and fixing, training the support/help-desk staff, finishing a few short end-user “how to” videos, and deploying the solution into production.
* Chapter 12: Future Releases. This chapter overviews the team’s improvement efforts over the next few releases, describing how they evolve from the agile Scrum-based lifecycle to a leaner approach and eventually to continuous delivery.
* Chapter 13: Closing Thoughts. This chapter overviews the disciplined agile resources that are available to you.
* Appendix: The Disciplined Agile IT Department. This short appendix overviews our ongoing work on the Disciplined Agile framework to address the full scope of an IT department.
At 102 pages, you should find this book to be a quick, informative read.
The DAD framework is a hybrid of existing methods such as Scrum, Kanban, Agile Modeling, SAFe, Extreme Programming, Agile Data, Unified Process and many others. DAD provides the flexibility to use various approaches and plugs the gaps not addressed by mainstream agile methods. In a nutshell, DAD is “pragmatic agile.” DAD describes proven strategies to adapt and scale your agile initiatives to suit the unique realities of your enterprise without having to figure it all out by yourself.
Here’s an overview of what each chapter covers:
* Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter provides a quick overview of the book and a brief history of Disciplined Agile.
* Chapter 2: Reality over Rhetoric. This chapter explores several common myths about DAD and more importantly disproves them.
* Chapter 3: Disciplined Agile Delivery in a Nutshell. This chapter provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the DAD framework.
* Chapter 4: Introduction to the Case Study. This chapter introduces us to the team, describes the market opportunity that they hope to address, and describes the environment in which they’re working.
* Chapter 5: Inception. The team’s initiation effort includes initial requirements modeling and planning with their stakeholders in a streamlined manner, initial architecture modeling, setting up their physical work environment, setting up the start of their tooling infrastructure, initial risk identification, and finally securing stakeholder support and funding for the rest of the first release.
* Chapters 6 through 10: Construction. These chapters each describe a single Construction iteration, sharing the team’s experiences during each of those two-week timeboxes.
* Chapter 11: Transition. The two-week transition phase focuses on final testing and fixing, training the support/help-desk staff, finishing a few short end-user “how to” videos, and deploying the solution into production.
* Chapter 12: Future Releases. This chapter overviews the team’s improvement efforts over the next few releases, describing how they evolve from the agile Scrum-based lifecycle to a leaner approach and eventually to continuous delivery.
* Chapter 13: Closing Thoughts. This chapter overviews the disciplined agile resources that are available to you.
* Appendix: The Disciplined Agile IT Department. This short appendix overviews our ongoing work on the Disciplined Agile framework to address the full scope of an IT department.
At 102 pages, you should find this book to be a quick, informative read.
- GenresBusinessUnfinished
104 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 20, 2015
96 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 21, 2015
Terrible as an intro to DAD.
Still more than OK as a lesson of pragmatism in modern IT.
Why is it terrible as an intro? Because it doesn't describe the rules & foundation of DAD (even the most basic ones) AT ALL - instead it guides the reader through a single (but quite well-thought) case story: problems & challenges encountered are viable & make sense, but you don't get the answer how DAD is better than other approaches in dealing with them, because you're not able to grasp what's DAD and what's just a common sense.
It may make more time after you read a verbose introduction to DAD (separate book), but as a standalone book it's a poor choice.
Still more than OK as a lesson of pragmatism in modern IT.
Why is it terrible as an intro? Because it doesn't describe the rules & foundation of DAD (even the most basic ones) AT ALL - instead it guides the reader through a single (but quite well-thought) case story: problems & challenges encountered are viable & make sense, but you don't get the answer how DAD is better than other approaches in dealing with them, because you're not able to grasp what's DAD and what's just a common sense.
It may make more time after you read a verbose introduction to DAD (separate book), but as a standalone book it's a poor choice.
November 1, 2017
It's a dry, abstract read where the author might be making good points but they're presented in such a factual manner, without any examples that you don't absorb anything. Check out the following extracts and decide for yourself, whether you feel like you've read something worthwhile.
* Scrum mostly focuses on leadership and change management aspects during Construction and therefore has roles that reflect this. DND on the other hand explicitly focuses on the entire delivery lifecycle and all aspects of solution delivery, including the technical aspects that Scrum leaves out.
* They would also like to use "feature toggles" to be able to share all code on one mainline branch rather than working in seperate feature branches, controlling what is actually deployed using these toggles.
* Terry conveys to the team that encrico mentioned that the Enterprise Architecture group wants to move away from the current monolithic architecture to a micro-services model over time.
* A cartoon showing 3 characters and their thought bubbles. "I think this will work". "But there is a lot of detail". "The details will evolve over time". What did I just read? What details? What will evolve and for what purpose?
* Carlos reminds everyone that while the Vision gets the stakeholders and team on the same page....the vision will be revisted at the end of each iteration.
I'm not saying that this book doesn't make any points. It does. After a bunch of pages the book makes a point that you can comprehend, if you dwell on it long enough. But without any proper context, the point remains somewhat abstract.
* Scrum mostly focuses on leadership and change management aspects during Construction and therefore has roles that reflect this. DND on the other hand explicitly focuses on the entire delivery lifecycle and all aspects of solution delivery, including the technical aspects that Scrum leaves out.
* They would also like to use "feature toggles" to be able to share all code on one mainline branch rather than working in seperate feature branches, controlling what is actually deployed using these toggles.
* Terry conveys to the team that encrico mentioned that the Enterprise Architecture group wants to move away from the current monolithic architecture to a micro-services model over time.
* A cartoon showing 3 characters and their thought bubbles. "I think this will work". "But there is a lot of detail". "The details will evolve over time". What did I just read? What details? What will evolve and for what purpose?
* Carlos reminds everyone that while the Vision gets the stakeholders and team on the same page....the vision will be revisted at the end of each iteration.
I'm not saying that this book doesn't make any points. It does. After a bunch of pages the book makes a point that you can comprehend, if you dwell on it long enough. But without any proper context, the point remains somewhat abstract.
September 5, 2021
It was a well organized and informative read tying Disciplined Agile Delivery to a practical case and related agile approaches/toolkits. If you are an agilist or agile-curious its worth your time to run through this quick read. If you are agile-curious (no agile background), it might be worth checking out Choose your WoW! before reading this book to give you conceptual context and an understanding of what is practically occurring throughout the book's case.
March 21, 2021
O livro fornece uma introdução ao framework Disciplined Agile, especificamente do fluxo de entregas DAD dentro de Devops. Isso é feito por meio da história de uma empresa que está implementando DA. De qualquer forma não é uma leitura indispensável. Particularmente sugeriria começar diretamente pelo livro principal, o Choose Your Wow.
August 3, 2019
Great introduction to DAD
This is a great intro to DAD. It’s only the start of the journey though. I now need to read more about the subject and work out how it can assist me in structuring and organising development within my own organisation.
This is a great intro to DAD. It’s only the start of the journey though. I now need to read more about the subject and work out how it can assist me in structuring and organising development within my own organisation.
February 4, 2021
Información muy valiosa sobre ágil
Muy buen libro, algunas imágenes no aparecieron, por lo demás, muy bueno, en especial los ejemplos. La información sobre Dad clarifica el concepto sobre ágil.
Muy buen libro, algunas imágenes no aparecieron, por lo demás, muy bueno, en especial los ejemplos. La información sobre Dad clarifica el concepto sobre ágil.
August 31, 2019
Good book to introduce on DAD
This is my first read of DAD and it give me a way on understand a global view of DAD. Need to read the rest of the series to complete.
This is my first read of DAD and it give me a way on understand a global view of DAD. Need to read the rest of the series to complete.
August 3, 2021
Buen libro. Cuenta de forma amena como un equipo va transformando su propia metodología adaptándola a lo que funciona y lo que no.
August 8, 2023
Não se aprofunda, não explica bem, não sei se é um livro ou uma palestra.
March 18, 2017
it's a good read to get a quick overview of Disciplined Agile Delivery framework
February 1, 2020
A Disciplined Agile Delivery nagyon fontos téma. Egyes elemeit próbálgattam már korábban is, gondoltam, most fejest ugrok bele, és egyből a vékonyabb, bevezető jellegű könyv legfrissebb kiadásával kezdtem.
Tartalmilag nem csalódtam, legszívesebben simán ötöst adtam volna rá, bár - a fiktív esettanulmány ellenére - kicsit száraznak találtam a téma feldolgozását. Ami lerontotta az értékelést, az kiadvány megjelenése, pontosabban a belseje. Az oldalak elrendezése, a használt stílusok, a táblázatok - minden nagyon igénytelen, mintha az alapértelmezett Microsoft Word-sablonba szürke-fehér sávos Excel-táblákat másolt volna a kiadvány tervezője, és azzal meg is elégedett volna. Nagy jóindulattal adtam rá hármast, így lett az átlag négyes.
Ez a dizájn egyszerűen nem méltó a könyvhöz, és szomorúan jegyzem meg, hogy a "nagy testvér", azaz a Choose Your WoW!: A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working semmiben nem különb ennél, csak éppen 110+ helyett 430+ oldalon hozza ugyanazt a lesújtó szintet.
Tartalmilag nem csalódtam, legszívesebben simán ötöst adtam volna rá, bár - a fiktív esettanulmány ellenére - kicsit száraznak találtam a téma feldolgozását. Ami lerontotta az értékelést, az kiadvány megjelenése, pontosabban a belseje. Az oldalak elrendezése, a használt stílusok, a táblázatok - minden nagyon igénytelen, mintha az alapértelmezett Microsoft Word-sablonba szürke-fehér sávos Excel-táblákat másolt volna a kiadvány tervezője, és azzal meg is elégedett volna. Nagy jóindulattal adtam rá hármast, így lett az átlag négyes.
Ez a dizájn egyszerűen nem méltó a könyvhöz, és szomorúan jegyzem meg, hogy a "nagy testvér", azaz a Choose Your WoW!: A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working semmiben nem különb ennél, csak éppen 110+ helyett 430+ oldalon hozza ugyanazt a lesújtó szintet.
September 18, 2016
The book is quite good in the sense of practical approach. It's a different and a much lighter than the previous book what it's really appreciated if you do not want to read more than 500 pages to get the idea of what's Disciplined Agile.
The bad point is that is already deprecated in some sections (inception phase) and it seems that sometimes the author is eager to attack Scrum. Because sometimes is clear what aspects Scrum is missing and DA complements and sometimes Scrum is just attack badly. Badly because there are bad assumptions and sometimes old terminology which has already evolved in Scrum. This deprecated information and lack of precision puts this book one step below of the place it could be.
The bad point is that is already deprecated in some sections (inception phase) and it seems that sometimes the author is eager to attack Scrum. Because sometimes is clear what aspects Scrum is missing and DA complements and sometimes Scrum is just attack badly. Badly because there are bad assumptions and sometimes old terminology which has already evolved in Scrum. This deprecated information and lack of precision puts this book one step below of the place it could be.
August 7, 2016
Much better than expected!
Based on the introduction, I was extremely skeptical. I thought, "great, another watered down Agile method".
Very glad I got past. There was even a character in the book that shared my lack of ambition. Disciplined Agile Delivery is based on Hard experience found at IBM. Its a great way to introduce teams to Agile and even more importantly, it also helped ease questions from Management. I will definitely be using some of the advice in my next project.
Based on the introduction, I was extremely skeptical. I thought, "great, another watered down Agile method".
Very glad I got past. There was even a character in the book that shared my lack of ambition. Disciplined Agile Delivery is based on Hard experience found at IBM. Its a great way to introduce teams to Agile and even more importantly, it also helped ease questions from Management. I will definitely be using some of the advice in my next project.
September 11, 2015
An interesting case based introduction to Agile practice in enterprise IT. It works well to get a broad idea on DA's differecial elements.
December 31, 2015
Very good high level overview of the DAD approach.
November 18, 2016
Great short and high level intro on DAD. Didn't help very much in the certification test however.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews