# Disciplined Agile: Choosing Your Own Way of Working Instead of Copying a Framework

Author: Marin Niehues, Niehues Consulting · Published: 2024-02-12 · Organisation Design
Source: https://www.niehuesconsulting.de/en/blog/disciplined-agile-choose-way-of-working/

Disciplined Agile is a decision toolkit that helps teams assemble their own way of working from proven practices for their context. It prescribes no fixed method and instead offers options with advantages and drawbacks for each goal a team has to reach. For organisations that run several methods side by side it provides a frame of order. This article shows its field of use, its limits and the path to introduction.

Many companies choose a framework because another company introduced it, and later find that their teams cannot apply the rules to their own work. A team building a customer portal works differently from a team maintaining plant equipment. The article on [method FOMO](/en/blog/method-fomo-companies-chasing-every-new-framework/) describes why the reflex to reach for the next framework rarely addresses the cause. Disciplined Agile starts at this point: it asks first about the context and derives the way of working from it.

**Disciplined Agile replaces the question "Which framework do we introduce?" with the question "Which goal must this team reach, and which practice leads there best in its context?"**

## What is Disciplined Agile?

Disciplined Agile (DA) is a toolkit for choosing a way of working, developed by Scott Ambler and Mark Lines from 2012 and owned by the Project Management Institute (PMI) since August 2019. It begins with the 2012 book "Disciplined Agile Delivery" and was later extended to IT departments and value streams, and finally to the whole enterprise. The authors call a team's way of working its "Way of Working", or WoW, and the path towards it "Choose Your WoW", which is also the title of their 2020 book.

The core of the toolkit is process goals. A goal such as exploring scope or choosing an architecture strategy is shown in a diagram with decision points and options. Each option appears with its strengths and limits, and practices from Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming and Lean Startup appear as choices. The team decides which option fits its context and records the choice.

Lifecycles for different kinds of work come on top. Among others the toolkit describes an agile lifecycle based on Scrum, a lean one based on Kanban, variants for continuous delivery and an exploratory lifecycle after Lean Startup. A project passes through phases that DA calls Inception and Construction, and at the end Transition. Teams working together in a programme receive a lifecycle of their own.

## Which principles underlie Disciplined Agile?

Disciplined Agile rests on seven principles: delight customers, be awesome, be pragmatic, context counts, choice is good, optimise flow and be enterprise aware. Two of them set DA apart from classic frameworks. "Context counts" says that every team and every task needs its own way of working, and "Choice is good" requires that teams may choose among several options. Behind both stands the view that no practice is right in itself, only in a particular context.

The principle of enterprise awareness keeps teams from customising without limit. A team's way of working must fit the governance and architecture as well as the neighbouring teams. The article on [Team Topologies](/en/blog/team-topologies-organising-teams-for-flow/) deals with how teams are cut so that they can choose their way of working at all.

## Where does Disciplined Agile fit, and where does its value end?

Disciplined Agile fits organisations with several kinds of team that each need a different way of working, and teams that already have experience with an agile method. Typical examples are a company where product teams work beside platform teams and operations teams, or a corporation that finds after introducing Scrum that Scrum does not suit every team.

It fits less well for teams without agile experience. A toolkit with numerous goals and options overwhelms a team that does not yet know how a Sprint runs. For these teams a clearly defined method is the better start, for example Scrum under the Scrum Guide 2020 or Kanban under the Kanban Guide. The article on [Scrum or Kanban](/en/blog/scrum-vs-kanban-which-method-fits/) shows the criteria. DA is equally unsuitable as a substitute for a decision: whoever introduces a toolkit because they do not want to commit to a method gets arbitrariness with a better vocabulary.

## Which context factors determine the way of working?

A team's way of working follows from a few context factors that can be recorded beforehand. The table shows how individual factors affect typical decisions.

**Context factors and their effect on the way of working**
Context factor | Characteristic | Effect on the choice | Typical option
Kind of work | Development in increments | Fixed cycles with planning and review | Scrum-based lifecycle
Kind of work | Continuous requests with changing priority | Flow with limited work in progress | Kanban-based lifecycle
Uncertainty | High uncertainty about customer need | Short experiments before building | Exploratory lifecycle after Lean Startup
Team size and distribution | Several teams on one product | Coordination across team boundaries | Programme lifecycle with joint planning
Delivery speed | Daily or hourly releases possible | Automated pipeline, small changes | Continuous delivery lifecycle
Consequence of a failure | High, for instance in safety-critical systems | More checks and approvals | Additional quality practices
With Niehues Consulting | Context is recorded jointly at the start | Roles and decision paths fit the chosen way of working | Way of working reviewed against delivery indicators

The table replaces no analysis; it structures one. A choice made without regard for team maturity or organisation leads to ways of working that fit on paper and are not lived in daily practice. How work can be measured in flow and waiting time is shown in the article on [flow metrics](/en/blog/flow-metrics-throughput-wip-wait-time/).

## How do you introduce Disciplined Agile in four steps?

The introduction works in four steps that start small and are limited to teams with a clear need.

1. Capture the context: A pilot team describes the kind of work and the uncertainty, together with team size and delivery rhythm and the consequences of a failure. The result is half a page.
2. Select goals: The team takes the two or three process goals where it suffers most friction today, for example the handling of requirements or coordination with neighbouring teams, and picks one option per goal from the toolkit.
3. Trial and measure: The team works in the chosen way for several weeks and measures lead time and waiting time as well as quality. It compares the values with those before the change.
4. Adapt and share: What proves itself is documented. Other teams receive it as an option they may examine. The organisation collects experience and fixes common minimum rules, for example for reporting lines and architecture decisions.

**Questions before introduction**
- Do the teams have enough agile experience to choose between options?
- Which two or three goals cause the greatest friction today?
- Who in the organisation fixes the minimum rules that apply to all teams?
- Which indicators show after a few weeks whether the chosen way of working takes effect?
- Who maintains the collected knowledge so that it does not stay in one pilot team?

## How does Disciplined Agile relate to other frameworks?

Disciplined Agile does not replace Scrum, Kanban or other methods; it uses them as options. A team using Scrum can keep running it within DA and add goals that Scrum does not cover, such as architecture, governance or handover into operations. The difference from frameworks that describe the whole enterprise with fixed roles and events lies in the degree of prescription: DA leaves the choice open and demands more judgement from the team in return. A counterexample with clear structure at organisation level appears in the article on the [unFIX model](/en/blog/unfix-model-organisation-building-blocks/).

## Disciplined Agile with Niehues Consulting

[Niehues Consulting](/en/) is a consultancy for AI management and organisation design from a delivery perspective, based in Düsseldorf. Founder Marin Niehues builds organisations that deliver, in projects ranging from VC-funded scale-ups to DAX 40 groups and in more than 20 countries on six continents. In the service area of delivery management and organisation design the work lies in roles and decision paths, and in the question of which way of working suits which team.

The approach follows the Niehues Delivery Model. For choosing a way of working two checking questions matter: Who decides, who delivers, who uses the result? Which indicator shows after 90 days that the solution has arrived? Both keep a way of working from being introduced without anyone checking its effect. The entry point is a free initial consultation of 30 minutes, which you can book through the [contact form](/en/#kontakt).

**Conclusion**
Disciplined Agile helps organisations derive the way of working from the context of each team, and it supplies goals with options as well as lifecycles. It suits teams with agile experience and companies with several kinds of team. Whoever starts captures the context of a pilot team, picks a few goals and measures the effect before extending the approach to further teams.

**Sources**
- Ambler, Lines: Disciplined Agile Delivery, A Practitioner's Guide to Agile Software Delivery in the Enterprise, book, 2012
- Ambler, Lines: Choose Your WoW, A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working, book, 2020
- Project Management Institute: Disciplined Agile, toolkit documentation, since the acquisition in 2019
- Schwaber, Sutherland: The Scrum Guide, guide, 2020

## Frequently asked questions

### What is Disciplined Agile?

Disciplined Agile is a decision toolkit for choosing a way of working, developed by Scott Ambler and Mark Lines. It offers process goals with options from Scrum and Kanban as well as other methods. It has belonged to the Project Management Institute since August 2019.

### Who developed Disciplined Agile?

Scott Ambler and Mark Lines developed Disciplined Agile from 2012, at first as "Disciplined Agile Delivery". The Project Management Institute acquired the toolkit in August 2019 and continues to run it. The authors described it in the 2020 book "Choose Your WoW".

### What is the difference between Disciplined Agile and Scrum?

Scrum is a fixed method with defined roles and set events and artefacts, whereas Disciplined Agile is a toolkit that contains Scrum as one of several options. Scrum covers a team's work on the product. DA adds topics such as architecture and governance as well as coordination between teams.

### Which lifecycles does Disciplined Agile offer?

Disciplined Agile offers several lifecycles, among them an agile one based on Scrum, a lean one based on Kanban, variants for continuous delivery and an exploratory one after Lean Startup. Each lifecycle fits one kind of work. Teams choose the one that suits their context.

### Which companies is Disciplined Agile suited to?

Disciplined Agile suits companies with several kinds of team and teams with agile experience. It pays off where a single framework no longer fits all teams. For teams without experience a fixed framework is the better start.

### How do you get started with Disciplined Agile?

You start with a pilot team that describes its context, selects two or three process goals and measures the effect of its choices. Only then do you extend the approach to further teams. The team needs enough agile experience to assess options.

### Do you need a certification for Disciplined Agile?

A certification is not required to apply the toolkit. The Project Management Institute offers training and certificates that give structure to the start. What counts for the benefit in the company is whether teams choose and review their way of working deliberately.

### Is Disciplined Agile a framework?

Disciplined Agile describes itself as a toolkit and not as a framework with a fixed rulebook. It prescribes no roles or events for all teams. It describes goals with options and their consequences, from which a team assembles its way of working.