Disciplined Agile - Reference Sheet
The world of Agile can be quite complex. PMI made it a bit more complex (or simpler?) with the acquisition of Disciplined Agile.
How does this work?
PMI & Disciplined Agile
PMI used to offer the PMI-ACP as the only agile alternative or complement to the PMP, its most recognized certification. With agile methodologies gaining popularity, PMI made the acquisition of the Disciplined Agile Consortium and is now providing a roadmap toward agility:
PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) is a certification for Professionals who have demonstrated knowledge of agile methodologies and experience leading agile teams.
DASM (Disciplined Agile Scrum Master) is quite similar to PMI-ACP, but with a focus on disciplined agile.
DASSM (Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master) is where things start getting serious. This is the starting point of a group of three certifications that are linked. Basically, this is simply a certification for a more experienced scrum master.
DA Coach requires the DASSM as a prerequisite, and proves that you can coach teams.
DAVSC (Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant) is the last step in the PMI agile journey. It certifies your ability to guide organizations in their path to accelerated value delivery.
For now, PMI ACP and the DA certifications are working together. All of this is summarized below:
Copyright 2020 Project Management Institute
Why Disciplined Agile?
Disciplined Agile adresses a gap in the market when moving from single team agile/scrum to what is called ‘Scaled Agile’: Agile for multiple teams or across the organization.
Other options exist however to scale agile:
SAFe (See here, what is SAFe), from the scaled agile framework.
Nexus (See here, scaling scrum), from scrum.org.
Before jumping on the DA wagon, it could be useful to get familiar with Nexus, a (mostly) free alternative.
You want to be certified
It is a bit sad that a training is mandatory to be able to sit the exam, but according to feedbacks, there is a real value to those classes.
PMI describes the certifications here: https://www.pmi.org/certifications/agile-certifications
But so far, it all leads to this training page: https://disciplinedagileconsortium.org/disciplined-agile-training
As someone who is already a PMI-ACP and has a few years of Agile experience, I feel like I can directly jump to the DASSM certification. Since it isn’t yet available, I will probably wait for PMI to sort things out before attending training.
You just want to know about DA
If you just need to understand DA, without a need to be certified, you have a few options:
Choose your WOW!
This book by Ambler and Lines, the co-creators of DA, is subtitled: A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing your Way of Working (WOW).
This is a must read for anyone looking to attend the training, pass the certifications, or simply understand the methodology.
The first section ‘Disciplined Agile Delivery in a Nutshell’ is where all the information you need is condensed in about 70 pages. It describes the fundamental concepts of Guided Continuous Improvement (GCI), and the Disciplined Agile Delivery. The rest of the book (About 360 pages) is mostly a reference handbook, with themes like: Successfully initiating your team, Producing Business Value, Releasing into Production, Sustaining and Enhancing your Team.
It seems the electronic version of the book (or at least the part relevant to the training) is sent to your when you register for a class.
Basics of Disciplined Agile Course for Agile Practitioners
PMI has launched a self paced online course to help practitioners get started on the methodology. At the time of writing this blog entry, this course doesn’t lead to a certification, which is unfortunate (in the DASM description from PMI, it is indicated that a ‘Self Paced’ course is an option for the exam).
The course provides 10 Technical PDUs to renew your PMI certifications.
Once you have finished the course, you should gain a better understanding of business agility, the value proposition of Disciplined Agile, why choosing its way of working is critical for your team, and how the disciplined agile toolkit improves in Scrum, Kanban…
You will find information to register here.
References:
Here, Scott Ambler, Co-Creator of Disciplined Agile Delivery, explains why the PMI has acquired DA: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-pmi-da-scott-w-ambler/
A great article by Anthony Mersino that summarizes brilliantly the methodology, certifications and training can be found on his blog: https://vitalitychicago.com/blog/get-your-disciplined-agile-certifications/
PMI has changed the certifications a bit since the article was written, but the return on experience is still really valuable.
