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    Disciplined Agile® Release Notes

    This page summarizes significant updates that we have made to the Disciplined Agile Hub, starting with Q2 2021. Simple fixes, such as addressing spelling and grammar mistakes, will not appear here.

    Release Notes:

    Q4 2022

    This list is being updated as changes occur on the site given that this is the current quarter. We made the following changes during Q4 2022: 

    DA 5.8

    By 22 December 2022, we released Disciplined Agile (DA) v5.8. The focus of this release was to:

    • Improve technical functionality of the DA Browser including:
      • Adding change log
      • Adding link to release notes (this page)
      • Adding links to change log and release notes from main menu
      • Adding ability to select individual options in tradeoff tables
      • Trimming of tradeoff tables with empty tradeoffs column
      • Making UI look-and-feel improvements
      • Addressing bug fixes
      • Other minor improvements

    This release did not include any substantial changes to content in the DA Browser, only minor edits.

    This release does not affect any DA exams or courseware. 

    Q3 2022

    This list is being updated as changes occur on the site given that this is the current quarter. We made the following changes during Q3 2022:

    • Transformation: Added the Transformation Practices page and the Transformation roadmap pages.

    DA 5.7

    On 30 September 2022, we released Disciplined Agile (DA) v5.7. The focus of this release was to:

    • Improve technical functionality of the DA Browser including:
      • New cross-referencing function to navigate between related process items
      • Integrating with your standard browser’s history function (previous/next)
      • Integrating with your standard browser’s bookmarking function (this made the Copy URL function obsolete and it has been removed)
        • Bookmarks work as permalinks and will survive new releases of DA
      • UI look-and-feel improvements
      • Bug fixes
      • Other minor improvements

    This release did not include any substantial changes to content in the DA Browser, only minor edits.

    This release does not affect any DA exams or courseware.

    Q2 2022

    DA 5.6

    On 30 June 2022, we released Disciplined Agile (DA) v5.6. The focus of this release was to:

    • Add the Transformation process goal diagram.
    • Improve consistency in the way we describe governance in several blades: Asset management, Continuous improvement, Data management, Enterprise architecture, IT Operations, People Management, Product Management, Release Management, Security, Support
    • Update several process blades:
    • Update several process goals:
      • Plan the Release: Added explicit support for #NoEstimates.
      • Intake Work: Refactored Prioritize work (Who) into strategic items and small work items.
    • Add and update reference links to existing techniques. This is an ongoing effort and there is more to come.
    • Update descriptions of techniques. This is also an ongoing effort to keep our material up to date.

    This release does not affect any DA exams or courseware. 

    DA 5.5

    On March 31st, 2022 we released Disciplined Agile (DA) v5.5. The focus of this release was to:

    • Add and update reference links to existing techniques.
    • Update the following process blades:
      • Portfolio Management. Added the Address Portfolio Risk decision point.
      • Program Management. Added the Address Program Risk and Measure Program decision points which were previously options of Govern the Program. Refactored the Organize Teams decision point, pulling out Organize Program Leadership and making Organize Teams an ordered list.
      • Product Management. Added the Evolve Vision/Citizen Development option.
      • Vendor Management. Added the Intake Requests decision point and renamed Choose Commercial Model to Choose Contract Model.
    • Update the following process goals:

    This release does not affect any DA exams or courseware.

    Q1 2022

    We made the following changes during Q1 2022:

    Choose Your WoW Second Edition

    We released the second edition of our book, Choose Your WoW! on February 1st, 2022. 

    The focus of the second edition is to provide an overview of the DA tool kit, rather than the first edition which provides both an overview and detailed reference information. As you know we update the reference material on a quarterly basis, as per our version control strategy, which meant the reference material contained in the first edition has gotten out of sync with the current material. To address this issue we have removed sections 2-5 from Choose Your WoW, which provided reference information for Inception, Construction, Transition, and Ongoing process goals respectively. This information is now captured on PMI.org, at a combination of the process goal overview pages and in the DA Browser.

    We have also updated the overview material in the book to bring it into alignment with version 5.3 of the DA tool kit. The key changes that we made to the material are:

    • Chapter 1: Added Figure 1.4, a screen shot from the DA Browser; Updated Figure 1.6 (Scope of DA diagram), to reflect the simplification of the Foundation layer.
    • Chapter 2: Updated Figure 2.2 to reflect the updated scaling factors (we went from 6 to 7). Changes: We added the Skill Availability factor, renamed Technical Complexity to Solution Complexity, and made the choices on the vertices non-IT specific.
    • Chapter 3: Figure 3.3 (process goals overview) updated to list the three new Ongoing process goals: Measure Outcomes, Organize Metrics, and Intake Work; Figure 3.6 (tactical scaling factors) updated to reflect the 7 tactical scaling factors.
    • Chapter 4: No changes of note.
    • Chapter 5: Figure 5.1 (process goal level of detail) updated to reflect the new scope of this book; Figure 5.2 (process goals overview) this is a repeat of Figure 3.3 above; Figure 5.5 is now a screen shot from the DA Browser rather than a text table; and Figure 5.6 added, a screen shot from the DA Browser showing how references work.
    • Chapter 6: Figure 6.11 (MBI/MVP overview) updated to make the descriptions clearer; Figure 6.14 (choosing a lifecycle flowchart) simplified to reflect feedback from practitioners.
    • Chapter 7: This is now an updated version Chapter 28 from the first edition.
    • References: Reduced the number of references because many of them were specific to Sections 2-5 in the First edition. All of those references removed from the book appear in the DA Browser as references.
    • Index: Reduced in size due to the removal of sections 2-5. 

    DA 5.4

    On February 4th, 2022 we released Disciplined Agile (DA) v5.4. The focus of this release was to:

    This release does not affect any DA exams or courseware.

    Q4 2021

    We made the following changes during Q4 2021:

    • Business Operations – Updated the blade description and why it’s important.
    • Disciplined DevOps – Updated the high-level flow diagram to show new requests coming from Business Operations into Disciplined Agile Delivery.
    • Enterprise Architecture – Updated collaborative team structure diagram.
    • Finance – Updated the blade description to indicate why it’s important, and also updated the mindset and added the mindset summary diagram.
    • Governance – Updated the mindset and added the mindset summary diagram.
    • Legal – Updated the blade description and why it’s important, Introduced a practices page.
    • Marketing – Updated the blade description and why marketing is important.
    • Organizing agile teams – Updated the large team structure diagram.
    • Portfolio management – Updated the mindset and added the mindset summary diagram.
    • Process goals – We have updated the detail pages for each process goal to enhance the description, to add sections for “Why this is important” and “Key points”.
    • Product Management – Updated the mindset and added the mindset summary diagram.
    • Risk value life cycle – Updated the risk-value graph.
    • Sales – Updated the blade description and why it’s important.
    • Supporting large agile teams – Updated the product owner team diagram.

    DA 5.3

    On September 30th 2021 we released Disciplined Agile (DA) 5.3. Our main goal was to update and add reference links for many of the techniques within the DA tool kit.  We also evolved several process goals, and updated their goal diagrams accordingly. Goal diagrams that have not evolved are still labelled as v5.2, diagrams that did evolve are now labelled as v5.3. We updated the following process goal diagrams to v5.3:

    • Coordinate activities. Updated the Visualize work options (it appears twice) to “Visualize work and workflow”.
    • Evolve Way of Working (WoW). Updated Tailor Initial Process\Adopt DA suggestions.
    • Explore Scope. Updated Choose a Backlog Management strategy to reflect changes to Intake Work.
    • Intake Work. We refactored the Manage Work Items decision point to introduce Manage Backlog. We also updated the options for backlog management to reflect current industry practice.
    • Measure Outcomes. We added several new potential metrics to existing options and introduced the Increase Initiative Health decision point.
    • Organize Metrics. Added Aggregate Measures and Report Measures decision points.
    • Plan The Release. Updated estimation strategies.

    Q3 2021

    We made the following changes during Q3 2021:

    • Continuous Improvement – Added the Analyze Root Cause decision point to the goal diagram.
    • Disciplined Agile Hub Home Page - Updated for improved navigation and usability.
    • Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit landing page – This is an experiment that we’re currently running to get data to drive our web site design, check it out if you get a chance. Governance – Added options to the goal diagram to support greater transparency of the governance process.
    • Governance – Added options to the goal diagram to support greater transparency of the governance process. 
    • Product Management – Added the Measure Offering decision point to describe explicit measurement options. Added the Capture Roadmap decision point to describe options for documenting/communicating your product roadmap.

    Our focus this quarter was to release new supporting materials for our new Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC) certification. We’re currently piloting this material and hope to release it publicly in Q4 pending feedback and update. 

    DA 5.2

    On July 9th we made the following changes:

    • Updated all process blade goal diagrams to v5.2
    • Added three new process goals:
    • Evolved Address Risk to better support Enterprise Risk issues
    • Renamed Govern Delivery Team to Govern Team
    • Refactored Address Changing Stakeholder Needs to focus on exploring evolving requirements, moving the decision points for intaking the new work to Intake Work
    • Added support for Citizen Developer techniques in several process goals
    • Improved support for diversity & inclusion in Grow Team Members
    • Improved support for agile architecture techniques
    • Improved support for customer experience (CX)/user experience (UX) techniques 

    Q2 2021

    We made the following changes during Q2 2021:

    Disciplined Agile Release History 

    To date there have been several major releases of DA: 

    1. Disciplined Agile Delivery 0.x. Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) was originally developed at IBM Rational from early 2009 to June 2012. The IBM team worked closely with business partners, including Mark Lines, and was led by Scott Ambler. IBM Rational Method Composer (RMC) currently supports an early, 0.5 version of DAD.
    2. Disciplined Agile Delivery 1.x. The DAD 1.0 release occurred in June 2012 with publication of the first DAD book, Disciplined Agile Delivery. Evolution and publication of DAD continued at this site starting in August 2012. Ownership of DAD intellectual property effectively passed over to the Disciplined Agile Consortium in October 2012, a fact which was legally recognized by IBM in June 2014. 
    3. Disciplined Agile 2.0. This is the first real version of the tool kit, the focus was on describing a flexible, context-sensitive approach to DevOps and the IT process. Released August 2015.
    4. Disciplined Agile 3.0. The focus of this release is to extend DA to address the full needs of a Disciplined Agile Enterprise (DAE).  Release August 2017.
    5. Disciplined Agile 5.0. This version of the tool kit was captured as update of the book Choose Your WoW! and corresponding updates to this site. Released May 2020.
    6. Disciplined Agile 5.2. This version captures improvements to the process goals and to many process blades. Released July 9, 2021. 

    December 2022