Choosing Your Way of Working (WoW)

Choosing Your Way of Working (WoW) in Disciplined Agile represents a fundamental concept where teams thoughtfully select and evolve their process tailored to their specific context. Unlike prescriptive frameworks that mandate specific practices, DA embraces context-based decision making, recognizing that each team operates under unique circumstances. The WoW selection process involves identifying the team's context factors (team size, distribution, domain complexity, organizational culture), examining available process options through DA's extensive process goal network, and making informed choices about which practices best fit their situation. This approach allows teams to start with a coherent process framework (like Scrum, Kanban, or other lifecycles) but then enhance it by deliberately adopting complementary practices that address their specific challenges. Teams might incorporate technical practices from XP, governance aspects from traditional approaches, or modeling techniques from other methods. DA Scrum Masters facilitate this process by helping teams understand available options, guiding contextual decision-making, and supporting periodic reflection on process effectiveness. They serve as process coaches who help teams navigate the extensive toolkit that DA provides. The power of Choose Your WoW lies in its pragmatism—teams aren't locked into dogmatic approaches but instead build fit-for-purpose processes. This leads to greater process ownership, as teams actively participate in designing how they work rather than merely following prescribed methods. As teams gain experience, their WoW evolves through regular experimentation and retrospection. This guided continuous improvement approach helps teams start where they are but steadily enhance their effectiveness by making small, meaningful process adjustments over time.

Choosing Your Way of Working (WoW) in Disciplined Agile represents a fundamental concept where teams thoughtfully select and evolve their process tailored to their specific context. Unlike prescripti…

Concepts covered: Utilizing the DA Toolkit for Context-Sensitive Choices, Selecting Appropriate Agile and Lean Practices, Incorporating Feedback to Evolve WoW, Empowering Team Autonomy in Selecting WoW, Empowering Teams to Choose and Adapt Their Way of Working, Balancing Standardization and Flexibility in Way of Working, Incorporating Enterprise Awareness in WoW Choices, Applying Guided Continuous Improvement, Incorporating Organizational Context into Way of Working, Leveraging Organizational Learning to Adapt WoW, Tailoring WoW with Process Goal Diagrams, Customizing WoW Using DA Life Cycles