The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile, 2nd Edition

24Managed Agile Development Framework

THE MANAGED AGILE DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK described in this chapter is different from the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe^®) and the Disciplined Agile^® approach. Both of those are designed for full‐scale enterprise‐level Agile implementations. The Managed Agile Development framework is a project‐level framework that is intended to provide a balance of agility combined with some level of predictability and control.

• It is intended for companies that are unable or not ready to move to a more complete top‐to‐bottom Agile model such as the Scaled Agile Framework.
• It is a hybrid project life cycle model consisting of a blend of an adaptive Agile development approach based on Scrum at the micro‐level and a more classical plan‐driven approach at the macro‐level, as shown in Figure 24.1.
• It can easily be customized to fit a given project and business environment and can be adapted to companies that have more classical plan‐driven business and project/portfolio management approaches at a higher level.
• It generally requires no significant transformation of those higher‐level processes.

I created this approach initially when I was managing a large government project. In order to meet government contractual requirements, we were required to commit to some plan‐driven milestones at the program level, and we were required to report earned‐value metrics to measure progress against those milestones. On first glance, it may sound impossible to make an Agile ...