What is Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)?
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a flexible and scalable process framework designed to help organizations build better products and services. It complements Agile methodology, which intentionally avoids a rigid approach to defining strategic direction and overarching plans.
It combines agile principles with disciplined, structured approaches in matters related to the company’s strategic development. But DAD is not prescriptive. Instead, it simply offers guidelines and practices that can be tailored to meet specific business needs, and provides the flexibility to continuously improve processes and adapt to changes without disrupting the entire organization.
The core idea behind DAD is to create an adaptive structure where teams can self-organize, learn, and evolve while maintaining alignment with organizational goals. In practice, there are various approaches to achieve this, and we’ll take a closer look at how Sixsentix Serbia transitioned to DAD and what led to that choice.
Why we chose DAD at Sixsentix Serbia
Back in 2020, rapid growth anticipated at Sixsentix Serbia also brought potential challenges related to decision-making processes and maintaining continuous improvement. The lean management structure in place didn’t have the needed capacity to drive and handle strategic growth across all key areas.
As a result, the team faced two options - either 1) narrow their focus to specific areas and put others on hold or 2) adopt a more traditional hierarchical model with added management layers, which could slow down decision-making and lead to bottlenecks. So Sixsentix Serbia needed a different solution - a third way.
To find out more about how it all started, we talked to the Managing Director of Sixsentix Serbia, Branko Milikic.
We knew we wanted to scale quickly without losing agility. Traditional structures with layers of middle management simply couldn’t support the kind of flexibility we needed, and we didn’t want decision-making to depend solely on a handful of people. DAD offered us a way to distribute responsibilities, enabling teams to act quickly and independently.
Branko Milikic, Managing Director of Sixsentix Serbia
Quick scaling of operations threatened to hurt Sixsentix Serbia’s efficiency and dilute company culture. DAD opened an opportunity to create a more flexible structure that supports scalability while preserving our core values – trust, continuous improvement, grit, breaking the limits, ownership, and team spirit.
DAD in practice: disciplines, teams, and collaboration
At Sixsentix, the implementation of DAD revolves around disciplines – autonomous, cross-functional units that focus on specific aspects of the business. Each discipline has its own team, responsibilities, and goals, but all disciplines have to align with the company’s overarching strategy. This approach ensured that growth remained balanced across all areas, avoiding the danger of prioritizing one function at the expense of others due to lack of capacity.
Basically, disciplines act as micro-businesses within the company, sharing some common goals. Teams are self-organized and responsible for defining their own objectives within their areas of operations, plans, and KPIs. Core teams within each discipline consist of 4-8 members, with coordinators acting as facilitators rather than traditional managers. To maintain alignment and clarity, the Business Continuous Improvement (BCI) discipline oversees the process, ensuring that each discipline’s goals and activities support the company’s broader strategic objectives.
Our DAD framework values diverse perspectives and experiences, bringing together team members from various departments and levels of seniority in every discipline. New members are selected through an open application process, allowing anyone to apply, with the final decision made by the teams themselves.
Also, there’s a strong emphasis on learning and adaptability. Teams regularly evaluate their processes and results, making adjustments as needed. Guided by agile practices, instead of waiting for perfection, we embraced an iterative approach, improving continuously as we went along.
The current list of active disciplines at Sixsentix Serbia
Key lessons and outcomes: how DAD helped us grow and improve
The results of adopting DAD have been clear. Over the past few years, Sixsentix Serbia has scaled significantly without losing its identity or agility. Processes are more efficient, communication is clearer, and employees feel more empowered to contribute to the company’s direction. We avoided the dangers of strict hierarchy, such as slow communication and lack of autonomy, but also the potential risks of an insufficiently structured agile framework – lack of scalability, inconsistent processes, or limited strategic focus.
The adoption of DAD has resulted in a range of benefits for our company:
Scalability without compromise: As the company grew, DAD allowed Sixsentix Serbia to scale efficiently without losing agility. Instead of relying on a few managers to make all the decisions for a rapidly growing company, this responsibility was distributed across teams.
Continuous and balanced improvement: With disciplines dedicated to technical improvements, process optimization, and cultural growth, Sixsentix Serbia ensures no area of business is neglected. Teams consistently assess and refine their processes to deliver better results.
More engagement and growth opportunities: Employees are encouraged to join disciplines outside their primary roles, giving them opportunities to develop new skills and contribute to the company in different ways.
DAD doesn’t just help the company grow - it helps individuals grow too, building expertise and confidence along the way.
Branko Milikic, Managing Director of Sixsentix Serbia
Building a culture of ownership and accountability: DAD promotes a culture of ownership and accountability without placing the entire burden of responsibility on a single Team lead or Head of department. Instead, it encourages employees to take initiative, contribute to important decisions, and develop leadership skills naturally as part of a collaborative process.
Enhanced collaboration and faster decision-making: By distributing decision-making across disciplines, DAD reduces bottlenecks and improves responsiveness. These decisions are typically well-informed because they are made by people with a deep understanding of the domain in question. Employees of Sixsentix Serbia are generally empowered to engage directly with stakeholders without waiting for approvals, speeding up processes and strengthening client relationships. At the same time, this hands-on approach helps employees develop client-facing skills, which is invaluable for long-term career growth.
Broader perspectives in strategic planning: With more people involved in decision-making processes, a wider range of perspectives and good ideas are considered when shaping future strategies. This collective input results in well-rounded decisions and better alignment with company goals.
Active involvement in big-picture decisions: employees at Sixsentix Serbia have the opportunity to actively participate in shaping the company’s development. Their knowledge and expertise directly influence business decisions, allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the company’s future trajectory.
Why adopting DAD worked for us
Transitioning to DAD was not without challenges, and DAD isn’t necessarily the right fit for all. There are some prerequisites an organization should fulfill in order to successfully implement DAD. As Branko puts it:
Our success with Disciplined Agile Delivery was driven by multiple factors – we 1) embraced flexibility over rigid hierarchies, 2) fostered trust as a core company value, enabling our people to develop the mindset of ownership and responsibility, and 3) stayed persistent throughout the process. It wasn’t easy, but having the right mentality made the results well worth it.
Branko Milikic, Managing Director of Sixsentix Serbia
Evolving further with DAD
As Sixsentix Serbia continues to grow, we see DAD as a framework that will evolve with us. While the initial primary focus was scalability, the long-term impact is about creating a culture of adaptability and innovation.
Disciplined Agile Delivery has proven to be very beneficial for Sixsentix Serbia. The framework helps the organization find the right balance between structure and flexibility, hence enabling the company to scale while staying true to its agile roots. It fosters growth, encourages innovation, and builds a culture of continuous improvement.