Agile Lifecycle Framework

“Agile is not a destination, but a journey. It is not a methodology, but a mindset.” — Unknown

As a program manager at Microsoft for almost two decades, I have learned that shaping a process with a team can be a challenging task, especially if the team cannot visualize it.

A mental model is essential to share with the team, which can accelerate the process. However, the problem with life cycles and end-to-end processes is that people often do not have a clear understanding of what the entire process entails.

This is where the Agile Lifecycle Framework comes in. It provides a clear and structured approach to project management, enabling teams to visualize the entire process and how different activities fit together.

By showing the end-to-end lifecycle on a whiteboard and how each stage works, it empowers the team, allowing them to get down to business. In this guide, we will explore the Agile Lifecycle Framework, its benefits, and how you can implement it in your projects.

Simple Extensible Model

One of the key tools that I developed to help teams understand Agile development better is the Agile Lifecycle Framework, which is essentially a visual representation of the process.

Despite its simplicity, the framework is incredibly powerful as it allows teams to see how various activities fit together in an Agile development process.

Using this framework, I was able to demonstrate how to incorporate essential elements such as security, performance, and customer-focused activities into Agile development.

The best part is that the same framework can be used repeatedly, making it easier for teams to understand and apply the principles of Agile development.

Agile Lifecycle Framework

The power of the Agile Lifecycle Framework is that it helps people that don’t know Agile, very quickly follow the intent.  The frame also helps bridge the gap between the project cycle and the product cycle.

Here is what the Agile Lifecycle Framework looks like:

What makes this frame useful and simple to use is the backbone of it:  Exploration, Iteration 0, Iteration N, Release Preparation, and Release.

Those phases are easy to identify with, and then it’s easy to plug-and-play different activities within each phase, as appropriate.

Agile Security Engineering Framework

With the Agile Lifecycle Framework, we can simply “overlay” key security activities to bake security into Agile development.  Sometimes I call this the “Security Engineering Overlay.”

Here is what the Agile Security Engineering Framework looks like:

Agile Performance Engineering Framework

With the Agile Lifecycle Framework, we can also “overlay” key performance activities to bake performance into Agile development.  Sometimes I call this the “Performance Engineering Overlay.”

Here is what Agile Performance Engineering Framework looks like:

Agile Customer-Connected Development

With the Agile Lifecycle Framework, we can also overlay specific customer-focused activities, that bring Customer-Connected Development to life.

Here is what Customer-Connected Development looks like:

How To Use the Agile Lifecycle Framework

You can use the Agile Life-Cycle Frame to show, share, and shape your current Agile development processes.

Your frame might vary.

The first step is to put your process down on paper.  Keep things flexible, but at the same time, keep in mind what should be durable.

If you can’t articulate your process with any sort of repeatability, it’s tough to get folks on board, or to change things in any meaningful way.

I kept these frames simple on purpose to help illustrate the power of having a model.  But, the model is only useful if the model is simpler than what it is actually modeling.

I did use a more complete set of activities in the Customer-Connected Engineering Frame so that you can see an alternative example, that might help prompt ideas for your own Agile Life-Cycle model.

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