DSDM agility
DSDM advocates that projects should do just ‘enough design up front’ within a Foundations phase in order to understand and clarify the structure of the overall solution and to create an agile plan for delivery of the project. This puts in place the foundations for successful development and delivery.
It is important to understand that the Foundations phase of a DSDM project is very different to the Analysis and Design steps in a traditional ‘waterfall’ approach. In a DSDM project, analysis and design activity carried in Foundations covers the full breadth of the project but deliberately avoids going into detail. Substituting traditional ‘big design up front’ with DSDM’s ‘enough design up front’ promotes Agility in developing the required solution whilst avoiding the risk of ‘no design up front’ that makes many larger and more strongly governed organisations so nervous.