
This is meant to be a list of all known existing Agile frameworks and methodologies. Each framework contains a general overview and links to find additional information. Not all Agile frameworks or methodologies are isolated to software development projects.
It should be noted that Agile is not a framework or a methodology on its own, it is more of a philosophical approach to how things should be done.
If I missed any frameworks, leave a message in the comments or email me here so I can update accordingly. If you have better sources for an Agile framework, please forward them. This list is updated when new information is learned. For more information on what Agile is, see What is Agile? and What is Kanban?.
A
Adaptive Software Development (ASD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2000 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems Adaptive Code: Agile coding with design patterns and SOLID principles (Developer Best Practices) |
Primary Roles: |
N/A |
General Overview: |
|
An adaptive lifecycle of Speculate, Collaborate and Learn. It is based on Rapid Application Development (RAD). It strives to focus on the end users of the product and encourages increased transparency between the developers and the clients. |
Agile-Agile Hybrid |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
20% |
More Information: |
Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid |
Primary Roles: |
Depends on the frameworks |
General Overview: |
|
A mix of two or more Agile frameworks. Scrum and XP are widely used together (which seems like it would just make XP). The goal is to try and take the best practices from each framework. Also called Blended Agile
*Technically, Scrumban is an Agile-Agile Hybrid. |
Agile Manufacturing |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
4 Key Elements:
Places a strong focus on rapidly responding to customers with short production timeframes and design turnaround. It has a strong relationship with Lean Manufacturing, but with more flexible development and processes. It can be used with Lean or an enhancement to Lean. Appears to be related to the rise of rapid prototyping ability of 3D printers. My cynical side tells me it is just Lean with 3D printers, given an Agile name to sound fancy and modern. |
Agile-Waterfall Hybrid |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A* |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Usually a project manager and typical waterfall/predictive supporting staff |
General Overview: |
|
A mix of Agile and Predictive project management practices. Sometimes referred to as just “Agile” or “Scrum”.
*It has been my experience that most people who claim to do Scrum, actually do an Agile-Waterfall Hybrid approach. Scrum is the largest reported framework in use. It is my belief this is the actual largest in use. I have been on more than a few “Scrum” teams with a Project Manager and no Sprints. |
Agnostic Agile |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
– |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Undefined |
General Overview: |
|
A non-dogmatic approach. Not a framework, but a set of principles countering the Agile Manifesto. The philosophy behind it states that choosing a framework may actually hinder agility, it may not be the best thing to do.
12 Principles of Agnostic Agility:
|
B
Blended Agile |
See Agile-Agile Hybrid or Agile-Waterfall Hybrid |
C
Crystal / Crystal Methods / Crystal Clear |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
– |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Undefined |
General Overview: |
|
A family of human-powered, adaptive, ultra light, ‘stretch to fit’ software development methodologies. It is meant to address the issue of multiple characteristics and team size between projects. |
Complexity Leadership / Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2001 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information | |
Primary Roles: |
Organizational Level |
General Overview |
|
Based upon Complexity Theory and Chaos Theory – which in turn come from Systems Theory. The goal is to build the organization with the ability to adapt to changes quickly while recognizing that it is a complex system that must be balanced between organized and chaotic.
|
CVSAgile |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
? |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Not Agile – Waterfall under an Agile name with requirements that are called user stories.
The focus is on trying to remove red tape/bureaucracy. |
D
Disciplined Agile Framework (DA) – Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2009 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Team Lead, Product Owner, Team Member, Architecture Owner, Stakeholder |
General Overview: |
|
Six Lifecycles – Agile, Continuous Deliver: Agile, Exploratory, Lean, Continuous Delivery: Lean, Program
This is a hybrid approach intended to put people first and make learning a strong focus of the process. It is built more for large distributed organizations. The governing body of this approach and the associated educational materials is now owned by the Project Management Institute (PMI) |
Domain-Driven Design (DDD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2004 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
Implementing Domain-Driven Design Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Three Core Principles:
Builds upon Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. The aim is to make the creation of complex applications easier by connecting related pieces or modules together in a constantly evolving model. It encourages iterative development. |
Dynamic Systems Development Methodology (DSDM)* |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1994 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
DSDM: Dynamic Systems Development Method: The Method in Practice A Full Lifecycle Agile Approach: Dynamic Systems Development Methodology (DSDM) |
Primary Roles: |
Business Sponsor, Business Visionary, Project Manager, Technical Coordinator, Business Analyst, Team Leader, Solution Developer, Business Ambassador, Solution Tester |
General Overview: |
|
8 Core Principles:
DSDM was created in part due to issues with Rapid Application Development (RAD). Its focus is on the full project lifecycle from beginning to end. Originally created for software development, it has been pushing further outside of that realm. Uses well beyond software engineering projects, with expansions in program management, service delivery, and more. *They just call it DSDM now |
E
Extreme Programming (XP) |
|
Year of First Known Use: | 1996 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: | 1% |
More Information: | Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd Edition (The XP Series) |
Primary Roles: | Coach, Customers, Developers, and Testers |
General Overview: |
|
5 Major Rules – Planning, Managing, Designing, Coding, Testing
5 Core Values – Simplicity, Communication, Feedback, Respect, Courage Extreme Programming focuses on bringing in best practices to software engineering. It stresses code refactoring and paired programming. Highly values teamwork, collaboration, and shared workspaces. 12 Practices of XP
|
F
FAST Agile |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Product Director, Stakeholder, Developer, Tribe Resource, Swarm Steward, Feature Steward |
General Overview: |
|
FAST Rules:
FAST Principles:
FAST Agile has a strong focus on trusting the developers and self-organizing teams. Its creation was inspired by Open Space Technology; a method for organizing and running meetings that stresses the importance of focusing on a specific and important task. Origins of Spotify Squad |
Feature Driven Development (FDD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1997 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Aimed at optimizing customer value by focusing on the features delivered. |
Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) |
|
Year of First Known Use: | ? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: | N/A |
More Information: |
The Four Disciplines of Execution Book |
Primary Roles: |
Organization-Wide |
General Overview: |
|
4 Disciplines:
4 Challenges:
Focuses on creating a “Culture of Execution” that embeds the disciplines into an organization. A common approach is brought in at every level of the organization. This is not a project approach, but a whole organizational approach. |
I
Iterative Model / Iterative Development |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1980’s |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
3% |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Iterative, not necessarily an incremental approach to software development. You may not release after each iteration and the iteration process may not be a standard length.
It may begin with an initial large release of a product. That product may be built upon in iterations, progressively adding features. Those features may not be released until a new version, or they may be released after each iteration incrementally building the software up. |
K
Kanban (Agile Kanban, Just In Time Delivery) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1940’s in Lean as JIT Manufacturing |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
5% |
More Information: |
Real-World Kanban: Do Less, Accomplish More with Lean Thinking |
Primary Roles: |
Organization-Wide or Project-Wide |
General Overview: |
|
Five Core Practices
The first thing you need to know about Kanban is that it does not require the use of a kanban board and it is more than just the kanban board. You should only have a visual method of displaying work progress, the kanban board is one such method. It is a non-iterative Agile process that can also be incremental. It models a more natural way to work with a continuous flow. It is flexible enough to be used outside of projects or as an entire organizational Agile approach. |
L
Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2002 – 2005 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
– |
More Information: |
Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) |
Primary Roles: |
Feature Team, Product Owner, Area Product Owner, Scrum Master |
General Overview: |
|
Principles:
|
Lean Software Development |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1980’s/1990’s |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
7 Guiding Principles
This is not so much a framework or methodology as it is a set of guiding principles. |
M
The Mercurial Perspective |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
Conceptual (2017-2019) |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
0% |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: | Organization-Wide |
General Overview: |
|
Principles of the Mercurial Perspective:
1. Treat Humans Like Humans An enhancement to Kanban that I created/ am creating. The continuous workflow of Agile Kanban / Just in Time Delivery with a set of principles and practices to become a more human-centered and streamlined organization. A more Agile Agile. |
Modern Agile |
|
Year of First Known Use: | ? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: | N/A |
More Information | http://modernagile.org/ |
Primary Roles: | None Defined |
General Overview |
|
An expansion or broader interpretation of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development.
Four Guiding Principles:
|
N
Nexus |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2015 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
The Product Owner, Scrum Masters, Nexus Integration Team Members, Development Team |
General Overview: |
|
A way to scale Scrum up using multiple Scrum teams. It is based on the Scrum Guide with an additional Nexus team that is made up of a Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Integration Team Members. |
O
Optum Scaled Agile Methodology (OSAM) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2015/2016 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
United Healthgroup/Optum only |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Proprietary Agile variation that is similar to SAFe – Scaled Agile Framework. Implemented at Optum and United Health Group. |
P
P4; P4-Dev, P4-Ops |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
? |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | p4-dev |
Primary Roles: |
N/A – Program and Project level |
General Overview: |
|
P4 consists of P4 Operations and P4-Development Framework and is intended for physical product development. It is a method for scaling agility beyond just project teams and extending it to a program level.
P4 stands for Pragmatic, Paradigms, Principles, and Practices Group Tiers:
P4 brings in the concept of a retrospective to the organizational level, lays the groundwork for a scaled Agile program. |
R
Rapid Application Development (RAD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1980’s |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
RAD Model:
Software development methodology that focuses on prototyping over extensive planning. Most iterative Agile variations descended from RAD. |
Rational Unified Process (RUP) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1980’s |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
6 Best Practices
A software development process that divides the development into four phases |
S
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2011 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
SAFe 4.5 Reference Guide: Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises (2nd Edition) The Rollout: A Novel about Leadership and Building a Lean-Agile Enterprise with SAFe® |
Primary Roles (varies based on solution): |
Epic owners, Enterprise Architect, System Engineer, Product Management, Release Train Engineer, Business Owners, Dev Team, Product Owner |
General Overview: |
|
Five Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise: Lean-Agile Leadership, Team, and Technical Agility, DevOps and Release on Demand, Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering, Lean Portfolio Management
A framework intended for larger Agile teams, enterprise software development. It uses integrated principles and practices of Lean, Agile, and DevOps. SAFe utilizes practices from Scrum, Kanban, and XP. |
Scrum |
|
Year of First Known Use: | *1986 – 1993 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: | 56% |
More Information: | Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time |
Primary Roles: | Scrum Master, Product Owner, Development Team |
General Overview: |
|
Three Pillars – Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation
Five Values – commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect Scrum is intended to be a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products with a strong focus on releasing a piece or increment of “Done” product at the end of each iteration (Sprint). *Who created the idea of Scrum is disputed. It is commonly credited to Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, making the first known use in 1993. However, the term “Scrum” was first used in the Harvard Business review in 1986 to reference a high performing and cross-functional team (The New New Product Development Game by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka) In 1990, Scrum was reportedly discussed in a book (I have not read the book and cannot confirm) by Peter DeGrace and Leslie Stahl called “Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions: A Catologue of Modern Engineering Paradigms.” This article discusses Scrum as being created by Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales, and Jeff McKenna in 1993. Wikipedia contradicts (not surprising as it is citizen edited) itself here by first saying, “Jeff Sutherland is one of the creators of the Scrum software development process. Together with Ken Schwaber, he created Scrum as a set of processes at OOPSLA’95.” And then saying later that “The scrum process was developed by Sutherland, John Scumniotales and Jeff McKenna while at Easel Corporation and influenced by agile software development.” In a different article on Scrum (here), Wikipedia references the 1986 article, “The New New Product Development Game” but adds, “The Scrum framework was based on research by Schwaber with Tunde Babatunde at DuPont Research Station and University of Delaware. ” This entry later becomes clearer and resembles a history that may make sense by stating, “In the early 1990s, Ken Schwaber used what would become Scrum at his company, Advanced Development Methods; while Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales and Jeff McKenna developed a similar approach at Easel Corporation, referring to it using the single word scrum. Ken and Jeff worked together to integrate their ideas into a single framework, Scrum. They tested Scrum and continually improved it, leading to their 1995 paper, contributions to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and the worldwide spread and use of Scrum since 2002.” My theory on the course of events:
It seems likely that Scrum was more generic and general pre-1993, compared to what we now know as Scrum with its very specific set of rules and processes. It also seems probable that several processes with similar features were created at the same time and then refined by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber together. At what point Scrum became Scrum is the real dispute. |
ScrumBan |
|
Year of First Known Use: | At least 2008 or earlier |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: | 8% |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: | Scrum Master, Product Owner, Development Team |
General Overview: |
|
Three Pillars – Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation
Five Values – commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect Uses the continuous process improvement, limited Work In Progress (WIP), and monitoring process flows of Kanban within the Scrum framework. |
Scrum of Scrums |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2001 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Scrum Master(s), Product Owner, Development Team(s) |
General Overview: |
|
Three Pillars – Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation
Five Values – commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect It consists of multiple teams, each utilizing Scrum, collaborating together on a product or project. The goal is to scale up Scrum to server larger development projects. Each team has a Scrum Master, but they each work from the same Product Backlog. |
Spotify Agile / Spotify Squad |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
N/A (After 2006) |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
1% |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
Leader, Squad Member |
General Overview: |
|
Agile matters more than Scrum. Spotify Agile was designed to focus on the Agile culture rather than a particular framework. It has a heavy focus on knowledge sharing. Within Spotify Agile there are three types of Squads – Feature, Client App, Infrastructure. Doesn’t worry about releasing features that aren’t done, it releases and hides the features to help find issues with integration earlier.
A modification of FAST Agile |
Successive Approximation Model (SAM) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
2012 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
Education Specific – Unknown |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
None |
General Overview: |
|
SAM is an iterative model used for instructional design. It is meant to be an update or a complement to the ADDIE approach.
In the Iterative Design phase, the process iterates through three phases – Design, Prototype, and Review. In the Iterative Development phase, there are three additional processes of – Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. The Development phase follows the Iterative Design Phase path of processes. |
Sustainable Cultural Agile Release in the Enterprise (SCARE) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
-No known usage. (Conceptualized 2014) |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
0% |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
N/A |
General Overview: |
|
Focus on the group/team constraining the flow and work to increase coordination between the other groups and that group. |
T
Test-Driven Development (TDD) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1998 |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: | |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
Has a relationship with Extreme Programming, in which one possible practice in Extreme Programming was to write the test first and then code to the test. It did not receive a name in its own right until about 2002. |
U
Unified Process (UP) / Unified Software Development Process (USDP) |
|
Year of First Known Use: |
1980’s |
Percentage of Agile Teams Report Using: |
N/A |
More Information: |
UML 2 and the Unified Process: Practical Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (2nd Edition) |
Primary Roles: |
– |
General Overview: |
|
The origins of the Rational Unified Process.
It is driven by use-cases with an iterative and incremental development cycle. It is broader than RUP in the project size and less oriented on the details of how to develop the software. |
Sources of Information:
- VersionOne 12th Annual State of Agile Report
- http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
- A Brief History of Scrum
- The Scrum Guide
- https://www.scrumalliance.org/learn-about-scrum
- What is Scrumban?
- https://www.scaledagileframework.com/
- https://www.scaledagileframework.com/about/
- Scrum of Scrums
- Spotify Engineering Culture
- Introducing the SCARE Method
- Adaptive Software Development
- Evolution of ADS
- What is Hybrid Agile, Anyway?
- Blending Agile and Waterfall
- Hybrid Waterfall
- Agile/Waterfall Hybrid Approach
- Agnostic Agile
- Agile Framework Crystal
- Introduction to DAD
- DSDM Handbooks
- The 4 Disciplines of Execution
- Agile Manufacturing
- FAST Agile Scaled Technology
- Iterative Model
- Certified Kanban Coach; The Official Training Material
- Toyota Production System
- Tale of Two Kanbans
- 7 Guiding Principles of Lean Development
- The Mercurial Perspective
- Principles of the Mercurial Perspective
- Kanban: The Mercurial Perspective
- Nexus Guide
- Scaling Scrum with Nexus
- RAD Model
- TDD By Example
- TDD
- Understand the Unified Process
- USDP
- Scaled Agile Lessons Learned
- Complexity Leadership
- http://modernagile.org/
- Leaving ADDIE for SAM
- Iterative eLearning Development with SAM
- p4-dev
- Overview of P4
A great list, thanks! Yes, the Successive Approximation Model (SAM) framework is missing. It’s an Agile framework designed for learning solutions
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Thank you. That is interesting, I haven’t heard of that one before. Looks like Google has some scholarly articles on it. I will update my list.
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Could you please add the P4-Dev Framework for scaled agile physical product development?
https://P4-dev.com
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Looks like P4 is much broader than Dev, the dev framework just being a part of it. P4-Ops and P4-Dev
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