Disciplined Agile® Leadership (DAL) – Course Overview
The Disciplined Agile® Leadership (DAL) course by the Project Management Institute (PMI) is designed for current and aspiring leaders who are driving organizational agility and transformation. Building on the foundational principles of the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit, this course provides strategic insights into how leaders can foster a culture of continuous improvement, support team autonomy, and align enterprise-level agility with business goals.
It is particularly valuable for individuals in leadership, management, or transformation roles who aim to scale agile across departments and establish a responsive, resilient organizational structure.
This course teaches you how to create a tailored approach for any organization to accelerate the delivery of value to its customers. It provides a combination of Lean, Flow, Theory of Constraints, and Organizational Development theories and practices. The workshop integrates with the Disciplined Agile toolkit to provide those practices that will be most effective for where it is applied, whether it be a new Agile transition or continuing a stagnated SAFe or Spotify one.
What You Will Learn
Enterprise-Level Agility: Understand how to scale agile and lean practices beyond IT and apply them organization-wide.
Agile Leadership Principles: Learn how to lead with agility, enabling teams to self-organize while maintaining alignment with strategic goals.
Change Leadership: Explore techniques to lead organizational change and nurture an environment of innovation and continuous learning.
Lean Governance and Portfolio Management: Gain insights into lean budgeting, value stream alignment, and governance across teams and departments.
Strategic Decision-Making: Use the Disciplined Agile toolkit to make informed decisions that balance agility with business needs.
Who Should Take This Course?
- Senior Leaders and Executives driving agile transformation initiatives.
- Program and Portfolio Managers seeking to align agile teams with enterprise strategy.
- Agile Coaches and Change Agents aiming to lead agile maturity and culture shifts.
- Department Heads and Functional Leaders in IT, HR, Finance, or Operations.
Course Agenda:
Module 1 – Translate strategy to outcomes:
- Define measurable outcomes and link them to funding and governance.
Module 2 – Align portfolio & product with delivery:
- Use the Disciplined Agile decision framework to choose fit-for-context ways of working.
Module 3 – Map & improve value streams:
- Visualize flow across teams and platforms; remove constraints and handoff delays.
Module 4 – Design fast feedback loops:
- Build customer and stakeholder feedback into every increment to accelerate learning.
Module 5 – Deliver via Value Increments (VIs):
- Plan around outcomes, not activities; right-size bets to reduce risk.
Module 6 – Establish guardrails & evidence levels:
- Decide faster with clear decision rights, risk thresholds, and real-time performance data.
Module 7 – Build an improvement backlog:
- Prioritize pragmatic changes tied to enterprise-agility outcomes, flow, and feedback.
Module 8 – Create a method and cadence for continuous improvement of agility:
- Establish a Value Acceleration Process (VAP)-driven inspect-and-adapt rhythm (for example, quarterly strategy resets) to evolve the organization’s agility capability continuously.
Course Benefits
- Prepares you to lead with agility in complex, fast-changing environments.
- Enhances your ability to support diverse teams in choosing their Way of Working (WoW).
- Builds competency in lean portfolio governance and agile scaling strategies.
- Ideal steppingstone for senior certifications like Disciplined Agile Coach (DAC) or Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC).
Exam & Certification:
There is no exam for this training. After the course, as a PMI Authorized Training Partner ATP, will issue the certificate.
