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We at Mews Partners are conducting an online benchmark study on agility in Hardware and Systems development. Together with several participants from complex products industries, we use our study’s key findings to share success factors, best practices, and innovative ideas to introduce the agile way of working in the development of complex systems.
The success story of agile working methods has been proved historically: shortened time-to-market, higher product quality, higher customer satisfaction and increased team spirit and motivation among employees are just some of the numerous factors that ensured that agility quickly spread in the software industry. Just recently, agility has found its way into other areas such as hardware and systems development.
Interesting right? How do you transfer the benefits of the agile principles and scaled theories into your hardware development processes? What are the industry and your competitors doing? Do you have any margin for improvement?
To answer these questions, we promote and facilitate the exchange of experiences between several companies with agile working experience. Our commitment is to support you in learning best practices through mutual exchange.
To become part of our study we recommend following these steps:
- Preparation (Q2):
Accept our invitation. After that, we send you our online questionnaire and a maturity matrix. Please complete these and return them to us (it takes less than 30 min).
- Participation (Q3):
Participate in a personal interview. Based on your answers, we will go deeper into individual aspects in a 60 min interview. Once the study is finished, join us for a presentation and Q&A session where we present all the results. Furthermore, we will organize focus workshops…
- Outcome (Q4):
Obtain and analyse your personalized Maturity Positioning. In the next stage, the study results are summarized in the form of a white paper. Here, we provide you with a personalized Maturity Positioning. Moreover, we offer you to take part in several networking events for peer exchange.
We have divided our study into five areas essential for the introduction of a scaled agile framework:
- Scaling Framework, Roles & Rituals
Complex development projects require scaling agility to coordinate the individual development teams. Although all known scaled frameworks such as SAFe, LESS and Nexus provide descriptions regarding the techniques, roles, and meetings to be introduced, the exact implementation in individual cases is often not possible on a one-to-one basis. In many companies, adjustments are therefore made when transferring theory into practice. Together we will examine the following aspects to gain profitable insights:
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- Which adaptations have proven to be beneficial in adapting the frameworks to system development e.g., long development cycles or complex dependencies?
- How to transform not only the dev. teams but also the technical disciplines in an agile way and manage the link between these two organisational dimensions?
- What tools and processes are companies implementing to coordinate teams and manage their interdependencies?
- Deployment
Together with our study participants, we gather empirical values that contribute to a successful and, above all, sustainable deployment of a scaled agile framework. Moreover, we define which conditions should be fulfilled in advance. Further questions against this background are:
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- What are the challenges during deployment? Are they of organisational, technical, or other nature?
- What are the phases of an agile transformation project? At what point should you start experimenting or rolling out new ways of working?
- How can deployment be industrialised?
- What role should coaches play?
Analogous to the challenges, we identify the key factors and prerequisites that contribute to a successful deployment.
- Internal adaptations & external collaboration
Deploying agile frameworks in an existing organisation requires an internal adaptation of already existing processes, for example processes in project management, finance, or human resources. These process landscapes in companies are complex and the introduction of agile projects in a non-agile company setting requires adaptations on both sides. Many companies resort to the support of external experts here. In our study, we will look at the status quo regarding the impact on internal processes and the organisation when introducing agile ways of working, ethics & compliance, as well as collaboration with suppliers, partners, and customers.
- Cultural Change & Mindset
Especially when a company has managed projects in the traditional way for many years and is now switching to agile project management, it requires a far-reaching cultural change. Almost 20 years ago, the founders of many agile working methods formulated four agile guiding principles. These prioritise individuals and their interaction over processes and tools, working software over understandable documentation, working with the customer over contract negotiations, and reacting spontaneously to change over following a plan. These clear priorities are a novelty in a conservative work environment. Here, it is important to find out which methods and measures have proven useful in anchoring agile values. Against this background, the following questions arise, among others, which we will answer with you:
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- How can these values be adopted and internalised by all employees?
- How can teams achieve maximum self-organisation and empowerment?
- What role should middle & top management play and how can they be involved?
- Benefits / Business Case
As described at the beginning, agile working promises many advantages over classic project management – but what does the actual “agility balance” look like? Together with our study participants, we would like to conduct a reality check and look at the following aspects:
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- What operational benefits have emerged following the introduction and after medium- or long-term implementation of a scaled agile framework?
- How do these findings relate to the theoretical added value?
- How can the benefits of agile working be measured?
- What are the costs of introducing agile concepts?
- How does the ROI relate to this?
- How can you advocate an agile transformation project to management?
Are you curious about how other companies have proceeded and what their experiences have been and currently are? Then join us, let us exchange and improve our agile way of working!
Click here to get in touch with us. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
image: Freepik.com