Creating Decision Guidance for Applying Agile System Engineering

Abstract

Systems teams, development projects, and organizations, who are involved in product development, are often faced with the question as to whether they should adapt agile systems practices into their programs and processes. In trying to answer this question these groups are almost immediately confronted with the problem of determining what is motivating the decision, where should agile principles be applied, and how much agility is necessary. There are several interrelated systems involved in this inquiry and the development of a proper understanding around these considerations is not a trivial exercise. A method of inquiry and decision making that is in itself agile and that can produce actionable results needs to guide the development of this understanding. The purpose of this paper is to present work accomplished to date on the definition, prototyping, and evaluation of a decision guidance system to help a development team or organization achieve a necessary understanding that can lead to useful actionable decisions regarding agile adoption.

An Agile Systems Engineering Analysis of a University CubeSat Project Organization

“…The OODA-loop, conceived by John Boyd, is the basis of the ADG method (Lyells et al 2018). The OODA-loop consists of the following four activities: Observe-Orient-Decide-Act.…”

“…The assessment questionnaire is divided into three observation spaces: (1) customer problem space, (2) solution space, and (3) product development space (Lyells et al 2018). These observation spaces are used to describe the organization and mission context, looking at factors such as stakeholders, requirements, goals, modules, solution sets, development environments and support environments.…”

“…The assessment questionnaire was introduced to the CubeSat project manager and the CubeSat operations manager (hereafter called the subjects) in a kick-off meeting. Prior to this meeting, the subjects had acquainted themselves with the method through the original paper by Lyells et al (2018). The first session was as much assessment as familiarizing the subjects with the questions and format.…”

“…The dynamics analysis influences the types of actions needed. Analysis guidelines are given in Lyells et al (2018). For example, if a factor has a low stability but high predictability, the response should be rapid and can follow a known template.…”

“…The agile method has perhaps gained the most popularity in software development through "Manifesto for Agile Software Development" and is increasingly applied in the hardware and other domains as well. The INCOSE Agile SE Working Group develop an "Agile Decision Guidance (ADG) Method" (Lyells et al 2018). This method was applied to the project after reviewing a "Project story", a narrative describing the development of a university CubeSat system, together with the method's inventors.…”