Scaling agile development in mechatronic organizations - a comparative case study

Abstract

Agile software development principles enable companies to successfully and quickly deliver software by meeting their customers' expectations while focusing on high quality. Many companies working with pure software systems have adopted these principles, but implementing them in companies dealing with non-pure software products is challenging.We identified a set of goals and practices to support large-scale agile development in companies that develop software-intense mechatronic systems.We used an inductive approach based on empirical data collected during a longitudinal study with six companies in the Nordic region. The data collection took place over two years through focus group workshops, individual on-site interviews, and complementary surveys.The primary benefit of large-scale agile development is improved quality, enabled by practices that support regular or continuous integration between teams delivering software, hardware, and mechanics. In this regard, the most beneficial integration cycle for deliveries is every four weeks; while continuous integration on a daily basis would favor software teams, other disciplines does not seem to benefit from faster integration cycles.We identified 108 goals and development practices supporting agile principles among the companies, most of them concerned with integration; therefrom, 26 agile practices are unique to the mechatronics domain to support adopting agile beyond pure software development teams. 16 of these practices are considered as key enablers, confirmed by our control cases.

Scaling agile in large organizations: Practices, challenges, and success factors

“…The goal of this paper was to collect more evidence about impact factors for scaling agile software development processes inside companies, to better understand practices that work best in a given context . By means of a review of studies about large‐scale agile in organizations, we identified practices, challenges, and success factors.…”

“…Agile software development is very popular nowadays, as its application in many different contexts shows . However, traditional agile methods were designed with a single team in mind and were not meant to face scalability challenges .…”

“…Large projects require appropriate coordination and communication between teams, dependencies between teams need to be managed, other nonagile units need to be involved, and the right people need to be part of the process . Recent research reports that most of the goals and practices for scaling agile are domain independent, listing as key factors challenges in coordinating multiple teams , difficulties with managing requirements , problems in adaptation with the organizational structure , and issues in understanding agile concepts along the value chain . Additionally, customer involvement , software architectural concerns , and interteam coordination were also reported, together with challenges in coordinating the work of several teams …”

“…The goal of this paper is to collect more evidence about impact factors during an agile scaling process, as we need more evidence about practices that work best in a given context, collected as the process happens and not ex‐post, possibly to research variations over time . We approach the goals by firstly evaluating existing methods and frameworks for scaling agile development.…”

Overcoming the Challenges of Agile for Globally Distributed Industrial Research

“…Most USCRC researchers do not work in software. Although there are software-related aspects to control, mechanics, and other areas, researchers need to manage many projects outside software in a fundamentally different way (Eklund and Berger 2017). In our experience, we observed that quick turnaround times in fabrication of improved versions of prototypes can make the deliverables well-suited for early feedback from BUs.…”