Rapid Learning Cycles Institute
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Scrum for Hardware is the application of the Scrum software development methodology to physical product development.
Have you wondered any of these things before?
Why is it that so many hardware teams get stuck when using
Agile Software Development?
Why does that often create more overhead, rework loops and frustration for them?
And why do they still endure long, slow loopbacks, wasting valuable time and resources fixing problems in late development that could have been found earlier?
It's because using practices designed for digital products doesn't fit your physical product teams' needs.
Why Not Just Use
Scrum for Hardware?
Because it doesn't fit what your teams are doing.
Team of Experts
Scrum assumes that anyone can do anything. Your teams have specialists in ME, EE, Test, Supply Chain, etc. They cannot do each other's work.
Dependencies
Physical products have complex chains of dependencies to manage that intensify as the launch day approaches.
Cost of Change
Decisions made in early development can cause costly loopbacks if they have to be changed later in development.
Scrum doesn't solve these problems because software development teams don't have these problems to nearly the same degree.
"The number one reason why people call me for an 'Agile Rescue Mission' is because they've tried to run Scrum for hardware" — Katherine Radeka
Why does using the right project management framework matter?
- Organizations that undervalue project management see 50% more of their projects failing.
- At least 42% of companies don’t understand the need or importance of project management.
- Organizations that invest in PM practices waste 28 times less money.
- 44% of projects fail due to a lack of alignment between business and project objectives.
- About 9.9% of every dollar is wasted due to poor performance. Nearly every 10 seconds, $1 million is wasted by companies worldwide as a result of the ineffective implementation of business strategy. This results in approximately $2 trillion in total losses per year.
Source: Tina. (2022, February 3). Project Management Statistics 2022: New trends. TeamStage. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://teamstage.io/project-management-statistics/
What Happens When Your Teams
Try to Use Scrum Software Development for Physical Products
We have a book dedicated to the Agile for Hardware/Scrum for Hardware principles.
Order Kindle Version
- Order this ebook on Amazon.
Preview
“When Agile Gets Physical”
- Read the Introduction and Chapter One to learn more.
Order Softcover Version
- Order the book from Amazon.
Talk to Katherine
Do You Have Any Questions?
Book a call with Katherine to explore your options!
Your Agile for Hardware Expert: Katherine Radeka
Katherine Radeka has deep experience getting physical product teams unstuck. In 2015, she began to see an increase in the misuse of Agile Software Development practices by hardware teams. She began a series of projects she came to call “Agile Rescue Missions” because of the urgency to take action to get teams unstuck.
Since then she’s led over a dozen of these projects for leading companies around the world, most of whom have transitioned rapidly to full adoption of Rapid Learning Cycles in early development. In late development, teams use a blend of traditional project management with a few tailored Agile practices to improve coordination, especially with firmware and software teams that use Agile Software methods.
In 2022, she documented her experiences in the book When Agile Gets Physical, co-written with her long-time collaboration partner, Kathy Iberle.
