What Is An "Agile Rescue Mission"?

A Proven Way To Get Your Product Teams Moving Again, When Agile Has Failed You

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Help Your Teams

Get Unstuck & Back on Solid Ground Again

Integration

Get your digital & physical product teams integrated seamlessly like you never thought possible before.

Confidence

Understand why the Agile tools and practices work, so you can use the parts that actually fit for your teams.

Experience

Once you've gone through the process, you'll avoid the common issues faced in NPD for your future projects.

Do any of these situations sound familiar?

You're trying to implement Agile software practices to your physical product development teams, and are spending more time trying to adapt them than actually actively using them.
Your physical product teams are telling you that using Agile isn't working.
The Agile process is consuming more and more of your teams' capacity.
You feel like you're drowning in tools and practices that aren't fit for what you're doing.
Your teams are feeling dejected, unmotivated, and frustrated by processes that aren't getting them anywhere.
Your projects are about to come to a screeching halt; or worse, they already have.

Is An "Agile Rescue Mission" What You and Your Teams Need Right Now?

You may have tried solutions to make things better...

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Attempted to adapt the Agile tools and practices to fit what your physical product teams are doing.

Brought in an Agile coach or advocate, expecting them to guide your hardware teams as much as your software teams with implementing the methodology.

Experimented with Agile for hardware but experienced difficulties and found that it did not actually improve your ability to hit cost, time and budget targets.

...but if these aren't working and you're still stuck, we're here to help.

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Find Out if This is Right for You Now
Book a call with Katherine to discuss your next steps!

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Your Agile Rescue Mission 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.

Can't I Just Use Agile?

What hardware and software teams do are different. When making digital products, it's very easy to run tests and change things as you go. All you do is upload your code, and it instantly updates for every user around the globe. Agile development practices depend upon this.

But physical products have higher costs of change. You're not just designing a product; you're designing a manufacturing process as well. If something needs to be changed, you may have to make new molds, source more raw materials, and spend more on warranty claims. You may already have products around the world that need to be fixed.

Agile software practices break down when decisions have long term consequences. This is why physical product teams get stuck when they "Just Use Agile".

What If I'm Not Sure Where To Start?

If you know your teams are stuck but don't know where to start, you're in the right place.

The best way to start is setting up a consultation call with us, so you can get any questions you have answered. We'll be able to discuss your situation confidentially, to see if your teams need an Agile Rescue Mission.

If it is right for you, we will work with you to get started as soon as possible, and we'll give you some actions to take right away that will help reduce the tension.

If you'd like to explore these methods on your own, you can order a copy of Katherine Radeka and Kathy Iberle's new book When Agile Gets Physical. Click the link below to learn more about these, and determine which stage you're at now.

Read When Agile Gets Physical

Talk to Katherine

Find Out if This is Right for You Now
Book a call with Katherine to discuss your next steps!

Book a Call