Thesis chapter 8: Applying Agile Development in Embedded Systems

Most research tend to focus on what is troublesome when introducing new ways-of-working in “traditional” organisations.. This chapter investigates how an organisation moves from approach E to D in the model of
chapter 7, with the aim to facilitate agile development for individual teams in the context of large MPES projects.
The chapter is previously published as

U. Eklund and J. Bosch. “Applying Agile Development in Mass- Produced Embedded Systems”. Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming. Vol. 111. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Malmö, Sweden: Springer, 2012, pp. 31–46. isbn: 978-3-642-30349-4. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642- 30350- 0_3.

Abstract

The paper presents a method to manage critical interactions to manage when introducing agile software development in mass-produced embedded systems. The method consists of a context model together with a set of measures, and is validated by empirical evidence from three cases.
From an industrial perspective, the paper provides a prescription on how to implement agile software development outside the typical domains for agile, in this case for mass-produced products with embedded software governed by a stage-gate process for mechanics and hardware.
From a research perspective, the paper provides an analysis of the software development cycle for products with embedded software, especially where product development as a whole is driven by a plan-driven process. The main contribution is a method for introducing agile in areas where by necessity the full R&D process cannot be agile.