With software becoming an increasingly more important part of product development, Agile software development methods have become very popular. So in this update of my Industry Week article, we’ll take a look at Agile and how some of its key elements can help you uncover hidden new product innovation capacity for physical new products. For a more comprehensive overview, you might want to have a look at the Agile Manifesto.
Agile is a family of software development methods intended to speed software development by starting with only essential functionality and then continuing to add new or improved functionality in future releases.
The idea is to start with a minimum viable product that you can quickly get into the market while continuing to learn what customers need and will pay for in future revisions. In this way, changes in the middle of a project are welcomed.
A very straightforward approach if you are launching a software-based product. Not so practical if you are developing the next variant of the 787 airliner or the next generation of a complex sensor, or even a riding lawnmower, where changes can mean significant delays. While requirements should always be challenged (Is that feature really necessary?), many physical products cannot be marketed until they are fully functional with a complete set of features.
Practical Elements of Agile
One key element of Agile is the idea of breaking work down into small batches—similar to the one-piece flow concept in Lean. Agile devotees sometimes scoff at what are called waterfall methods. For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase waterfall development, it is the term given when projects wait for all the work to come together and then flow over the waterfall and to the next phase at the same time. Unecessary in most software, but essential when you are investing millions in manufacturing equipment, tooling, and even in new factories.
But it’s really important to realize that planning-based project management processes, like critical chain project management, are not inherently waterfall in nature. They just appear that way because that is so often how companies structure stage & gate processes without thinking about the effect on flow and speed.
Making Waterfall More Agile
So let’s look at an example of a how a typical project phase can be made less waterfall and more Agile. In the case of a paint adhesive or development process, the formulation group often works up a number of samples and then passes them all over at the same time to the applications testing group for evaluation. If formulation and testing each take 1 day, the total duration is 20 days.
However, if the formulation group passes each sample over after it is completed, the two work streams can be completed partly in parallel. That shortens the duration for these two phases to 11 days. Note that we are not talking about introducing bad-multitasking by overlapping the tasks. The work is completed by two separate groups, and each group works on completing one task at a time.
Breaking work down into smaller batches has other important benefits. One of those is visualizing and seeing flow or work status. It’s much easier to estimate how much time is left for a 3 day task than a 10 or 20 day task. It’s also much easier to visualize workflow, because you can see work moving at a regular cadence.
What goes around comes around – in their mid-80’s HBR article – The New New Product Game – Takeuchi and Nonaka described rugby-like development teams (Scrum)
So think about what you can do to make your new product workflow and project plans less waterfall and more agile. It’s a great way to uncover additional capacity by getting projects done sooner.
Tired of throwing money, people and resources at new product delays – and still not getting the results you need?
Download Mike Dalton’s report “Dealing with New Product Delays… When Throwing Money at It Isn’t the Answer” outlining 7 areas for uncovering hidden innovation productivity in your organization.
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