This document discusses applying agile principles to product development beyond just software. It argues that agile can accelerate tangible product development by modifying agile practices and nesting sprints within milestone frameworks. However, functional managers who are incentivized for their department's success rather than team success often impede agile transformations. Case studies demonstrate how companies have successfully adopted agile practices for consumer electronics, medical devices, and other product development by focusing on high-performance cross-functional teams and frequent demonstrations of working prototypes.

1. Disruptive Methods for Applying Agile to Product Development
Agile: Not Just for Software

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Agenda
1. Agile Defined
2. Why have tangible products been slow to adopt Agile?
3. Modifying Agile: Areas of biggest gains for tangible products
4. How to Implement: Nesting Agile within Waterfall
5. Management: The biggest impediments to success
6. Case Studies
Agile: The Most Disruptive Process Currently Impacting
Product Development!

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TCGen: Approach & Background
John Carter
• Cirrus Logic (CRUS); Board of Directors
• CTO of Klipsch Group; Raised Private Equity
• Chief Engineer of BOSE; Noise Cancelling Headphones
Jeanne Bradford
• Architected Apple’s product development process (ANPP)
• Led Programs for Apple, Cisco & Texas Instruments
• Builds high performance teams to accelerate delivery

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Agile Defined
• The Agile development process was defined 16 years ago
to address chronic delivery problems
• The Agile Manifesto* has led to remarkable improvements
• The most common approach is a Scrum approach
* http://agilemanifesto.org/
Roles
Scrum Master
Product Owner
Team
Ceremonies
Planning & Estimation
Daily Standups & Monitoring
Demos & Retrospectives
Foundations
Fixed length Sprints (2W)
Stories & Epics
Managers serve the Team
Customers part of Team

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Why have tangible products been slow to adopt Agile?
• Myths create major barriers to adoption
– “Applying Agile is all or nothing”
– “You must be able to ship every two weeks”
– “Agile and Waterfall/Milestone are mutually exclusive”
• There is a lack of prescriptive best practices
• Functional managers must simultaneously cede control
• Harder to isolate small teams and pilot
Agile or Waterfall? Do Both!

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Agile Manifesto – Not Just for Software
1. Business people and developers work together daily
2. Projects require motivated individuals, support & trust
3. Face-to-face conversation is most efficient
4. Agile processes promote sustainable development
5. Continuous attention to technical excellence
6. Simplicity is essential
7. The best designs emerge from self-organizing teams
8. At regular intervals, the team reflects
9. Welcome changing requirements
10. Continuous delivery of valuable software
11. Deliver working software frequently
12. Working software is the measure of progress
75% of the Agile
Manifesto CAN
apply to any type
of development
Software Specific
Universal
http://agilemanifesto.org/

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Modifying Agile: Areas of Biggest Gains
Benefit
Top Benefits for Agile Implementation outside Software
Speed & Innovation

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Key Insights: Singular Differences – Tangible Products vs. SW
Development proceeds by designing and prototyping
Development is highly non-linear and chunky
Features appear much later and in large increments
Stories focused on components and interfaces not User Experience
Team members often write more Stories than Product Owner
Development proceeds by accretion and refactoring

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Why Should We Nest Sprints Within Milestone Frameworks
• Sprints within a Milestone Framework increase speed
– Accelerates decisions because Sprints encapsulate work
– Increases urgency because underperformance is visible
• Milestone reviews provides needed financial controls
• Milestone reviews facilitate qualification & verification
• Milestones and Innovation Sprints can easily co-exist
MILESTONE “N” MILESTONE “N+1”
P R P RP RP RP R
NESTED SPRINTS

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How to Implement: Three Components Enabled by Teams
Sprint Planning
Executing & Measuring
Reviewing
FOUNDATION: High Performance Teams
Plan Execute/Measure Review
Plan Execute/Measure Review
FRAMEWORK: Sprints for tangible products
Plan Execute/Measure Review

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Executing/Measuring
• “Daily” Standup Meetings
– Determined by team capability & velocity
– Always BRIEF (LESS THAN 20 MIN)
• Sprints magnify latency issues
– One reason why Agile increases speed – spotlights excuses
• Abandon the habit of serial prototype builds*
Plan Execute/Measure Review
Proto 1
Proto 2
Proto 3
Proto 4
4x cycles of
learning in the
time of 2.5x
* Can double cost, but cut this stage by half!

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Prototyping & Importance of Customers & Proxies
• The audience for the prototype or demonstration is as important as
the goal itself
• The audience should vary from sprint to sprint
Customers & Proxies Examples
End customers Economic buyer, Users, Influencers
Customer segments Geographic diversity, Usage diversity, Organizational (e.g.
Academic, Government, Commercial)
Intermediate customers Dealers, distributors, representatives, and importers
External customer proxies Reviewers, magazine editors, lost customers, competitive
customers
Internal customer proxies External sales force, internal sales force, field service, customer
service, application engineering, quality
Plan Execute/Measure Review

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Review and Reflection…and Learning
Action
Plan
Planned vs. Unplanned Events
Plan Execute/Measure Review

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Management: The Biggest Challenge
• TCGen’s analysis* of Functional Management meddling
– Rooted in Leadership, Culture and Compensation
– Management incented for functional, not team success
– Unintended consequence of functionally organized companies
• Ingrained resistance is very hard to root out
– Domain expertise over collaboration/EQ skills
– Managers may lack trust; Teams may not self-generate
– Lost power, unclear career path, changed performance reviews
*2015 Project History Analysis of Agile Transformations

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Organizational Remedies For Agile Transformation
• Servant Leadership: the needs of the team before your own
– Change incentives to reward team success
– Middle managers remove roadblocks;
focus on platforms & architecture
– Hire for both domain and collaboration expertise
• Project Teams: product ownership & accountability
– Build trust with leadership through critical thinking & execution
– Prioritize team allegiance through collaboration
– Relentlessly adopt Agile mindset

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Instructor Biographies
• The Approach
– Planning: focus Sprint Goals, Acceptance Criteria, Metrics
– Demo to management at the end of the Sprints
– Heavy facilitation nearly full time for the first set of Sprints
• The Costs
– Process highlighted lack of Functional Management Support
– Exposed the organization to the need for reskilling team
• The Benefits
– The rapid cadence of Sprints resulted in improved team
collaboration, faster decisions and schedule accountability
Consumer Electronics Case Study: A Step at a Time

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Instructor Biographies
• The approach
– Focus on “Show & Tell” @ end of Sprints (UX, SW, SI)
– NO burndown charts, NO sprint estimates
– Leave Design Control in place (FDA)
• The Costs
– More prototypes & more effort in stories
• The Benefits
– Breaks the work down into 3 week sprints, forcing decisions and
schedule adherence
– Accuracy of the overall project is much higher and the developers are
much more engaged
Medical Devices Case Study: How They Disrupted Waterfall

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Preventing Business Loss via Agile Project Leadership
– A tussle in a traditional Functional Organization
– Two weeks to decide a path forward
• Sales of $40M / Year
• Burn rate of $50K / Day!
• 2 weeks spin = $700K LOSS!
Loss of REVENUE1
• Salary of $200K (total costs)
• Burn Rate of $13.5K / Day!
• 2 weeks of spin = $220K EXPENSE!
+
$920K LOSS* (Avoided with Agile)
Increase in COSTS2
1 Example of consumer launch around holidays
2 3 Teams of 9 people each

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In Summary…
1. AGILE methods CAN ACCELERATE product development
2. The business value of Agile is BIG and is QUANTIFIED by TIME
3. Not WATERFALL OR AGILE, but WATERFALL AND AGILE
4. FUNCTIONAL MANAGERS are likely the biggest barrier
5. CASE STUDIES show focused adoption leads to success

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Thank you!
John Carter
jcarter@tcgen.com
650.283.9395
Jeanne Bradford
jbradford@tcgen.com
408.828.5168
TCGen Inc.
Menlo Park, CA
www.tcgen.com