Learning about Agile Product Development
12 principles of Agile

January 6, 2021 – Reading time: 5 minutes

Interested in implementing Agile product development, but not sure where to start? Join Mike Saint-Jean as he leads an Agile SCRUM Training on February 19^th and 22^nd from 8:30am to 12:30pm EST. In this blog post he already shares some interesting insights into why and how to become Agile.

Here’s the link to the training registration.

Why has Agility become an increasingly popular topic in project management when it comes to product development? Where is there room for improvement in value production and customer satisfaction? How does this translate into higher visibility to product maturity and an ability for top management to make better decisions? We asked Mike Saint-Jean, Agile Project Management expert, to elaborate on what he has found in recent years to be the reason for all of the hype. To answer this question why Agile adoption is a good idea or not, you must ask yourself: “How competitive do I want to be in my market?”

Agile is the best approach to project management when your objective in Product Development controls is to increase your market competitiveness by:

• Identifying planning and design risks earlier
• Accelerating your product releases one feature at a time
• Saving costs of resources and labor
• Creating better products

I have experienced firsthand that this trend is quickly being adopted by the Automotive industry with great results – the leaders of which are known for their increased adoption of cutting edge tech such as electrified propulsion, autonomous driving and feature rich infotainment systems. With that said, it’s a great time to be an consumer! More so, it’s also smart to adopt Agile early and reap the benefits many technologically inclined market leaders have. Trends will always drive consumer behavior into new areas of profit, you can benefit from this as well.

No. Agile is widely adopted in many disciplines. Most of the mechatronics and systems integration companies we typically work with have adopted Agile as their preferred Project Management method. In most cases software is typically the first discipline to adopt Agile; it often takes less than 5 years before the company adopts end-to-end Agility once they get the hang of it. From Marketing and HR to Manufacturing, the varieties of Agile frameworks and hybrids are typically custom made to fit to the company once they reach maturity with the outstanding benefits. After all, Toyota invented lean manufacturing, some of the foundation and theory in which Agile is based.

At INVENSITY, we recognize the signs of good Agile practices based on how well they follow the Agile principles. That is not framework specific, it’s a mindset that separates the followers from the market leaders that consumers love to buy from. Highest score wins a prize – profit.

You probably have experienced this decision of who to buy from when you had to decide after the last Apple event if you should switch to the latest iPhone. In the automotive industry, you may have also noticed the launch of new In-Car infotainment suites like Daimler’s MBUX or Honda Sensing. In both cases, the features here were made possible at low costs thanks to Agile frameworks.

Agile frameworks emerged from a need for market leaders to produce working solutions faster than their competitors and adapt to changing customer demands sooner. The FDA, DoD, INCOSE, and SAE have all recognized Agile as a qualified Project Management approach with excellent quality management controls and have released their own guidelines. Email us, if you would like. We can discuss about requirements in homologation and regulation. Our goal? Figure out which Agile setup of framework makes the most sense, gets the job done and gives you an edge.

Reach out to us and we can figure out together. We also have an Agile Project Management training coming up in February. In our upcoming training, I will introduce you to the Agile concept, practices and framework of Scrum. By the end of this training, you will have an understanding of the SCRUM basics such as values, principles, roles, artifacts and Empirical Process Control measures.

• Here you can save your seat for the a hands-on project management training focused on the basics of Agile Scrum.
• Here you can find a video interview, in which Mike discusses some of these key factors of Agile, including their importance and ways to improve.

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Link to training registration

Here you can save your seat in the training.

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Reference articles

INVENSITY Center of Excellence Project Management