Today's rapidly evolving and changing market dictates constant changes in design requirements during the development process of a product. If development teams are unable or unwilling to adapt to these changes, this will ultimately lead to an uncompetitive product. How the change in requirements will affect the development process depends on the complexity of the product and the development phase in which the change in requirements occurs. The principles of Agility and the methods that follow these principles help in the successful introduction of changes in the product development process. The paper provides guidelines for the development of complex physical products taking into account the principles of Agility. The guidelines were set based on a critical review of the e-bike drive development process.

In this article Beth Flerlage and Renae Satterley reflect on the library staffs’ experience of using Agile project management techniques and cloud-based tools to restructure resources at Middle Temple Library.

One of the challenges of modern engineering design is the amount of data that designers must keep track while performing system analysis and synthesis. This task is particularly important in the design process of complex systems such as novel aerospace systems where Modeling and Simulation play an essential role. The Agile philosophy stems from the field of Software Engineering and describes an approach to development in which requirements and solutions gradually develop through collaboration between self-organising cross-functional teams and end users. Agile Model-Based System Engineering (AMBSE) is the application of the Agile philosophy to Model-Based System Engineering. In this paper, AMBSE is accomplished through the application of the Object-Oriented System Engineering Method (OOSEM). OOSEM employs a top-down scenario-driven process that adopts System Modeling Language (SysML) and leverages the object-oriented paradigm to support the analysis, specification, design, and verification of systems. AMBSE assisted by mathematical modelling and safety assessment techniques is applied to the first design iterations of the main aircraft systems, allowing a comprehensive design exploration. The flight control system was chosen to illustrate the procedure in detail, emphasising the synthesis of a six-degrees-of-freedom model augmented by dynamic inversion control for a hypothetical supersonic transport aircraft satisfying class II MIL-F-8785C handling qualities. It is concluded that AMBSE presents promising properties to support future aircraft development within the current regulatory framework for aircraft design, while enabling a smooth transition from conceptual to preliminary design.

Recent reports and predictions indicate a consistent and continuous growth in the field of Research and Development. Such growth leads to increased resource investments, which have to be managed effectively to eventually achieve value maximization. This management is cohesive with budgeting. In changing environments, said effectiveness can be difficult to attain.

Agile development is supposed to provide the necessary flexibility for uncertain situations and has recently seen a stark adoption incline. Unfortunately, budgeting and resource allocation have not yet been resolved for agile approaches: a comprehensive research including recent publications showed a lack of models and frameworks for the adoption and application of budgeting with agile development. Due to this lack of a comprehensive approach, as well as limitations and restrictions of existing research, this paper describes the design of a budgeting approach suitable for and compatible with agile product development. The developed solution, the Structured Agile Budgeting Process, provides a holistic and interdisciplinary way to allocate resources while still allowing the flexibility and benefits of agile development.

The industry is currently changing rapidly. Both customers and employees are focusing much more on their own needs. On the one hand, this requires individualized products and, on the other hand, development processes need to be aligned not only more efficiently but also more closely to the needs of employees. Agile development combines these two characteristics and the second point can be further improved through analyses for collaboration. This is not only necessary for consumer products, but also in medical technology, more and more individualized solutions are required to better help patients. This is also the case with the examination of cells using micro titer plates, which is the subject of this project. Due to the interaction of research activities both on the process and on the product side, this paper presents research results regarding agile product development and collaboration analysis of physical products on the one hand and research results regarding additive and biocompatible production of microtitration plates on the other hand.

In order to be as responsive as possible to changes in the dynamic context of mechatronic system development, companies are increasingly integrating agile approaches into their development processes. They are confronted with the challenges of adapting approaches that originate in software development to the conditions of physical development, without neglecting the experiences gained over many years regarding product and process knowledge. In addition, agile development approaches must be integrated into existing processes through a systematic implementation strategy. In order to gain an initial understanding of the current situation in mechatronic companies with regard to agile development approaches, an interview study was conducted with 18 participants from real development practice. This could show that the companies in mechatronic system development are currently at the beginning of agile transformation and need approaches that are modelled on the basis of real development projects and are best possible tailored to the needs of these companies through a clear technical orientation. The findings gained are not universally valid, but represent a basis for further research work.

Multidisciplinary agile teams working in fast paced, delivery-oriented sprint cycles of two weeks can experience moments of stuckness. Typically, these moments can be characterised by the inability to continue, which can be quite detrimental in agile settings, where time is pressured. This paper aims to explore these moments of stuckness, to understand when and why they occur and to understand the different strategies Scrum teams use to overcome them, both on a personal as well as team level. A combination of interviews and observations were conducted with six Scrum team members and two experts to understand their process and experiences while working in an agile set up. We have identified five strategies, which strongly rely on agile values of collaboration, communication, and creativity. These are: looking for expert guidance, open communication, creating spike stories, visual communication and incubation. The findings from this study provide both practice and academia with a deeper understanding into how can creativity be supported in agile settings.