Project Topics
Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »
Agile entering manufacturing
Agile emerged from the software industry and is known for its ability to respond to pressure (Murphy et al., 2013). The software industry is pressured to release software products with high quality and forced to adapt the development processes at fast rate (Murphy et al., 2013). Companies have exposed that in new product development, it takes more than delivering high quality, low cost and differentiation to surpass the competitive market (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). Speed and flexibility are also what it takes, which require a different approach to manage new product development; an approach to develop new products fast and to be flexible (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). In Japan and United States, companies took a new approach to manage their PDP (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). Takeuchi and Nonaka (1986) examined manufacturers releasing successful innovations faster than their competitors. Companies as Fuji-Xerox, Canon, Honda, NEC, Epson, Brother, 3M, Xerox and Hewlett-Packard were studied, specifically, the PDP for specific products were chosen based on its novelty at the time it was developed (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). Empirical findings identified that a team-oriented approach affected the design and development process which was that the teams tried to complete each phase as a unit by iteratively working on the developed product rather than working as per function in separate groups (Rigby, Sutherland & Takeuchi, 2016).
Doing Agile and Being Agile
There are crucial differences in “doing” agile and “being” agile. Doing agile is to subscribe to the framework and its activities used by management and teams to engage in agile practices (Ranganath, 2011). It is the set of activities used to focus on executing the principles of the framework, whilst being agile is related to the agile mindset that every practitioner must adopt; the consciousness and the way of being in a business (Ranganath, 2011; Ewel, 2017). Ranganath (2011) conducted research of an agile transformation and conducted three pilots before he could conclude important aspects of the differences between “doing” agile and “being” agile. He wrote that agile transformation is not only about adopting the methodology and its process, tools, and templates, but is also about the people, culture, and communication. Teams should set the goal to solve the problem, be committed, share a common purpose and create value (Ranganath, 2011; Ewel, 2017). To incorporate the agile mindset drives individuals to cultivate a sense of being part of the agile transformation and take responsibility (Ranganath, 2011). Ewel (2017) wrote that incorporating the agile mindset is a part of the organizational culture. Transformational efforts arise, and the mindset is a consistent, predictive, rapid response in the period of change, delighting customers and achievements through excellence of engaged employees working for mutual goals (Ewel, 2017).
Traditional and Agile Approach
Companies which practice traditional plan-driven methodologies, and in the pace of adopting agile methodologies are likely to face several challenges difficult to ignore (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). Research have shown that complex organizational change is represented by software development changes that cannot be managed simply by replacing current technologies and tools since such changes impact management practices, structure and culture (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005).
Working in traditional approach
Nerur, Mahapatra and Mangalaraj (2005) contributes to the area of challenges that occur when moving from traditional to agile methodologies in organizations. Traditional plan- driven methodologies are guided by a life cycle model such as the Waterfall model and spiral models (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Conforto et.al. 2014). Such traditional methodologies have a desired mechanistic organizational structure whereas the structure is bureaucratic with high formalization (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). It has its fundamental assumptions that problems are specific and that an optimal solution exists for every problem and are built through extensive planning (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). Extensive planning acts as a base to predict, measure and control uprising problems in the development life cycle; it is process centric meaning that identified variations can be eliminated by continuous measurements and refinements of the process (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). The management style is in the form of command and control, whilst system development guided by a life cycle model as the Waterfall model specifies what tasks to be done, what the outcomes are desired to be for each phase and assigned roles are set for the specific task that need to be done (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). In addition, the project team and its team members are assigned individual roles favoring their specialization and numerous documentation is produced where knowledge of the product and codified processes are stored. Thus, knowledge management becomes explicit, and communication throughout the team are formalized through the stored documents (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). Moreover, the customers’ role is important in the specifications development, but participation in other activities are not accurate (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005).
Working in Agile approach
In contrast, the agile methodologies deal with unpredictability and have confidence on involved individuals rather than the processes (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Ranganath, 2011). The desired organizational structure is an organic one which is characterized by horizontal communication and interaction, low specialization whereas knowledge is located wherever it is most useful, and decentralization with informal and formal decision-making (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). Furthermore, its fundamental assumptions are in continuous design improvement which is an initiated process from given feedback which requires change, thus, the project cycle is led by product features and its continuous improvements to increase customer satisfaction (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). The management style is in the form of leadership and collaboration, and the project team are self-organizing and encouraged to role exchangeability, and informal communication is enhanced throughout the team, which contributes to tacit knowledge (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; State of Agile Report, 2018; Ranganath, 2011). It is important for team members to gain trust for each other and collaborate to be tied to the shared objectives and work as a team (Ranganath, 2011). The project is broken down to sub-projects and developers works in small teams close to the customer for collaborative decision making, fast feedback, and continuous integration of changes into the system under the development process (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; State of Agile Report, 2018). In addition, documentations should be stored and not comprehensive and important to reduce the amount of documentation and instead encourage tacit knowledge (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005).
Challenges in adopting Agile
Research has raised key issues in challenges that occur when adopting agile, which are discussed to occur in management, organizational level, people, processes and technology Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005); Ranganath, 2011; Ewel, 2017). The organizational policies demonstrated in the organizations routines have its basis from stabilized values, norms and assumptions that are reinforced by time (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Ranganath, 2011). The organizational culture has major influence on managerial and organizational practices such as the decision-making processes, planning and control mechanisms, problem-solving practices, relationships, etc. (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Ranganath, 2011). Furthermore, a considerable challenge is the change from a management style of demanding and controlling its project team to instead lead and collaborate in close relationships; it is a great challenge for the project manager to let go of the authority he/she had and rely on a self-organizing project team (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). It is also a challenge to coach, support and encourage team achievements or individual accomplishments since traditional view of celebrating success as per project execution (Ranganath, 2011). In addition, Ulrich and Eppinger (2016) raise the challenges of product development teams and that the issue of a risen dysfunctional PD team is due to four characteristics organizations display as lack of empowerment of the team, functional allegiances transcending project goals, inadequate resources, and lack of cross-functional representation on the project team. The typical raise of functional allegiances and lack of cross-functional teams are due to functional organizations whereas the weaknesses rely in the coordination across different functional groups which can be bureaucratic and slow as per Ulrich and Eppinger (2016). Major issues are to integrate different functions and align team members as per their function to achieve business goals (Ulrich and Eppinger, 2016). Moreover, Nerur, Mahapatra and Mangalaraj (2005) mentioned that agile frameworks encourage Lean thinking and Lean practices as cutting down documentation, and knowledge management is tacit which can be difficult to accept for many organizations since the organization itself need to be dependent on the development team, which also leads to a shift of the power from the management to the development team. Furthermore, rejection of acceptance for such practices is also heavily dependent on the potential of knowledge loss due to employee turnover (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). However, such losses can be prevented by management of software development knowledge and decide what to be codified as stored knowledge and what to remain as tacit knowledge (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005). Challenges also occur in the situation of including the customer during the PDP since decision-making now includes more stakeholders rather than the traditional approach where the project manager had the authority (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Ulrich & Eppinger, 2016). The organization may need to put a lot of time to build good relationships among their employees to gain trust and respect to facilitate collaborative decision-making (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005; Ranganath, 2011). In addition, a high barrier is the change of present process model from a life cycle model where traditional processes are activity and measurement based due to the shift of a development model being guided by adaptive and flexible systems to deal with uncertainties in the PDP, and its project cycle instead of being feature-driven, which requires major changes in work practices and the tools and technology being used (Nerur, Mahapatra & Mangalaraj, 2005).
Table of contents :
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
1.1.1 Overview of the company
1.2 Problem
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Research questions
1.5 Delimitations
1.6 Outline
2. Theoretical framework
2.1 What is Agile?
2.1.1 Agile entering manufacturing
2.2 Doing Agile and Being Agile
2.3 Traditional and Agile Approach
2.3.1 Working in traditional approach
2.3.2 Working in Agile approach
2.3.3 Challenges in adopting Agile
2.4 Agile Umbrella
2.4.1. Lightweight approaches
2.4.2 Fuller approaches
2.5 Managing Technological Innovation, Organizational Culture and Trends
2.6 Companies practicing Agile Project Management
2.6.1. Volvo Car Co-operation
2.6.2 ABB
2.6.3 Lshift
2.6.4 EnergySoftware
3. Methodological framework
3.1. Research strategy and design
3.2. Description of research methods
3.3. Methods of data collection
3.3.1 Literature review
3.3.2 Feedback
3.3.3 Organizational documents
3.3.4 Ethnographic Observations
3.3.5 Interviews
3.3.6 Focus group
3.4. Ethical Considerations
3.5. Issues of Trustworthiness
3.6. Research bias
4. Data collection
4.1 The R&D department
4.1.1 The knowledge and product value stream
4.2 Interviews
4.2.1 Demographics
4.2.2 Epiroc Drilling Tools AB, R&D Department, Fagersta
4.2.3 Epiroc Rock Drill AB, Rocktec Automation, Örebro
4.3 Focus group
4.4 Ethnographic Observation
5. Data analysis
5.1 First Research Question
5.2 Second Research Question
5.2.1 Challenges in Knowledge Value Stream
5.2.2 Focus group
5.2.3 Similarities in challenges faced by other companies practicing agile
5.3 Third Research Question
5.4 Overall Outcome
6. Conclusion
6.1 Discussion
6.2 Recommendations
6.3 Further Research
7. Glossary
8. References
