The camel and the needle eye – or the challenges of integrating agile approaches into a standard system development process

Dr. Peter Faßbinder

Experience Report: 60 minutes

Summary

Although large companies like the Siemens AG have well-established processes for developing their products, systems and solutions, they want to benefit from the advantages of agile development as much as possible.

However, for an organization with globally spread development sites, a great variety of project types, and numerous standards and regulations to be satisfied, introducing agile practices into selected projects is only the first step of the journey. The crucial mountain that has to be climbed consists of integrating the agile approach efficiently into the standard system development process without jeopardizing any boundary conditions.

As an expert department for process consulting within the Siemens AG, we have implemented agile approaches in many Siemens business units. This experience report focuses on the three main challenges we were confronted with during that journey:

  • What is the optimal process architecture for integrating agile development into the overall process landscape, and still addressing the variety of project types that often require different development approaches to go side by side?
  • What are suitable approaches for integrating system requirements and system testing into the agile way of handling requirements and testing?
  • How can agile roles be integrated into the standard system development process with its many traditional roles?

We will discuss the most important aspects of these challenges and demonstrate possible solutions and implementation examples.

Short Bio

Peter Faßbinder is a principal consultant for advanced process optimization at Siemens Corporate Technology. He leads process improvement projects and fosters process innovation within the Siemens AG. His current focus topics are agile system processes, integrated process solutions, and the management of global processes. Prior to joining Siemens, Peter worked as project leader and architect at T-Systems, IBM Global Services and Telecom New Zealand.