Ludwigsburg – In recent years, two factors above all have changed that pose new challenges for R&D departments in companies in most sectors. Firstly, products are becoming increasingly complex and more and more often contain digital components. And secondly, the requirements of customers regarding products are changing very dynamically – as are legal specifications.
Against this background, two approaches in particular are currently being propagated for product development: Systems Engineering and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Both approaches have specific strengths, but they have hardly been used in combination before. In order to change this, and to be able both to control the complexity and to act in an agile manner with a single procedural model, the management and IT consulting company MHP has conceived the Framework Scaled Agile @ Systems Engineering (SA@SE). How SA@SE is composed of Systems Engineering and SAFe elements is explained in the White Paper "Agile @ Systems Engineering".
The best of both worlds
Andreas Feil, Service Developer for Agile Engineering at MHP: "With our team of experts, we examined closely what was done and what was not done by the two established approaches. Systems Engineering, for example, focused on the development process map, but not on the process organization. With SAFe, it is exactly the other way around. In our framework, we have combined the strengths of the two approaches." In this connection, basically, the elements that define "what" is developed have been borrowed from Systems Engineering. The elements that determine "how" development is performed come from SAFe. Dr. Sebastian Schröter, Service Developer for Systems Engineering at MHP: "This combination of the aspects with the greatest value creation potential from the two approaches creates tangible improvements for organization, control, quality and efficiency in product development."
In the White Paper, the team of authors proceeds systematically. They first describe the principles of Systems Engineering and SAFe, in order then to derive the integrative Framework Scaled Agile @ Systems Engineering and to describe the adapted characteristics of the roles. The correlations and processes can be easily understood on the basis of diagrams. In addition, the authors outline the transformation process up to SA@SE. In three stages, R&D departments are in a position to implement the new approach: Initially on the team level, then on the system level and organization level.
The White Paper is available on the MHP website and can be downloaded free of charge: https://www.mhp.com/de/unternehmen/studien#!white-paper-scaled-agile-systems-engineering. Andreas Feil will gladly answer any questions on the Scaled Agile @ Systems Engineering Framework. Simply send your question to: PublicRelations(at)mhp.com
