The Impact of Requirements on Systems Development Speed: A Multiple-Case Study in Automotive

Automotive\ua0manufacturers have historically adopted rigid\ua0requirements\ua0engineering processes. This allowed them to meet safety-critical\ua0requirements\ua0when producing\ua0a\ua0highly complex and differentiated product out of the integration of thousands of physical and software components. Nowadays, few software-related domains are as rapidly changing as the\ua0automotive\ua0industry.\ua0In\ua0particular, the needs of improving\ua0development\ua0speed\ua0are increasingly pushing companies\ua0in\ua0this domain toward new ways of developing software.\ua0In\ua0this paper, we investigate how the goal to increase\ua0development\ua0speed\ua0impacts how\ua0requirements\ua0are managed\ua0in\ua0the\ua0automotive\ua0domain. We start from\ua0a\ua0manager perspective, which we then complement with\ua0a\ua0more general perspective. We used\ua0a\ua0qualitative\ua0multiple-case\ua0study, organized\ua0in\ua0two steps.\ua0In\ua0the first step, we had 20 semi-structured interviews, at two\ua0automotive\ua0manufacturers. Our sampling strategy focuses on manager roles, complemented with technical specialists.\ua0In\ua0the second step, we validated our results with 12 more interviews, covering nine additional respondents and three recurring from the first step.\ua0In\ua0addition to validating our qualitative model, the second step of interviews broadens our perspective with technical experts and change managers. Our respondents indicate and rank six aspects of the current\ua0requirements\ua0engineering approach that\ua0impact\ua0development\ua0speed. These aspects include the negative\ua0impact\ua0of\ua0a\ua0requirements\ua0style dominated by safety concerns as well as decomposition of\ua0requirements\ua0over many levels of abstraction. Furthermore, the use of\ua0requirements\ua0as part of legal contracts with suppliers is seen as hindering fast collaboration. Six additional suggestions for potential improvements include domain-specific tooling, model-based\ua0requirements, test automation, and\ua0a\ua0combination of lightweight upfront\ua0requirements\ua0engineering preceding\ua0development\ua0with precise specifications post-development. Out of these 12 aspects, seven can likely be addressed as part of an ongoing agile transformation. We offer an empirical account of expectations and needs for new\ua0requirements\ua0engineering approaches\ua0in\ua0the\ua0automotive\ua0domain, necessary to coordinate hundreds of collaborating organizations developing software-intensive and potentially safety-critical\ua0systems

Achieving agility and quality in product development -an empirical study of hardware startups

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Requirements Engineering that Balances Agility of Teams and System-level Information Needs at Scale

Context: Motivated by their success in software development, large-scale systems development companies are increasingly adopting agile methods and their practices. Such companies need to accommodate different development cycles of hardware and software and are usually subject to regulation and safety concerns. Also, for such companies, requirements engineering is an essential activity that involves upfront and detailed analysis which can be at odds with agile development methods. Objective: The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate the challenges and solution candidates of performing effective requirements engineering in an agile environment, based on empirical evidence. Illustrated with studies on safety and system-level information needs, we explore RE challenges and solutions in large-scale agile development, both in general and from the teams’ perspectives. Method: To meet our aim, we performed a secondary study and a series of empirical studies based on case studies. We collected qualitative data using interviews, focus groups and workshops to derive challenges and potential solutions from industry. Findings: Our findings show that there are numerous challenges of conducting requirements engineering in agile development especially where systems development is concerned. The challenges discovered sprout from an integration problem of working with agile methods while relying on established plan-driven processes for the overall system. We highlight the communication challenge of crossing the boundary of agile methods and system-level (or plan-driven) development, which also proves the coexistence of both methods. Conclusions: Our results highlight the painful areas of requirements engineering in agile development and propose solutions that can be explored further. This thesis contributes to future research, by establishing a holistic map of challenges and candidate solutions that can be further developed to make RE more efficient within agile environments

German and Israeli Innovation: The Best of Two Worlds

This study reviews – through desk research and expert interviews with Mittelstand companies, startups and ecosystem experts – the current status of the Israeli startup ecosystem and the Mittelstand region of North Rhine- Westphalia (NRW), Germany. As a case study, it highlights potential opportunities for collaboration and analyzes different engagement modes that might serve to connect the two regions. The potential synergies between the two economies are based on a high degree of complementarity. A comparison of NRW’s key verticals and Israel’s primary areas of innovation indicates that there is significant overlap in verticals, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), sensors and cybersecurity. Israeli startups can offer speed, agility and new ideas, while German Mittelstand companies can contribute expertise in production and scaling, access to markets, capital and support. The differences between Mittelstand companies and startups are less pronounced than those between startups and big corporations. However, three current barriers to fruitful collaboration have been identified: 1) a lack of access, 2) a lack of transparency regarding relevant players in the market, and 3) a lack of the internal resources needed to select the right partners, often due to time constraints or a lack of internal expertise on this issue. To ensure that positive business opportunities ensue, Mittelstand companies and startups alike have to be proactive in their search for cooperation partners and draw on a range of existing engagement modes (e.g., events, communities, accelerators). The interviews and the research conducted for this study made clear that no single mode of engagement can address all the needs and challenges associated with German-Israeli collaboration

Agile Methods on the Shop Floor: Towards a "Tesla Production System"?

This discussion paper investigates two questions: To what extend can Tesla be regarded as a digital firm, and do we - as a result - see elements of a distinct "Tesla production system"? While the EV-startup is widely approached as a competing automaker focusing on the electric drive train, which it certainly is, this paper argues that it can only fully be understood as a digital firm - a digital car company with a digital product embedded in a digital ecosystem. Its roots in Silicon Valley, its software-first approach, and its strategic exploitation of user activity data point into this direction. In the second part, this paper explores to what extent Tesla's rootedness in software and its Silicon-Valley ancestry gave reason to introduce methods borrowed from software development on the shop floor. To a certain degree, concepts from agile software development found their way to the very assembly-line at Tesla. Although it might be exaggerated to speak of a distinct "Tesla Production system", indications for a considerable and possibly enduring alteration of Lean Production paradigm can be determined

Proposing a Solution for a Self-Managed Data-Ecosystem in Production: Use-Case-Driven IT-OT-Integration with an Event-Driven IT-Architecture

With the development of publicly accessible broker systems within the last decade, the complexity of data-driven ecosystems is expected to become manageable for self-managed digitalisation. Having identified event-driven IT-architectures as a suitable solution for the architectural requirements of Industry 4.0, the producing industry is now offered a relevant alternative to prominent third-party ecosystems. Although the technical components are readily available, the realisation of an event-driven IT-architecture in production is often hindered by a lack of reference projects, and hence uncertainty about its success and risks. The research institute FIR and IT-expert synyx are thus developing an event-driven IT-architecture in the Center Smart Logistics' producing factory, which is designed to be a multi-agent testbed for members of the cluster. With the experience gained in industrial projects, a target IT-architecture was conceptualised that proposes a solution for a self-managed data-ecosystem based on open-source technologies. With the iterative integration of factory-relevant Industry 4.0 use cases, the target is continuously realised and validated. The paper presents the developed solution for a self-managed event-driven IT-architecture and presents the implications of the decisions made. Furthermore, the progress of two use cases, namely an IT-OT-integration and a smart product demonstrator for the research project BlueSAM, are presented to highlight the iterative technical implementability and merits, enabled by the architecture

Requirements engineering challenges and practices in large-scale agile system development

Context: Agile methods have become mainstream even in large-scale systems engineering companies that need to accommodate different development cycles of hardware and software. For such companies, requirements engineering is an essential activity that involves upfront and detailed analysis which can be at odds with agile development methods. Objective: This paper presents a multiple case study with seven large-scale systems companies, reporting their challenges, together with best practices from industry. We also analyze literature about two popular large-scale agile frameworks, SAFe (R) and LeSS, to derive potential solutions for the challenges. Methods: Our results are based on 20 qualitative interviews, five focus groups, and eight cross company workshops which we used to both collect and validate our results. Results: We found 24 challenges which we grouped in six themes, then mapped to solutions from SAFe (R), LeSS, and our companies, when available. Conclusion: In this way, we contribute a comprehensive overview of RE challenges in relation to largescale agile system development, evaluate the degree to which they have been addressed, and outline research gaps. We expect these results to be useful for practitioners who are responsible for designing processes, methods, or tools for large scale agile development as well as guidance for researchers