Why Companies Scale Agile Development of Physical Products: An Empirical Study

Scaled agile development has become a procedure in the software industry to handle the applicability in large-scale projects. Much of the research on scaling agile is industry agnostic and generally valid. However, significant differences in the development of physical products exist. Handling longer internal and supplier lead times, having cross-disciplinary and joint documentation, or achieving the complete system integration of all participating domains, are some of these. Furthermore, a clear understanding of its purpose and application in developing physical products is still missing. This leads to misunderstandings, contradictions, and deviations in the application of scaling agile. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the purpose of scaling agile, especially in the field of product development. This paper presents empirical data collected through an online survey with more than 120 industry participants representing 12 different industrial sectors. The study shows that most manufacturing companies use individual solutions to scale. This contribution further reveals that for the development of larger interdependent mechatronic systems, several collaborating agile teams within the company are necessary to lessen the complexity. Additionally, the agile methods used in smaller teams should be utilized to develop superordinate larger projects and products. Along with this, enabling integration, synchronization, and coordination of subordinate systems in superordinate projects, especially for agile teams, were also described by participants as purposes of scaling agile.