Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement

Agility has become a necessary mindset for companies facing new challenges, and the role of the agile coach is becoming increasingly important in the agile transformation. But how can companies train and find the right agile coaches?

Two decades after the introduction of agile, this study employs a survey of DACH30 companies to examine how modern organizations can identify and access the most suitable agile coaches for their business. The research investigates the present state of agile coach training and offers insights from the agile community how companies could get more agile by adapting the training concept.

This study contributes to the practice of large corporations by recommending to adapt the experience of the DACH30 agile community, which suggests that external agile industry certifications in an isolated manner are not an effective approach to fostering a strong agile culture within an organization. Furthermore, this research advances current knowledge by proposing that a new phase in agile education has been reached, and industries using agile methodologies must explore alternative approaches to attain the next level of agility.

Agile working is based on teams. To perform their tasks each team has to find ways to establish and improve the way they work. Agile Teamwork Quality is an approach to reflect and improve the teamwork capability systematically. To reflect the current team quality level a gamification approach is proposed. The game can be part of the cyclic retrospectives or other team events. The game presents typical scenarios respectively cases which can happen. The team has to argue why this also can happen or not in their team. These case discussion promote awareness about the team’ current situation. The awareness is used to initiate improvement actions in real world after the game. The presented case study of the Volkswagen Group IT shows the facilitation of the teamwork quality.

Agile teams are a growing part of the employees way of working within organizations and projects. Within agile working the autonomy is an important element of the way how agile approaches are defined and build. So it is important to look how this non-hierarchical approach, based on team autonomy, fits into an existing legal frame. In this work aspects from Germany, are focused and analyzed. To find a trade-off between specific and generic observations, the work is based on a typical enterprise scenario. The scenario is instantiated case specific to identify generic patterns. The patterns are analyzed with selected legal views to derive recommendations about the setup of agile teams from a compliance perspective. Focus in this analysis are Scrum and SAFe® in combination with the efiS® framework.

Agile transitions are complex changes within organizations and their employees. Typically, established frameworks are used as a kind of implementation target picture for the first milestones of transitions. To evaluate the progress of the adoption of the target frameworks the organizations with their teams need feedback. The proposed approach address these feedback for transitions with a SAFe® and efiS® framework focus. This includes Scrum with the SAFe® Scrum derivation. The approach was designed to facilitate the transition journey of product teams and organizations in large enterprises. The presented case study of the Volkswagen Group IT shows the facilitation of the journey in direction to a more agile and product oriented organization.

Medical Device Software (MDS) defects have caused death of patients and continue to be the major cause of recalls of medical devices in the US and Europe. Despite various approaches proposed to address defects, dealing with defects in MDS is an increasingly difficult task as MDS has become more complex to support a growing number of functions. To increase quality in any software development project, it is essential that defects are identified and addressed quickly in the early stages of the software development life cycle. Agile methods have been advocated to increase software quality by minimising defects through their agile practices. However, agile methods on their own are deficient in satisfying the regulatory requirements for the MDS domain. Instead, the common approach is to integrate agile practices into the plan driven methods. Consequently, frameworks have been developed to help developers in the MDS domain to accrue the benefits of agile development while fulfilling regulatory requirements. Despite the adoption of agile practices in MDS development, it is still unclear as to which agile practice(s) is effective and how it is applied to address MDS defects. The purpose of this research is to identify agile practices that can assist in addressing defects in MDS development. This will help MDS developers to select the appropriate agile practice(s) to address defects.

ASELSAN-UGES (Transportation, Security, Energy Automation and Healthcare Business Sector) design, develop and manufacture the systems and critical components necessary for creative custom solutions for railways and highways. As a leading company in power electronics, communication, control and information technologies, we enable our customer to reach their goals safely, quickly and economically. As a result; ASELSAN-UGES conducts process improvement project which referenced to ISO/IEC 15504 framework. As a pilot project; metro management systems with signalling and control technologies based on Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) was selected and a gap analysis was performed. Besides, lessons learned and further works to do was mentioned in order to define the roadmap to ISO/IEC 15504certification and earned values.

After the revolution of new constraints like Cybersecurity in modern industries and high-tech fields, and the innovation of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning in the fields of Software Development in general, or the vast application of ChatGPT [1] in the automotive industry in specific, there was a urge towards the simplification of process models to cope with the change in projects nature and serve all purposes. Accordingly, VDA-QMC [2] has released a new simplified draft version of the Automotive SPICE PAM (version 4.0) [3] that encompasses many of these ideas, which is currently under review.

In this paper, we take the opportunity to demonstrate the results of a pilot assessment of this new version on a few mockup project samples, focusing on areas for improvements in hopes to enhance the final version expected June, 2023 into a more practical approach. The paper also urges the VDA to officially consider the results of this case study into the expected new version release of Automotive SPICE to ensure a more reliable and complete version.

The automotive industry is facing rapid changes with regards to the electrification, intelligence and connectivity. These changes are transforming to more and more complex hardware and software of the electronic system in the vehicle. In China, the autonomous driving cars are even starting to move towards to the state of open road testing and commercial demonstration operation, therefore, it is crucial to include functional safety into all stages of the lifecycle of modern cars to provide an appropriate protection level. This paper provides an overview about the functional safety related national standards and regulations in China. It shows the connections and dependencies and the actual status of the publications.

While many regulations are highly prescriptive in informing regulated entities of what to do and how to do it, this is not the case with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which simply requires data protection principles (Art. 5) to be respected to ensure compliance. This compliance regime implies a liability shift between the regulator and regulated entities, with the latter becoming “responsible for, and […] able to demonstrate compliance with data protection principles (‘accountability’)” (GDPR, Art. 5.2). It is then up to the regulated entities to demonstrate they have implemented the “appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure […] that processing is performed in accordance with” this regulation (GDPR, Art. 24.1). In addition, regulated entities must demonstrate that these measures are “reviewed and updated where necessary”. Due to a lack of resources, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle to identify both privacy requirements and the technical and organizational measures needed to meet them. To support the compliance of SMEs with GDPR, a regulatory technology has been developed based on the digitalization of a GDPR capability assessment approach. The proposed regulatory technology goes beyond the previous process assessment automation by considering the digitalization of identification and collection of objective evidence. After introducing the main features of this regulatory technology, the paper presents the results of its assessment process, measurement framework and assessment model conformity assessment. The paper also discusses the challenges and opportunities offered by the automation of the ISO/IEC 330xx series assessment framework.

This thematic paper presents an approach of handling Acceptance Criteria and Validation Targets within an ISO21448 conform development process for highly automated driving functions. This includes an approach for breaking down Acceptance Criteria from global level to scenario class level. Furthermore, the application of Validation Targets for the respective Acceptance Criteria is addressed while the underlying methods for definition are briefly described. In order to support efficient development on component level and to avoid premature testing, quantitative Performance Targets are introduced functioning as quality goals for integration and testing on higher engineering levels.

IT Sustainability becomes more and more important within the growing digitalization. To lever as much as possible it is more than green coding or the usage of power-efficient hardware. The overall value stream from Business over Development to Operations (BizDevOps) is subject of sustainability alignment. This holistic alignment enables a life-cycle view about sustainable IT product and service delivery. An approach and its key aspects is presented how a whole team sustainability – based on the interdisciplinary cooperation of the BizDevOps-team around the sustainability topic- could be established within large enterprise IT settings. The approach is analyzed on a case study of a cloud service team within the Volkswagen Group IT.

A Circular Economy (CE) is an emerging economic model, restorative and regenerative by both intention and design. The CE evolves in a repetitive cycle, where waste is returned back into the of a new product by recycling and reusing materials. Thus, CE represents a sustainable and productive economy model that is financially, economically, and socially feasible. It is increasingly regarded as an acceptable and desirable solution to achieving prosperity whilst acknowledging ecological and social boundaries. Opposed to the unsustainable Linear Economy, it draws on complexity and systems thinking by imitating nature that does not produce any waste. However, the implementation of CE in industry is slow paced, mainly due to barriers caused by complex sustainability transitions and innovations needed to cover a systemic and systems thinking approach. In the last few years, the concept of a CE and the transition from a linear, take-make-waste system to a cyclic system that reuses, remanufactures, and recycles materials, have gained increased importance, and have attracted considerable attention from both scholars and practitioners. Research that examines the role of emerging technologies in supporting this transition is therefore imperative. The CE has also become a key policy objective due to increased frequency of natural disasters which have been caused by human activity and social pressure on policymakers and governments to introduce measures in order to ensure sustainability, bio-based products and sustainable processing. This study discusses the concept of the CE as well as the transition from a Linear to a closed-loop Circular Economy based on resource regeneration and ecosystem restoration. It unfolds the role and importance of emerging technologies related to Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 in this transition by analyzing their adoption and implementation in the context of the CE. The key benefits of transformational change include increased engagement, improved performance, and higher levels of creativity and innovation. The ultimate and implicit aim of this paper is to increase awareness of the required actions ideally from every single individual on earth. Through increasing understanding of the fact that the use of emerging technologies is not a magic wand for addressing the ecological challenges but a tool for supporting the transition to a cleaner environment. In order to obtain an authentic and genuine transition, a fundamental social and cultural shift needs to pave the way.

No matter the sector, type, or philosophy of companies, there is strong evidence of sustainability awareness and environmental proactivity in industry. However, heterogeneity of firms shows that undertaking environmental actions may be a major challenge, where success is not guaranteed. This is a central issue for the ecological transition of industry and, unfortunately, it is an issue that cannot be tackled by a unique perspective. Still, for a transition occur, at least an initial and an envisaged state should be defined; and a procedure for transition between both must be formalized. In this sense, the literature provides methods to define, yet not to enhance the ecological states of firms, exposing a critical inattentiveness in the process for transformation and, in industrial diversity. To stablish the foundation for dealing with these issues, this paper first synthesizes these methods —which showed a strong alignment to Information science and strategic sustainability, and proposes a matrix for transition, composed of an informational and ecological dimension. Later, this matrix is used to propose and fuel a preliminary methodology delineated by different firms. Both are oriented to guide the ecological transition of all kind of companies.

Failure of systems occur in all domains of human activity. Apart from identifying who will be deemed accountable, a thorough analysis of a failure also provides understanding of the causes. This is the first step towards learning and future improvement. It has become evident that process improvement improves the resulting products and services. Prevention is always desirable, but more often than not, the predictability of future behavior of systems is difficult. Hence, most of the learning takes place in the analysis of failures. This paper focuses on a STEEPLED analysis of system failures, with particular emphasis on failed systems from the fields of Architecture, Engineering, and Healthcare systems. This transdisciplinary and multi-dimensional view of systems provides a holistic thinking instrument for structuring the analysis of failures and for enabling action in order to avoid or at least minimize future failures.

Product Lifecycle Management is a process that helps projects to pass through various phases of software development and maintenance. Since phases are usually associated with entry- and exit-criteria that could be considered onerous or excessively effort-prone, implementation of PLM poses various risks. In this paper we show how Common Best Practices could support the software teams in meeting PLM requirements and facilitate smoother transition between phases.

TIMS is an EU Erasmus+ project which develops a competence matrix, and a set of training materials for ISO 56000. It developed in 2022 an ISO 56000 assessment method and tool which integrates ISO 56000 and ISO 33020 for an innovation management system capability assessment. This paper provides an overview of the new ISO 56000 norm, explains how the norm has been used as an input to elaborate a process assessment model with a set of base practices and outcomes per part and process of ISO 56000. It also describes how the assessment works and how to participate in an innovation benchmarking strategy in Europe.

Frugal approaches empower individuals with limited budgets or lacking support from powerful organizations to engage in innovation. By rigorously focusing on key aspects of Frugal Innovation, it becomes possible to create products and services. Frugal approaches also facilitate the creation of specific Intellectual Property associated with the developed products and services. In a post-mortem analysis, relevant aspects of the frugal methodology are presented as a case study, demonstrating its application. The analyzed project employs a combination of iterative and incremental approaches within the frugal framework to design and develop a cyber-physical music instrument. The objective of this new music instrument is to provide a cost-effective hardware solution that can be played using gestures. Looking ahead, artists can embrace the instrument's features and characteristics, allowing them to become prosumers by incorporating it into their performances. To facilitate knowledge sharing, a “cheat sheet” is proposed as a guide through the Frugal Innovation process that led to the development of the music instrument. Furthermore, a discussion delves into whether Intellectual Property rights derived from Frugal Innovation remain an integral part of the frugal concept and mindset, or if they reinterpret frugal approaches as a new form of cheap development. Additionally, the discussion explores the potential for Frugal Innovation to surpass established Lean and Agile approaches as the next step in the evolution of innovation practices. Lastly, the proposed Frugal Innovation process is examined as a building block for sustainable development approaches that address more than just sufficiency aspects inherently and by design.

Information and communication technologies have dominant impacts in all spheres of modern life. While these technologies offer the possibility to make the world a richer, more efficient and interactive place, they increase fragility as they reinforce our dependence on such systems. The dependence, in a sense, draws attention to how increasingly, science is a collaborative sport between humans and computers. This in turn highlights a change in social science itself as we transition from qualitative study of small groups of people to quantitative computer-aided study of big data sets created by human-machine interactions. The interactions indicate a kind of intelligence that is different from humans and in a sense urges us to identify new questions. Questions that direct our scientific enquiries into blind spots that our algorithms find for us, and indicate the levels of diversity the teams need to have to address these questions. The complexity of these interactions can never be fully understood, as they evolve continuously, and in this context, the idea of social computing gains relevance. Given the vast implications of ICTs and the impossibility of considering them all, this discussion is limited to the domain of cybersecurity and the related domain of privacy. The discussions are approached through stories that emphasize an ever-increasing and diverse set of threats of the growing complexity of digital ecosystems, and the concerns that it might lead to violation of fundamental values such as equality, fairness, freedom or privacy. It is becoming increasingly evident that applying cybersecurity mechanisms are essential to the protection of digital assets, that could be personal, industrial or commercial. However, such measures may also encroach on individual privacy while potentially exclude individuals from society. Given the background, this paper proposes to trigger a discussion on how technology and society interact on practical levels, and how the impact such interactions have on society could offer a unique perspective on innovation processes.

Today it becomes more and more important to keep the pace of the changing world and its markets by continuous innovation delivery. To establish a continuous innovation capability enterprises search for ways to integrate this needed innovation culture into their organizational DNA. However, not all enterprises can establish for all topics dedicated innovation units like labs or innovation centers. An approach to innovate within an established respective “ordinary” organization and its structures is an innovation network. An innovation network comes with lean structural elements and is more tied to the operational value streams than dedicated innovation units. However, it requires also governance and methodological approaches respectively procedures to innovate continuously to establish an innovation value stream. One challenge is to establish a sustainable innovation value stream which lasts for a long time and delivers continuously with its projects valuable innovations to its enterprise. This work presents the in 2017 established Quality innovation NETwork (QiNET) initiated by the IT Test & Quality Assurance (TQA) of the Volkswagen AG which combines Frugal Innovation approaches with agile approaches within a zero budget frame for establishing an innovation value stream within the Volkswagen Group IT.

Multiple sectors are experiencing high uncertainty in terms of disruptive technologies and market changes. Continuous uncertainty in business evolution is triggering the need for concepts that explore distributed and open innovation, networking effects, and ambidexterity approaches. Therefore, open innovation, a term that is used to promote a mindset toward innovation that runs against the silo mentality and closed innovation of traditional corporates, is used frequently in multiple research areas. Nevertheless, these different research areas identify and specify open innovation in different ways.

Therefore, this paper will concentrate on open innovation effects and implications from the different research perspectives of (a) the societal level, (b) the organizational level, (c) the human resource and (informal) leadership level, and (d) the engineering technology level perspective. The work establishes a basic mutual understanding of insights into open innovation from different research focuses.

Transformation of trends in online shopping is arising from the changing needs of consumers and expansion in online activity, especially among the tech-savvy generation of Millennials. The biggest disadvantage of e-retailers, especially among those that sell experience goods like eyewear and watches, is the lack of physical apprehension. In eyewear retail, consumers are increasingly being offered to try on items online with Virtual Try-on applications. However, while general online shopping increases during the COVID-19 pandemic, among eyewear retail, online sales do not significantly rise.

Therefore, the goal of this paper is to investigate how Virtual Try-on tools impact the Millennial consumers’ shopping behavior regarding eyewear in the DACH region. Moreover, it is also analyzed if Virtual Try-on tools are beneficial for eyewear retailers in the DACH region.

The outcomes of the qualitative research indicate that Virtual Try-on technology in eyewear retail has an impact on the Millennial consumers’ shopping behavior in the DACH region, as the technology enhances the shopping experience by being perceived as a tool with great utility. Therefore, individuals shift from buying in-store to also browsing for products and purchasing eyewear online. However, while Virtual Try-on tools can be a beneficial application for large eyewear retailers, small retailers struggle with the large investment volume of implementing the technology. Nevertheless, results indicate that the potential of Virtual Try-on in eyewear retail in the DACH region is perceived as being high.

With the improvement of virtual reality (VR) technology and the spread of VR equipment, attention to VR services has increased, and a variety of new VR services have appeared. Among them VR services with interaction require real time synchronization of the user’s position in the space, actions taken, and other information, so it is important to increase the speed of communication to maintain the quality of the user experience. However, when synchronizing information between users using a cellular network, it is difficult to speed up communication for all terminals because multiple terminals share the same network and the cellular resources allocated to each terminal are limited. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the characteristics of applications that should be prioritized for communication among VR applications that involve interaction and the extent to which communication delay affects the quality of user experience in order to do appropriate cellular resources allocation that do not impair the quality of user experience. In this study, VR services that involve information processing of user interaction are implemented on actual devices, and the user experience quality is measured in an environment with multiple different communication delays. The results provide data on the characteristics of VR applications with interaction that should reduce the amount of delay, as well as data related to the quality of the experience when running in own 5G environment.