Introduction to Agile Hardware
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For numerous large enterprises, the alignment of hardware and software processes is critical to managing an Agile environment. Agile Hardware implementations can be put in place by using the same framework as our typical Agile Software Development transformations. Start off with assessing the organization’s current state, then move to planning and preparing by and putting together a transition backlog, start execution with training and coaching, spread the cultural shift with change management and maintain and scale the transformation.
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Introduction to Agile Hardware
- 1. 1www.cprime.com The Agile Hardware Research Project Kevin Thompson, PhD, PMP, ACP, CSP, CSM 4100 E. Third Ave, Suite 205, Foster City, CA 94404 | 650-931-1651 | www.cprime.com The leader in training and consulting for project management and agile development
- 2. 2www.cprime.com Migrations, Add-Ons, Licensing, Training, Optimization and more Atlassian, VersionOne, AgileCraft, Innotas and more Contract to Hire, Consulting, Full-time, Executive Search and more ScrumMasters, Product Owners, Scrum Coaches and more Transformations, Scaling, Assessments, Planning, Coaching, Training, Advisory Services, Change Management and more WHO IS CPRIME?
- 3. 3www.cprime.com The Researchers Kevin Thompson • Agile Practice Lead, cPrime Inc. • Creator of cPrime Agile Curriculum and Consulting standards • PhD in Physics, Princeton Scott Elliott • Principal Techzecs • R&D Director, HP • Founder, Process Consulting HP • BS,MS and PhD, UC Berkeley and Santa Barbara John Carter • Principal TCGen Inc. • Cirrus Logic Board Member • Former Chief Engineer (Bose) • MS EE, MIT, BS Harvey Mudd
- 4. 4www.cprime.com The Research Project Motivations and Key Questions • What are effective techniques for • Agile development of hardware? • Concurrent Agile development of hardware and software? • What are specific “recipes” for the above, using cPrime’s principles for Agile governance • Scrum, Kanban, something else… • Capture what “best practices” exist and what gaps exist • How organizations have effectively implemented such development
- 5. 5www.cprime.com Companies and Methodology Nearly Twenty Companies – Responses from • Amazon • Applied Materials • AT&T • Beats • Cisco • Hitachi • HP • KLA Tencor • Tandem • Teradata Methods • Developed hypothesis on what could lead to agility in HW/Large programs • Developed interview guide and construct data collection approach • Constructed interview guide with key questions • Gathered information via interviews, probing on emerging best practices • Analyzed data, extracted common characteristics & outstanding practices • Consolidated findings to create novel process model and recommend agile development organization Hypothesis Guide Interview Analyze Findings
- 6. 6www.cprime.com Interview Questions Background • Describe your role and the products/solutions you deliver. Establishing Requirements & Planning Estimates • How are requirements developed and what do they look like? • How do you go from requirements (the what) to task definitions (the actions)? • What methods do you use to estimate the work? • What does a plan look like? (e.g., Gantt chart, Sprint Backlog, something else)? Managing Changes • How do you accommodate changes in requirements & scope during development? • How do you update estimates as the project changes? • Who makes the decision to change scope? Future Wishes • What changes do you plan to make in the future to make your process more agile?
- 7. 7www.cprime.com Research Findings Hardware companies used different Agile techniques • None had a full Agile process • Still emerging, and still experimenting, but some successes Several best practices emerged • Not slave to identical Sprints, but adhere to identical durations • Overlapping prototyping of circuit boards – not strictly serial • Planning with ‘sticky notes on a wall’ • Hardware Sprints of longer than SW (typically 2x duration) • Creative use of Burn down charts – repurposed for Hardware • Burn down metrics change by Sprint • Ranking of features by value
- 8. 8www.cprime.com Key Differences Hardware Versus Software • Flexibility is inherently less • Can’t do an update over the web for physical product • Cost of change is higher for hardware • Architectural work is more front-loaded for hardware. • Availability of standard components constrains hardware design more than software design • In software development, variation in type of work done over time is small. • In hardware development, because of the realization of a physical product, the type of work done changes substantially over time • Hardware development cost rises towards end of work, while software costs are flat over time • Hardware Sprints towards end have significant test costs
- 9. 9www.cprime.com Key Similarities between Hardware and Software Development • The total work of product development can be divided into a large number of small and testable deliverables • True in Software and Hardware • Work can be partitioned over Sprints (short development cycles). Sprint scope can be estimated, progress can be measured, and learning can be integrated • Planning poker, Burn down charts, and Retrospectives common to both • Self-contained, self-organized work teams can be created for even the largest projects • Creation of small, self sufficient, cross functional teams with Scrum Masters common to both • Important distinction: • Software: Aggregation of deliverables yields usable features over time • Hardware: Aggregation of deliverables yields usable product at the end of development
- 10. 10www.cprime.com Recommended: Scrum Process for Hardware Development 1. Story Types: “Hard” vs “Soft” 2. Sprint Length 1. Recommend 2-8 weeks, based on duration of design/build/test cycle time 2. Keep standard length across development 3. Release Planning 4. Variation in Sprint Focus during Release Cycle 1. Beginning – Requirements, Architecture, Silicon Selection 2. Middle – Repeating Sprints of design/build/test 3. End – Emphasis on Scale – Build/test
- 11. 11www.cprime.com Example Scrum Organization for Hardware Development Cardiac Monitor Project Mechanical/ Compliance ME Lead CAD Designer PCB (External) Power / Thermal Regulatory Mfg. Eng Analog (ADC, DAC) EE Lead Instrumen- tation Conversion Systems Eng Test Eng Prod Mgmt (APO) Digital (Disp, FPGA, uC) Digital Lead Firmware Logic I/O Mfg Test SW / Algorithms SW Lead Science Lead Algorithms QA External Functions QualityOperationsRegulatory Scrum Master #2 Scrum Master #1 Scrum Teams 1 & 2 Scrum Teams 3 & 4
- 12. 12www.cprime.com Mechanical Team Mechanical Team Team Member Primary Skills Product Owner Anthony Anthony Mech. Engineering Lead and Team PO Scrum Master Caroline Alex CAD Designer The Mechanical Team focuses on product packaging and compliance. Mahesh CAD Designer Chun Power & Thermal Engineer Brenda Regulatory & Compliance Todd Manufacturing Engineer
- 13. 13www.cprime.com Analog Team Analog Team Team Member Primary Skills Product Owner Franklin Franklin Electrical Engineering Lead and Team PO Scrum Master Caroline Yuri Instrumentation Engineer The Analog Team handles Sensors, Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog conversion. Krish Instrumentation Engineer Sheldon Conversion Engineer Erica Conversion Engineer Dwight Systems Engineer Yani Test Engineer
- 14. 14www.cprime.com Digital Team Digital Team Team Member Primary Skills Product Owner Heinrich Heinrich Digital Lead and Team PO Scrum Master Fred Chuck Firmware Engineer The Digital Team is responsible for the Display, FPGA, instrument control, network communications, and printed circuit development. Asha Firmware Engineer Heidi Firmware Engineer Jing Digital Logic/Glue Logic Neeraj IO - Input/Output (Bus) Melissa Manufacturing Test
- 15. 15www.cprime.com Software Team Software Team Team Member Primary Skills Product Owner Jerry Jerry Software Lead and Team PO Scrum Master Fred Mike Lead Scientist The Software Team develops algorithms and implements them in software. Steve Instrument SW Engineer Padma Instrument SW Engineer Kelly Algorithms SW Engineer Gabe Algorithms SW Engineer Tatiana QA Chris QA
- 16. 16www.cprime.com Story Types: Content User vs Technical • User Story: Short narrative description of a user experience. Usually written by Product Owners. • Technical Story: Short description of deliverable that is not user-facing. Usually written by Team Members • Expect higher ratio of Technical Stories to User Stories in hardware than in software
- 17. 17www.cprime.com User Story Title Buyer views statistics for transactions with Vendors Rank 3 ID 22 Estimate 8 Total Task Est. 13 Narrative As a Buyer, I can view my statistics about my transactions with Vendors, so that I can understand how my history looks to Vendors. When I click on a buyer-statistics link, I see my statistics. (This link is on the home page, under account information.) Prototype / UI References: Landing Page: Attached (landingPage.html) External Documents: Company Style Guide for UI: http://wiki/UI/UIStyleGuide.doc Statistics to be computed: http://wiki/apps/buyerstats.doc Acceptance Criteria When the user clicks on the link, the application should display the statistics. User can create fictitious buyers and suppliers for use in testing. When the user submits or responds to RFPs, report shows updated statistics that reflect the user’s activities.
- 18. 18www.cprime.com Technical Story Title 16-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter Motherboard Integration Rank 9 ID 25 Estimate 8 Total Task Est. 60 Narrative Design into the motherboard a Digital-to-Analog converter (DAC), in order to provide the high-level analog voltage required to drive the analog display. Assume that the digital drive presented at the input of the DAC module is of sufficient amplitude to activate the unit properly, but not so large as to damage the input gates. Since no DAC has been chosen for this purpose yet, select an appropriate one for incorporation into the motherboard design. Acceptance Criteria 16-bit output with +/- 0.5 bit nonlinearity Single supply operation: 2.7 to 5.5V The maximum current to drive the unit is 500mA. The maximum clock rate is 3.4 MBit/sec. The output will be a time-varying analog signal varying from 0V to 5V at steps of 7.5 µV, with a maximum output impedance of 1 Ohm. Device meets the other requirements of the I2S serial bus
- 19. 19www.cprime.com Story Types: Boundaries Stories in Scrum have “Hard” boundaries—they should not cross a Sprint boundary Some hardware deliverables may not be able to be completed within a Sprint • One-thousand-hour accelerated life tests • Design & sampling of a new specialized System on a Chip (SOC) Suggestion • Allow these to be “Soft” Stories that can cross a Sprint boundary • Do this only when unavoidable
- 20. 20www.cprime.com Sprint Length for Hardware Usual Scrum advice is 2—4 weeks for Sprint length in Software Slower pace of hardware development may require Sprints up to eight weeks in length • When implementing Agile, start with shorter Sprint lengths • Discover whether length is appropriate • Lengthen if necessary to discover optimum length • Select and use optimum length for all Sprints and all future products
- 21. 21www.cprime.com Release Planning Release Planning is often useful in software development, but is optional Release Planning is essential for hardware development • Higher cost of change implies need to plan complete product development to some degree (more than a Sprint)
- 22. 22www.cprime.com Variation in Focus over Release Cycle S0 – HW (4 WEEKS) S11 - HW ARCHITECTURE & REQUIREMENTS INTEGRATION S0 – SW (2 WEEKS) S22 - SW S06 – HW Eng. Prototype S07 – HO Pilot S08 – HW Pre-Production DEPENDENCIES HW SW
- 23. 23www.cprime.com Variation in Skills Over Release Cycle S0 – HW (4 WEEKS) S11 - HWS06 – HW Eng. Prototype S07 – HO Pilot S08 – HW Pre-Production TIME UI/ARCHITECT URE RESOURCES TEST / VALIDATION RESOURCES HEADCOUNT HIGH-LEVEL DESIGN PHASE SCALE AND TEST PHASERAMPING OF TESTING RESOURCES DURING PROTOTYPE/PRODUCTION PHASES
- 24. 24www.cprime.com Client Results Product: Device for analyzing chemical samples Image is Burndown chart for first Sprint
- 25. 25www.cprime.com Conclusions 1. Hardware development can be done in an Agile way 2. Scrum is well-suited for hardware development 3. Hardware may require longer Sprints, more Release Planning, and a shift in types of Stories relative to software Download our white paper, “Agile Processes for Hardware Development,” from www.cprime.com
- 26. 26www.cprime.com cPrime’s Agile Hardware Services We provide training, consulting, and coaching services for • Agile Hardware development processes • Agile project-management tools (Jira, Confluence) For more information, email [email protected]
Editor's Notes
- #5: This focus aligns with the PMI 2015 Symposium’s focus on “Learning Organizations and Thought Leadership”. Our goal for this project was to devise an Agile process for hardware development, which aligns well with ‘Thought Leadership.’ In this case we are the ‘Learning Organization’, learning very systematically from insights we have gleaned from our interviews and combined background. In this presentation, we are sharing what we have learned, and how we have come to these conclusions.
- #9: We will use the Agile terminology here
- #23: Software Teams do much the same kind of work from Sprint to Sprint, but the type of work done in developing the hardware changes over time. Early Sprints in the hardware world are more about design, while later Sprints focus more on prototyping and integration testing.
- #24: Software Teams do much the same kind of work from Sprint to Sprint, but the type of work done in developing the hardware changes over time. Early Sprints in the hardware world are more about design, while later Sprints focus more on prototyping and integration testing.