Research-Technology Management

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Agile Management in Product Development

João Carlos R. de Borba, Luís Gonzaga Trabasso & Marcus Vinicius P. Pessôa

To cite this article: João Carlos R. de Borba, Luís Gonzaga Trabasso & Marcus Vinicius P. Pessôa
(2019) Agile Management in Product Development, Research-Technology Management, 62:5,
63-67, DOI: 10.1080/08956308.2019.1638488

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.2019.1638488

Published online: 05 Sep 2019.

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 Resources

Agile Management in Product Development

João Carlos R. de Borba, Luís Gonzaga Trabasso, and Marcus Vinicius P. Pessôa

Agile emerged in software development respondents reported that their organi- an analysis of 1,002 projects across mul-
in the 1990s and became popular zations use Agile development meth- tiple industry and countries. They found
mainly after the issue of the Agile ods—up from 80 percent in 2011. That that the level of Agile used in a project
Manifesto by Beck and coauthors in growth—and the documented benefits has a statistically significant effect on
2001. Influenced by the culture of value Agile has yielded those companies—has project success, especially on two
maximization and waste reduction that attracted the attention of other compa- dimensions: efficiency and stakeholder
found its first expression in lean manu- nies, makers of physical things and satisfaction. High-technology, health
facturing, Agile’s methods contrast with designers of experiences alike, in indus- care, and IT firms saw the most benefit,
traditional methods of software engi- tries as diverse as consumer products, mainly because they are heavy users of
neering, which tend to be bureaucratic education, and health care. software, Agile’s birthplace, and thus
and hierarchical. Agile values include According to the Agile Practice Guide, more accustomed to the Agile mindset.
collaboration, team empowerment, iter- Agile techniques and approaches can But firms in other industries also saw
ative and incremental development, enable companies to respond effec- the impact of Agile on project
increased customer engagement, and tively to disruptive technologies and outcomes.
adaptability to change. increased customer demand for more Increasingly, Agile’s practices are
Today, Agile is consolidated in soft- immediate value delivery. According to being adapted to projects that are not
ware development, and its adoption Porter and Heppelmann, in a 2014 HBR exclusively software based. In their
continues to grow year after year. In article, the emergence of smart prod- 2014 article, Conforto and coauthors
VersionOne's 13th Annual State of Agile ucts—products connected to informa- describe an exploratory survey of 19
Report on the use of Agile in companies tion networks in ways that provide companies in different industrial sectors
around the world, 97 percent of alternate avenues for creating and to identify common Agile practices and
delivering value—is exponentially enablers of Agile implementation. The
expanding opportunities for new prod- companies surveyed had some organi-
João Carlos R. de Borba has worked in project
management and product development in IT, uct features and capabilities and even zational enablers similar to software
aerospace & defense, and energy. His research new business models, ushering in a companies, such as highly experienced
focuses on project management methods for product new era in business competitiveness. project teams and project managers,
development, especially the application of Agile
In this new paradigm, product devel- small project teams (up to 12 profes-
and Lean management. jcrochaborba@gmail.com
opment processes must accommodate sionals), and multidisciplinary project
Luís Gonzaga Trabasso is a full professor in the
Mechanical Engineering Department of the changes that occur in a project’s late teams that include key departments.
Aeronautics Institute of Technology–ITA and Chief phases and even after the sale. Agile, Conforto and coauthors suggested
Researcher of the SENAI Innovation Institute at with its quick, iterative cycles and close further investigation on how to develop
Joinville–SC. gonzaga@ita.br
customer contact, offers a way to adapt a hybrid management model, one that
Marcus Vinicius P. Pessôa is an assistant professor in
to this challenging environment. An integrates Agile with more traditional
the Design, Production, and Management
Department of the University of Twente, the Agile mindset can help a company approaches to help access the benefits
Netherlands. His main research focus is in the build and sustain competitive advan- of Agile while addressing other needs.
improvement of product design and development tage, even as small organizations and Such an approach, they suggested,
processes. m.v.pereirapessoa@utwente.nl
startups gain space, profiting from their could also moderate some of the barri-
In this space, we offer a series of summaries on key
ability to rapidly develop products as ers to a full Agile implementation, such
topics, with pointers to important resources, to
keep you informed of new developments and help customer needs emerge. as the resource demands created by
you expand your repertoire of tools and ideas. We But skeptical managers may ask, dedicated project teams, the challenge
welcome your contributions, in the form of does it really work? Evidence is emerg- of colocating all project team members,
suggestions for topics and of column submissions.
ing that it does work, and not just in the difficulty in creating large multidis-
DOI: 10.1080/08956308.2019.1638488
software. Serrador and Pinto, in their ciplinary teams, and the challenge of
Copyright © 2019, Innovation Research
Interchange. 2015 article, report on their empirical involving customers with a high degree
Published by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. investigation of this question, through of influence in development processes.

Research-Technology Management • September—October 2019 | 63

 Robert G. Cooper, in a 2014 RTM They demonstrated that the framework management; to address these difficul-
paper, arrived at a similar conclusion. contributed to project and product ties, they proposed a hybrid model that
He noted that several companies were development performance. Lehnen, used Scrum to execute each stage of the
evolving new idea-to-launch processes Schmidt, and Herstatt proposed another lead user method. The hybrid frame-
from the traditional Stage-Gate hybrid method in their 2016 article. work helped participating companies
method—of which Cooper is the inven- Studying companies’ use of the lead overcome the challenges by increasing
tor. The new processes, Cooper noted, user method, they noticed that compa- flexibility, reducing bureaucracy, and
retained the overall Stage-Gate struc- nies implementing this method decreasing hierarchical issues in the
ture but executed within stages using often faced challenges in project project team.
Agile. In this model, as Cooper elabo-
rated in a 2016 follow-up paper, Stage-
Gate is a macroplanning process. Its Resources
stages span the entire idea-to-launch
chain, guiding investment decisions
from idea generation through business IN PRINT
case development and market launch. Edivandro C. Conforto and Daniel C. Amaral. 2016. Agile project management and the
Agile is a microplanning or project man- Stage-Gate model: A hybrid framework for technology-based companies. Journal of
agement tool that brings agility, adapt- Engineering and Technology Management 40:1–14.
ability, and speed to development Edivandro C. Conforto, Fabian Salum, Daniel C. Amaral, Sérgio L. da Silva, and Luís F.
projects. M. de Almeida. 2014. Can Agile project management be adopted by industries other
Cooper and coauthor Anita F. than software development? Project Management Journal 45(3): 21–34.
Sommer have since investigated the Robert G. Cooper. 2014. What’s next? After Stage-Gate. Research-Technology
workings of the Stage-Gate–Agile Management 57(1): 20–31.
hybrid in a series of articles, in RTM and Robert G. Cooper. 2016. Agile–Stage-Gate hybrids: The next stage for product devel-
elsewhere. They have found that Agile opment. Research-Technology Management 59(1): 21–29.
is most commonly used by technical Robert G. Cooper and Anita Friis Sommer. 2016. The Agile–Stage-Gate hybrid model:
teams in the development and testing A promising new approach and a new research opportunity. Journal of Product
stages of the Stage-Gate process, Innovation Management 33(3): 513–526.
although there is no reason why it could Robert G. Cooper and Anita Friis Sommer. 2018. Agile–Stage-Gate for manufacturers:
not be used in other phases. Changing the way new products are developed. Research-Technology Management
Agile can be implemented via any of 61(2): 17–26.
a variety of frameworks and toolsets; Jens Lehnen, Tobias S. Schmidt, and Cornelius Herstatt. 2016. Bringing Agile project
Scrum has emerged as the most appro- management into lead user projects. International Journal of Product Development
priate for hardware development, espe- 21(2/3): 212–232.
cially within hybrid processes. Cooper Project Management Institute (PMI) and Agile Alliance. 2017. Agile Practice Guide. 1st
and Sommer, in their 2016 article, ed. Newton Square, MA: Project Management Institute.
reported that Scrum was used for all the Pedro Serrador, and Jeffrey K. Pinto. 2015. Does Agile work? A quantitative analysis of
case studies they had explored. Sommer Agile project success. International Journal of Project Management 33(5):
and coauthors, in a 2015 RTM article 1040–1051.
reporting on an empirical study of five Anita Friis Sommer, Christian Hedegaard, Iskra Dukovska-Popovska, and Kenn Steger-
companies using hybrid processes, iden- Jensen. 2015. Improved product development performance through Agile/Stage-Gate
tified Scrum as the method adopted by Hybrids: The next generation Stage-Gate process? Research-Technology Management
all five companies. The companies 58(1): 34–45.
adopted Stage-Gate at the strategic level Ernst Stelzmann. 2012. Contextualizing Agile systems engineering. IEEE Aerospace
and Scrum practices at the execution and Electronic Systems Magazine 27(5): 17–22.
level. Scrum tools such as time-boxed ONLINE
sprints, stand-up meetings, retrospec-
Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham,
tive meetings, backlogs, and scrum Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern,
boards were used within each stage, to Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, and Dave
accelerate development and add Thomas. 2001. Manifesto for Agile Software Development. 2001. https://agilemanifesto.
flexibility. org/
Other authors have also proposed Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann. 2014. How smart, connected products
hybrid frameworks for non-software are transforming competition. Harvard Business Review 92(11): 64–88. https://hbr.
product development. In a 2016 article, org/2014/11/how-smart-connected-products-are-transforming-competition
Conforto and Amaral described a hybrid VersionOne. 2019. 13th Annual State of Agile Report. CollabNet, May 7. https://www.
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project management method (IVPM2).

64 | Research-Technology Management Resources

 Hybrid models appear to be a prom- products, such as the fact that a physical and entertaining metaphors used
ising route to integrate Agile methods product is not infinitely divisible in the throughout the book; the figurative lan-
into physical product development. same way as software, making it diffi- guage helps readers both understand a
However, these methods are in their cult to break into time-boxed sprints. set of tailorable tactics and build confi-
early days, and they are not unani- Physical product makers looking to dence to apply them.
mously accepted. The one point on implement Agile must also face The foundation for creative construc-
which everyone agrees is that pure down-management skepticism, prob- tion is innovation strategy, which pro-
Agile—Agile as software companies lems with scalability, and the difficulty motes alignment among diverse groups
implement it—doesn’t fit physical prod- of finding the resources required to field within an organization, clarifies objec-
ucts. Some degree of adaptation is dedicated, colocated teams. tives and priorities, and helps focus
required. Agile is increasingly escaping the efforts around them. “Without clarity
For instance, Cooper and Sommer, bounds of software and presenting itself around the questions of how innovation
in their 2016 article, suggest several as a reality in the development of phys- is supposed to create value and lead to
adjustments to the usual Scrum model: ical products. New ideas, such as the value capture, different parts of the
redefine what is meant by a “done development of hybrid models that organization can easily wind up pursu-
sprint,” since it is not possible to deliver combine Agile with traditional product ing conflicting priorities,” Pisano asserts.
a working physical product every sprint; development models, offer new possi- He notes that innovation conveys some-
integrate traditional-model planning bilities for addressing the challenges thing positive, but it can potentially
into sprint planning; and apply Agile presented by rapidly evolving markets. mean anything; on its own it means
discriminately, in appropriate contexts. Companies that find ways to integrate nothing. Thus, innovation must be con-
Some work has been done to define Agile into their product development sidered in fine-grained ways to make
what is an appropriate context for Agile. processes may gain competitive advan- the concept useful—for example, distin-
Stelzmann, in a 2012 paper, proposes a tage in an increasingly innovative and guishing between routine, disruptive,
classification scheme to define the dynamic environment. radical, and architectural innovation.
“right” context for Agile along two Companies engaging in creative con-
dimensions: feasibility (prototyping, struction must explicitly consider the
testing, and implementing changes can Reviews supporting and opposing influences for
be done quickly and cheaply and the Creative Construction: The DNA of each of these types of innovation, as
system is not safety-critical) and demand Sustained Innovation well as factors such as home-court bias.
for Agile (high market dynamism, high Gary P. Pisano (PublicAffairs, 2019) Four key questions guide the formu-
level of innovation, and high rate of lation of a creative construction inno-
change). Do startups have a natural advantage vation strategy and the allocation of
But what about the results? What over established firms in terms of capa- resources across different kinds of inno-
results are companies seeing from bility for transformational innovation? vation opportunities:
applying Agile in the development of Do scale and business success inevitably
1. How fast is your core market
physical products? Unsurprisingly, presage disruption by a new market
growing?
given the newness of hybrid methods entrant? Fortunately for existing enter-
2. What are the unmet customer needs?
and other frameworks for applying prises, Creative Construction makes a com-
3. How much potential does your exist-
Agile to physical products, results are pelling case that the answer is no and
ing technological paradigm offer for
sparse. In their 2018 RTM article, Cooper presents practical advice for defining a
improvement?
and Sommer describe a set of case stud- strategy, creating a system, and nurtur-
4. Where can you create barriers to
ies; that work suggests that Agile offers ing the culture needed to succeed with
imitations?
to physical product development most innovation at any scale. Gary Pisano
of the same benefits IT projects see, offers conceptual frameworks that are The life cycle of a given industry is
including reduced time to market and well grounded in the innovation man- not necessarily linear from growth to
increased development productivity, agement literature along with sensible maturity to decline; industries can
faster responses to changing market guidance for implementation, based on revert to a state where new opportuni-
conditions and customer needs, higher numerous case studies and his own ties emerge for transformational growth,
project team morale, and improved quest to resolve paradoxes and dispel a process Pisano calls “de-maturing.” In
within-team communication. myths about innovation. the auto industry, for example, incre-
Of course, challenges remain—those Defining creative construction as mental innovations in manufacturing
that have been identified, by Cooper, “sustaining and rejuvenating an existing efficiencies and passenger comfort and
Sommer, and others, and those yet to organization’s innovation structures,” safety are being supplanted by transfor-
emerge as more companies explore Pisano compares it to the job of reno- mational innovations in powertrain
Agile implementation. Some of these vating a home while living in it—build- technology (electric motors and batter-
challenges arise from the inherent dif- ing something new out of something ies), driving systems (AI guidance), and
ferences between software and physical old. This is one of many well-chosen business models (ride sharing).

Resources September—October 2019 | 65

Companies must be watchful and attributes: no tolerance for incompe- and Claris and as an early vice president
dynamically tune their balance of inno- tence, highly disciplined execution, bru- of marketing and sales for Apple. He is
vation, anticipating and responding to tally candid communication, individual the one who made the decision to run
changes in the competitive environ- accountability, and strong leadership. the famous Apple Super Bowl advertise-
ment with targeted countermeasures, Companies seeking to be innovative ment in 1984, over the objections of the
such as building complementary tech- must embrace both sets of attributes: Board of Directors. Following his official
nological capabilities that are hard to “These less palatable practices,” accord- retirement, Campbell worked as an
imitate, focusing on business model ing to Pisano, “are critical complements executive coach to some of the biggest
innovation, and cranking up the tread- to the more pleasant ones.” names in Silicon Valley—Eric Schmidt
mill for rapid routine innovation. In a creative constructive organiza- at Google, Steve Jobs at Apple, Brad
The second part of Creative Construction tion, leaders are viewed as cultural Smith at Intuit, John Donahoe at eBay,
addresses the innovation system; Pisano architects, actively engaged in engineer- Vice President Al Gore, Dick Costolo at
emphasizes that there are no universal ing culture to support organizational Twitter, Marissa Mayer at Google and
best practices. The leadership challenge is priorities. Leaders should take direct later Yahoo, and dozens more.
to design an innovation system that is ownership of the culture, model the Campbell, who was known as
suited to the organization’s strategy and behavior they desire, nurture parts of “Coach” in recognition of his previous
circumstances. That system must perform the organization with existing or career as a football coach for Columbia
three basic tasks: search for valuable prob- nascent innovative cultures, and get the University (his alma mater), passed
lems and solutions, synthesize diverse right people. The book offers sugges- away in April 2016. The authors collab-
streams of ideas into coherent business tions and cautions for leaders attempt- orated with a group of his disciples to
concepts, and select opportunities. These ing to create a “startup culture” in an create this book as a kind of memorial.
tasks might be executed in parallel or existing organization. The book con- It encapsulates four core principles
even reverse order, depending on the cludes with an optimistic call for cre- of management and leadership that
company’s needs and context; the book ative constructive leaders—cultural “Coach” taught.
offers a number of case studies alongside warriors who develop and practice hab- Principle 1: Your title makes you
concise coaching, such as “Search gener- its of mind that look outward, view a manager; your people make you
ates hypotheses about problems that may innovation as a competitive weapon, a leader. Campbell learned this from a
be valuable to solve and solutions that embrace being different, are disciplined fellow executive when he was leading
might be worth exploring.” Several prac- about short- and long-term trade-offs, Claris. Donna Dubinsky brought him
tical approaches are suggested for engag- take a systems perspective on innova- the news that his executive team was
ing the organization in broader search. tion capabilities, innovate organiza- planning to quit if he did not stop
Part three of the book—the most tions, and access the best talent. micromanaging them. In that session,
thought-provoking part of the book— Creative Construction connects the dots she used these words to explain to him
addresses innovation culture, noting and extends conventional wisdom why he could not lead as a dictator.
that it is an extraordinarily powerful about innovation management, provid- Some of the practices that emerge from
driver of organizational behavior and ing a sensible approach to sustaining this principle include:
performance. Pisano is encouraging. transformational innovation. The book’s
“Although innovative cultures are actu- engaging narrative, supported by real-
• Give your people the tools, informa-
tion, training, and coaching they
ally quite rare, I do not agree that world case studies, easy-to-understand
need to succeed.
changes antithetical to innovation are explanations of key concepts, and
inevitable,” he says. “Organizational well-structured implementation guid-
• Start meetings by sharing personal,
non-business stories.
cultures, like everything else about ance, make it both eminently readable
organizations, are human creations. As and valuable to a broad audience.
• Create structure for 1:1 meetings,
and spend time preparing because
such, they can be shaped through the Thomas M. Tirpak is quality director
these meetings are essential for help-
hand of management.” at Panasonic Avionics Corporation.
ing people grow.
According to Pisano, the academic tom.tirpak@panasonic.aero
research and case studies on innovative
• Listen to all perspectives on a ques-
tion and only use your authority to
cultures have consistently identified key Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership
break ties when necessary.
characteristics: a tolerance for failure, a Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill
willingness to experiment, psychological Campbell
• Define the company’s “first princi-
ples” and let those principles guide
safety, collaboration, and flatness. The Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and
decisions.
ubiquity of these factors raises a critical Alan Eagle (New York: HarperCollins, 2019)
question: How could a set of organiza- Principle 2: Build an envelope of
tional practices that everyone seems to How can a coach be worth a trillion trust. Create a circle around your team
love be so hard to implement? In part, dollars, especially one that few have within which everyone keeps his or her
Pisano notes, it’s because they’re coun- heard of? Bill Campbell just might be. word, is loyal to the team and to its
terbalanced by some far less attractive Campbell served as the CEO of Intuit members, acts with integrity, and

66 | Research-Technology Management Resources

maintains discretion. Practices that sup- • Select players that have “smarts and • Be generous with your time, connec-
port this principle include: hearts”—the ability to learn fast, tions, and resources.
work hard, exhibit empathy, and put • Hold a special reverence and protec-
• Reserve coaching for those who are the team first. tion for people with the most vision
honest, humble, willing to persevere
through difficulty, and open to
• Pair people up so they have a strong and passion for the company, espe-
connection to at least one other per- cially the founders.
learning.
son on the team.
• Listen to people with your full and
undivided attention without thinking
• Intentionally include women in tra- Each of these principles and practices are
ditionally male-dominated compa- supported by published management
about what you are going to say next.
nies and teams. research; the authors provide ample cita-
• Deliver negative feedback with a car-
ing spirit and in private.
• Tackle the biggest problems first. tion. But Bill Campbell developed and
practiced these principles through a life-
• Don’t give commands; instead, guide Principle 4: Harness the power
time of experience in football and high-
people to the best decision for of love. There is a place for chaste
tech companies. Trillion Dollar Coach is a
themselves. love in the workplace. Campbell
tribute to a man who was loved by dozens
• Believe in people more than they believed in caring for people and
of people, including the authors. As a
believe in themselves. showing it through hugs and sharing
eulogy to Campbell, it’s focused on shar-
• Let people bring their full identities of personal experiences. He also
ing his successes and effective behaviors.
to work. showed that he cared through a set of
It is perhaps surprising to find a book by
comedic and profane “Bill-isms,”
Principle 3: Team first. Campbell technology luminaries like Schmidt,
which we can’t repeat here. However,
believed in creating effective teams of Rosenberg, and Eagle that focuses on sim-
we can describe the practices that
the geniuses who are attracted to com- ple principles of interpersonal behavior,
express this principle:
panies like Google and Apple and instill- but those principles drove the success of
ing in them an ethos of making sacrifices • Show care about people by being the man they all knew as “Coach.” The
for the team. Practices that illustrate this interested in their entire lives, both book is an easy read with simple mes-
principle include: work and personal. sages, as much a motivational guidebook
• Publicly cheer people and their as a management text.
• Understand that the first step to solv- successes. Roger Smith is the CTO of
ing a problem is selecting the right • Create communities inside and out- AdventHealth Nicholson Center.
team to work on it. side of work. roger.smith@AdventHealth.com

Resources September—October 2019 | 67