About this Presentation
Agile Hardware Development with Scrum is a keynote presentation delivered by Kevin Thompson at the Scrum4HW Gathering in 2016. The presentation explains how Scrum can be applied to hardware and integrated hardware/software products while emphasizing that hardware development is fundamentally different from software development.
The presentation begins by defining the scope of Agile hardware development and distinguishing among pure hardware products, hardware with embedded software, and hardware with associated software. It then examines a critical difference between hardware and software: while software development can produce increasingly usable functionality through successive increments, hardware development often produces an increasingly complete design whose components do not form a usable product until they are assembled.
Thompson presents a practical approach to Scrum for hardware that retains the standard Scrum roles, ceremonies, and artifacts while adapting their application to the hardware environment. Topics include organizing engineers into Scrum Teams, selecting Sprint lengths, writing Technical Stories, Sprint Planning, and work tracking. The presentation also explores how hardware organizations can define teams around coupling and interfaces, including Feature Teams, Client/Server Teams, and Component Teams.
A major focus is the organizational challenge created by the size and specialization of hardware-development groups. The presentation argues that multiple Scrum Teams are often necessary and that Agile Program Management is required to coordinate work across teams. It discusses the cost of collaboration across interfaces and shows why team structure should be designed to minimize unnecessary dependencies. Component Teams are given particular attention because specialized components are common in hardware and mixed hardware/software systems.
The keynote also addresses several practical adaptations to Scrum, including 2–3 week Sprints, Technical Stories, time-based estimation, and Sprint planning constrained by specialized skills. A sample Technical Story illustrates how a hardware engineering deliverable can be specified with detailed acceptance criteria. The presentation concludes with a Thermo Fisher Scientific example showing successful adoption of Scrum for mass-spectrometer development, including the value of visual work management, collaborative planning, and Release Planning.
Kevin Thompson, Ph.D.
Principal Consultant specializing in Agile hardware development. Dr. Thompson has guided more than 100 enterprise transformations, bridging the gap between hardware engineering and Agile software methodologies. About Dr. Thompson →