Why Adopt Agile over Waterfall for Developing Consumer Products
My company transitioned from a classic waterfall to Agile for a three important reasons. 1) Prioritizaion and focus, 2) Transparency and communications and 3) Team development
Effective Agile for Hardware Development and Management
I’ve spent the last three years adopting Agile / Scrum to hardware. Agile’s promise of twice the work in half the time can be achieved, more or less. But, the version of Agile I developed required thinking beyond the limited precepts of the Agile Manifesto. Creating an effective Agile framework and ways of working for … [Read more…]
Using Gantt Charts in an Agile for Hardware
A common misconception when it comes to scrum is to do away with Gantt Charts. But Agile for Hardware embraces the use of Gantt Charts. The thing with Gantt Charts is that they are inherently anti-Agile, its that they are so strongly associated with Waterfall planning that it’s difficult to separate the two. However, Gantt … [Read more…]
Defining the difference between an Agile Impediment and a Story
We had an interesting issue arise this week. A business need, one which has been under discussion for a couple of weeks and was being worked on, was brought up as an impediment in the EAT. In summary, the appliance box needed an update on its graphics to meet a previously unknown retailer requirement. The … [Read more…]
A Side Effect of Imports: They Encourage Homegrown Innovation
Large U.S. firms react to competition from high-quality foreign importers by investing more in their own R&D efforts and producing more patents. Source: A Side Effect of Imports: They Encourage Homegrown Innovation
Innovate on Purpose: Moving beyond Explore and Exploit
Source: Innovate on Purpose: Moving beyond Explore and Exploit
How To: Make a Fewer, Bigger, Better Approach Work in Innovation
To address their disappointing innovation results, many management teams advocate a strategy of launching Fewer, Bigger, Better products. While this is a sound approach, it has proven difficult to execute. Success requires the organizational resolve, discipline and confidence to launch fewer projects and still meet top-line innovation goals. Source: Innovation Excellence | How To: Make … [Read more…]
Innovation Excellence | Four Reasons to take a Rapid Prototyping Approach to Your PLM Implementation
In today’s fast-paced, highly visual and interactive world, it is difficult and unrealistic to drive enthusiasm and deliver strong results from a new PLM implementation with an approach that is documentation-driven, slow-moving and highly bureaucratic. Rapid prototyping or agile development, which is an iterative and collaborative approach characterized by short “requirement –> build –> test” … [Read more…]
Now we can 3D print ceramics
“Despite being able to build just about anything with 3D printing, until now items have been limited to polymer plastics, a handful of metals and glass. However, researchers at HRL Laboratories have announced a significant advancement in additive manufacturing: the ability to print ceramics Source: Now we can 3D print ceramics
Inventology: a new book by Pagan Kennedy
“Creativity researchers have shown that serendipity plays a big role in creativity, and that serendipity is more likely to happen when you seek out new experiences and become more aware of what’s going on around you. “The book Inventology by Pagan Kennedy builds on this researc and emphasizes that serendipity is critical to creativity. (See the excerpt in today’s New York … [Read more…]