Scrum in Military Aviation - Building a Jet Fighter Faster, Cheaper, Better with Scrum

[Bilal.]

Before agile how were things done ? you sat down with all the stakeholders and derived the requirements, figured out an implementation plan/schedule, implemented things. the problem with the approach is that requirements keep changing all the time.

you have to ask yourself if what you are doing lends itself to an iterative approach

Yes, waterfall model in which you would freeze requirement. Now, more requirements might come as you go but in aviation, which is the topic, you would deal with them in future blocks. My question was pertaining to the point where it says a new iteration every 3 weeks. Which led to the point I made.

 

[nahtanbob]

Yes, waterfall model in which you would freeze requirement. Now, more requirements might come as you go but in aviation, which is the topic, you would deal with them in future blocks. My question was pertaining to the point where it says a new iteration every 3 weeks. Which led to the point I made.

you are answering your own question - is the requirements for aviation project going to change every three weeks ?

 

[Bilal.]

you are answering your own question - is the requirements for aviation project going to change every three weeks ?

That’s a question for Saab not me. They somehow felt the need and highlighted this point as an achievement. Assuming that the need was there, I am pointing to the challenges of configuration management that may arise from it.

 

[nahtanbob]

That’s a question for Saab not me. They somehow felt the need and highlighted this point as an achievement. Assuming that the need was there, I am pointing to the challenges of configuration management that may arise from it.

It is possible Saab has software to support internal IT operations, vendor management software etc.
Maybe they are using agile processes to support those kind of operations. That would be fine. I find it hard to believe it is useful in construction of fighter aircraft.

From my personal experiences agile processes do not work for a lot of hardware related projects - electrical, mechanical and chemical

 

[denel]

It is possible Saab has software to support internal IT operations, vendor management software etc.
Maybe they are using agile processes to support those kind of operations. That would be fine. I find it hard to believe it is useful in construction of fighter aircraft.

From my personal experiences agile processes do not work for a lot of hardware related projects - electrical, mechanical and chemical

Correct!. It may work for IT and even then - it is a big if!. But for engineering and electrical, it is a dud process and we asked the question - show is the benefits from our traditional build phases to going agile; things take their time and engineering discipline is rigid with formal processes; agile/scrum or what ever the flavour of the month is has no place it in.

 

[Bilal.]

Correct!. It may work for IT and even then - it is a big if!. But for engineering and electrical, it is a dud process and we asked the question - show is the benefits from our traditional build phases to going agile; things take their time and engineering discipline is rigid with formal processes; agile/scrum or what ever the flavour of the month is has no place it in.

I can see the application in aircraft design and pre-prototype phase though.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Scrum/IT is garbage just imagine building JF17 thunder without any requirements you will end up ,making a scooter

Most IT folks hate it as it results in rework or pain

Just type Hate / Agile in google

Scrum/Agile concepts were created by greedy business men to force people to agree to make stuff with no detailed research about what is the end goal


More less for slave labor but the ideas were used to sell stuff to Management that is is the greatest thing in world

• Management dumb , no problem let workers figure it out
• What workers want to know what they are making no problem they will figure it out
• Management don't want accountability no problem , just make a scooter as most viable product
• What if , we added a wing later ?
• Replace architects with , a none technical person with no PHD like what the hell will happen

Imagine , putting a company on auto pilot and management goes to play golf , union will figure it out how to make new product with no requirement or research

 

[denel]

Scrum/IT is garbage just imagine building JF17 thunder without any requirements you will end up ,making a scooter

Most IT folks hate it as it results in rework or pain

Just type Hate / Agile in google

Scrum/Agile concepts were created by greedy business men to force people to agree to make stuff with no detailed research about what is the end goal


More less for slave labor but the ideas were used to sell stuff to Management that is is the greatest thing in world

• Management dumb , no problem let workers figure it out
• What workers want to know what they are making no problem they will figure it out
• Management don't want accountability no problem , just make a scooter as most viable product
• What if , we added a wing later ?
• Replace architects with , a none technical person with no PHD like what the hell will happen

Imagine , putting a company on auto pilot and management goes to play golf , union will figure it out how to make new product with no requirement or research

Correct. It causes too much pain and highly prone to failures. IBM loves to use it but then gets bogged down its its slave labour factory mentality.

I can see the application in aircraft design and pre-prototype phase though.

Actually we used another methodology - Rapid Application/Design Prototyping. For proof of concepts only. This was only to identify possible viable options.

 

[jaibi]

Will talk to you in private, bahijan. Great job!

Background:

I am a certified scrum professional and and enterprise agile coach who has helped many organizations on their agile transformation journey. As a agile practitioner, I often come across the question "How can we implement agile in our (non-IT) industry?" So to address this, I am writing a detailed article where I am planning to answer how different (non-IT) industries have implemented Agile and reaped benefits in terms of improved performance, faster delivery and self-organized teams. Those of you who are aware about project management methodologies or project life cycle will know about the waterfall or agile approaches for managing and executing the projects. Agile is a change-driven and adaptive approach while Scrum or Scaled Scrum are some of the most famous Agile frameworks available.

Introduction:

During my research work for the above mentioned article, I was exploring agile implementations in various industries like construction, manufacturing, pharma, defense and so on. And along the way, I came across this gem and thought I would share it here. Who knows it will reach to some high ups in PAC and we could also benefit from it for our JFT or AZM projects. Basically, its a study about how Swedish Saab Aeronautics Company was able to use one of the Agile framework called Scaled Scrum to build and produce their multirole strike fighter JAS Saab Gripen and as a result are able to roll out a jet every three weeks.


Scrum in Military Aviation
Building a Jet Fighter Faster, Cheaper, Better with Scrum

Advanced military systems are some of the most expensive and complex research, design, and manufacturing challenges in the world! The question is: "How do you control the costs while still delivering the highest quality?"

Saab Aeronautics has scaled Scrum to build and produce the new multi-role strike fighter, the JAS 39E Saab Gripen. Saab is able to deliver a new iteration of the jet every three weeks by using the Scrum framework to organize thousands of engineers into hundreds of teams.

Saab Defense has adopted an Agile process in both hardware and software teams to answer this question and produce the new multi-role strike fighter, the JAS 39E Saab Gripen.

Scrum Inc.'s Joe Justice, and Saab’s Jorgen Furuhjelm explain how SAAB is using Scrum and Agile to deliver high quality products at drastically lower cost in the most complex of domains.

Notes:

1. There are a couple of PDFs that I am attaching for more details about how SAAB is doing this. Please refer to the attached files.
2. There is a detailed video discussion with Saab's Jorgen Furuhjelm on the same topic but I cannot publish it here due to privacy settings. I highly recommend watching this video at following URL:
   

   Scrum in Military Aviation | Scrum Inc

   www.scruminc.com

Please share your thoughts. Can this be used in PAC for JFT and AZM (if its not already in place)?


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[Ali_Baba]

It only partly works for software, if what you are doing with agile can have a high failure rate that you are prepared to fix and accept the cost of failure until you fix it.

Agile works for software designed to have short shelf lives where you are happy to fund a team to keep it agile.

Agile may work for a ecommerce website where failure is an option... agile does not work for things that must must work correctly first time and has a shelf live of 20 years.. eg flight control laws ...

software developed using agile has a higher degree of technical debt, that grows much quicker than conventionally developed software.

I work in IT, have done for 20+ years.. and i hate agile... it produces crap brittle software you then have to burn a lot of time on to fix and stabilise, etc..

people who advocate agile, never hang around long enough to bear the consequences of their approach, so never see the issues it creates..

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

The point that is unclear to me is (and I have not yet gone through the links and attachments) is, compared to a software product where the whole product is changed in each iteration. How does one ensure that each iteration is implemented in the previous batches, and if not, how is the product compatibility and common maintenance ensured. Unless of course, the application of the process is only up to the final prototype stage.

You have automated build and test for each and every proposed change.
If that passes, you have a code review and the code is only merged if approved by reviewers.
If you find that the product fails in a way that was not caught by the tests you add test cases.

 

[nahtanbob]

You have automated build and test for each and every proposed change.
If that passes, you have a code review and the code is only merged if approved by reviewers.
If you find that the product fails in a way that was not caught by the tests you add test cases.

that is the definition for continous integration. it is not limited to agile model

 

[Jazzbot]

WoW!!!

I'm astonished by the responses, most of them were what I was already expecting as they aren't new.

The biggest misunderstanding about scrum and agile in general is, its only suitable for software industry. Some would even argue and claim that it even failed on IT projects as well

Anyways, without pointing fingers - like it or not, Agile, Scrum, Lean and a lot of other agile frameworks are already in use in many different industries and getting more and more popular each passing day. More and more companies are joining the band wagon after looking at the success of being agile.

you can obviously use agile models for software for aerospace domains. i would be careful how and where I apply it. it won't work with some hardware domains because hardware prototypes are expensives

Who said Scrum cannot be used on Hardware? Watch:

Scrum or agile processes were designed for manufacturing as well, not just IT.

I know folks who work in aerospace firms in this town (folks with PMP certs), such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, they all use scrum and agile.

I am no project manager though - could not share more details....Google it maybe...

Exactly, scrum is widely being used in Manufacturing and has already been proven as a major success. There is even an agile framework designed specifically for Manufacturing and its called eXtreme Manufacturing (XM):

eXtreme Manufacturing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Furthermore, LEAN was kind of developed by Toyota motors in mid 1900s and they were able to remove waste from their manufacturing and were able to increase their production capacity many folds. And scrum actually covers most of lean concepts:

Read how Toyota revolutionized large scale manufacturing by using agile practices:

Amazon.com: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer: 8601404279935: Liker, Jeffrey: Books

Amazon.com: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer: 8601404279935: Liker, Jeffrey: Books

www.amazon.com

NO THANK YOU!!!!

I was in this quasi nonsensical scrum approach. For R&D, there are knowns and unknows. Critical path will remain no matter what you do. It fails on falt on its face as there are engineering tests and standards which have to pass.

This is not a small shop IT project where bugs are tolerated. This is engineering areana. There are many difficult areas; design, validation, integration, regression testing, stress testing, materials, etc etc... the list is endless; no one of this works when you use scrum.

My 2cents having been there and done it.

Again, what is the evidence that agile can't be used on Engineering projects?

How Agile in Engineering Changes the Way Products Are Developed?

Is Agile applicable in industrial engineering? If so, how does it work? Find an answer to these and more questions in our guide to Agile engineering.

kanbanize.com

How do you plan for the unknowns in waterfall? Also it is not about how many difficult areas are there in an engineering project but rather about how and where you can do things in an agile way. Scrum helps in planning and execution and it can be implemented anywhere when planning and execution is going to happen. Whether in design, validation, integration, regression / stress esting etc. etc.

Six Sigma black belt will make a lot of sense for process optimization, cost control ??

Yes, it does.

First let me congratulate the OP for having a thinking mind, which is rare.

The problem is that Agile has not really been applied in the Finance industry because it is less intensive in insuring there is no failure.


Secondly, by using Agile, you would open up rabbit holes of parallel developments. This was attempted by the F35 program and was a reason for an endless number of damming screwups.

One problem r&d in fighter development is that different global programs have often missed out the level of documentation by the stage of the program.

Of was found that unnecessary levels of documentation was being called for during r&d that completely screwed up development. This is why Skunkworks was created and was successful.

Skunk Works was the Agile development method of the fighter world. Completely minimize and even eliminate need for documentation and red tape during R&d. Minimize staff to below bare minimum.
Once the aircraft was developed and prototyped, then hand over to the production team, who cab then do all the insane documentation and essentially turn it into RUP.

This transfer of methodologies has been the success story at LM. The moment they tried to mix r&d and production stages and created Agile like concurrent development, they ended up destroying that success and creating one of the greatest failures in aerospace r&d

Completely wrong info sir. F-35 was done using everyone's favorite.... WATERFALL Approach!!!

Yet Another $163B Waterfall Disaster - Scrum Inc.

The F-35 Is Worse Than HealthCare.gov Vocative.com - Eric Markowitz, 25 Mar 2014 The $400 billion jet project is the most expensive weapon the Pentagon

www.scruminc.com

Excerpt:
Dated: Mar 2014
The $400 billion jet (F-35) project is the most expensive weapon the Pentagon has ever purchased. It's also seven years behind schedule and $163 billion over budget ...
And here’s the kicker: According to a 41-page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, the F-35, which has yet to fly a single official mission, will stay grounded for at least another 13 months because of “problems completing software testing.”


F-35 was done using Traditional Waterfall, not agile and turned out to be the biggest fighter avaition disaster as a project.

Saab Grippen on the other hand was done using Agile / Scrum and feast your eyes:

Scrum/IT is garbage just imagine building JF17 thunder without any requirements you will end up ,making a scooter

Most IT folks hate it as it results in rework or pain

Just type Hate / Agile in google

Scrum/Agile concepts were created by greedy business men to force people to agree to make stuff with no detailed research about what is the end goal


More less for slave labor but the ideas were used to sell stuff to Management that is is the greatest thing in world

• Management dumb , no problem let workers figure it out
• What workers want to know what they are making no problem they will figure it out
• Management don't want accountability no problem , just make a scooter as most viable product
• What if , we added a wing later ?
• Replace architects with , a none technical person with no PHD like what the hell will happen

Imagine , putting a company on auto pilot and management goes to play golf , union will figure it out how to make new product with no requirement or research

Who said we do projects in agile without requirements?

Sorry, but your post has too much misinformation and incorrect stuff that I almost don't want to answer this. People hate agile or scrum mostly due to their lack of knowledge about it or they just don't want to change the way they are working. People are generally resistant to change and are afraid of changing their day to day work style or be more honest, open and transparent (as per agile practices) about their work.

There is no concept of slave labor in agile. This shows your lack of knowledge to be honest. Agile actually empowers the team and make them self organized. Its the waterfall or traditional approach where employees are forced to work late or given tight deadlines. In agile, the team decides the time they want to do the task, they even decide which task to be prioritized or rescheduled.

Anyways, I can't help you more. You need to read more about what Agile / Scrum really is, then we can talk if you want.

It only partly works for software, if what you are doing with agile can have a high failure rate that you are prepared to fix and accept the cost of failure until you fix it.

Agile works for software designed to have short shelf lives where you are happy to fund a team to keep it agile.

Agile may work for a ecommerce website where failure is an option... agile does not work for things that must must work correctly first time and has a shelf live of 20 years.. eg flight control laws ...

software developed using agile has a higher degree of technical debt, that grows much quicker than conventionally developed software.

I work in IT, have done for 20+ years.. and i hate agile... it produces crap brittle software you then have to burn a lot of time on to fix and stabilise, etc..

people who advocate agile, never hang around long enough to bear the consequences of their approach, so never see the issues it creates..

What is the proof that agile only works for software and is prone to high failure rate, high cost of failure etc. It doesn't matter whether you have 20+ years of experience or 50+ years of experience. What really matters is whether you were doing it right or not.

If you failed to do it right, or if you just hate it - that doesn't mean that the approach or framework is wrong. Not to brag about something but I have already helped 3 large organizations (multinational) - and they have improved in many areas multiple folds. Similarly, you can do some google and see what is happening around the globe with agile transformations.

Agile is not fix to every problem and its not pure magic. So it will not fix the problems from day one. That is why we call is agile transformation journey which takes months if not years to train people, change their mindset, change organizational culture and make agile practices as habit - only then you start to see the benefits. People expect the things to magically change the moment the utter the magic word agile from their mouth. It doesn't happen like that. Other times, they just claim or think that they are doing things in agile ways but in reality they are not so when they fail (which they were destined to anyways), they jump on guns and start blaming agile. I hope you are not one of those people.

 

[Armchair]

Problem is it is easy to know enough to think you are right, but hard to be educated enough to know you are wrong...

 

[denel]

WoW!!!

I'm astonished by the responses, most of them were what I was already expecting as they aren't new.

The biggest misunderstanding about scrum and agile in general is, its only suitable for software industry. Some would even argue and claim that it even failed on IT projects as well

Anyways, without pointing fingers - like it or not, Agile, Scrum, Lean and a lot of other agile frameworks are already in use in many different industries and getting more and more popular each passing day. More and more companies are joining the band wagon after looking at the success of being agile.



Who said Scrum cannot be used on Hardware? Watch:

View attachment 678966







Exactly, scrum is widely being used in Manufacturing and has already been proven as a major success. There is even an agile framework designed specifically for Manufacturing and its called eXtreme Manufacturing (XM):

eXtreme Manufacturing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Furthermore, LEAN was kind of developed by Toyota motors in mid 1900s and they were able to remove waste from their manufacturing and were able to increase their production capacity many folds. And scrum actually covers most of lean concepts:

View attachment 678967


Read how Toyota revolutionized large scale manufacturing by using agile practices:

Amazon.com: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer: 8601404279935: Liker, Jeffrey: Books

Amazon.com: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer: 8601404279935: Liker, Jeffrey: Books

www.amazon.com

Again, what is the evidence that agile can't be used on Engineering projects?

How Agile in Engineering Changes the Way Products Are Developed?

Is Agile applicable in industrial engineering? If so, how does it work? Find an answer to these and more questions in our guide to Agile engineering.

kanbanize.com

How do you plan for the unknowns in waterfall? Also it is not about how many difficult areas are there in an engineering project but rather about how and where you can do things in an agile way. Scrum helps in planning and execution and it can be implemented anywhere when planning and execution is going to happen. Whether in design, validation, integration, regression / stress esting etc. etc.




Yes, it does.




Completely wrong info sir. F-35 was done using everyone's favorite.... WATERFALL Approach!!!

Yet Another $163B Waterfall Disaster - Scrum Inc.

The F-35 Is Worse Than HealthCare.gov Vocative.com - Eric Markowitz, 25 Mar 2014 The $400 billion jet project is the most expensive weapon the Pentagon

www.scruminc.com

Excerpt:
Dated: Mar 2014
The $400 billion jet (F-35) project is the most expensive weapon the Pentagon has ever purchased. It's also seven years behind schedule and $163 billion over budget ...
And here’s the kicker: According to a 41-page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, the F-35, which has yet to fly a single official mission, will stay grounded for at least another 13 months because of “problems completing software testing.”


F-35 was done using Traditional Waterfall, not agile and turned out to be the biggest fighter avaition disaster as a project.

Saab Grippen on the other hand was done using Agile / Scrum and feast your eyes:

View attachment 678977

View attachment 678978





Who said we do projects in agile without requirements?

Sorry, but your post has too much misinformation and incorrect stuff that I almost don't want to answer this. People hate agile or scrum mostly due to their lack of knowledge about it or they just don't want to change the way they are working. People are generally resistant to change and are afraid of changing their day to day work style or be more honest, open and transparent (as per agile practices) about their work.

There is no concept of slave labor in agile. This shows your lack of knowledge to be honest. Agile actually empowers the team and make them self organized. Its the waterfall or traditional approach where employees are forced to work late or given tight deadlines. In agile, the team decides the time they want to do the task, they even decide which task to be prioritized or rescheduled.

Anyways, I can't help you more. You need to read more about what Agile / Scrum really is, then we can talk if you want.





What is the proof that agile only works for software and is prone to high failure rate, high cost of failure etc. It doesn't matter whether you have 20+ years of experience or 50+ years of experience. What really matters is whether you were doing it right or not.

If you failed to do it right, or if you just hate it - that doesn't mean that the approach or framework is wrong. Not to brag about something but I have already helped 3 large organizations (multinational) - and they have improved in many areas multiple folds. Similarly, you can do some google and see what is happening around the globe with agile transformations.

Agile is not fix to every problem and its not pure magic. So it will not fix the problems from day one. That is why we call is agile transformation journey which takes months if not years to train people, change their mindset, change organizational culture and make agile practices as habit - only then you start to see the benefits. People expect the things to magically change the moment the utter the magic word agile from their mouth. It doesn't happen like that. Other times, they just claim or think that they are doing things in agile ways but in reality they are not so when they fail (which they were destined to anyways), they jump on guns and start blaming agile. I hope you are not one of those people.

well I have PMP,6 Six Sigma done; 20+ major projects under the belt to know what works and what does not. I am not going to jump on a flavour of the month.