Success Stories
Rethinking product development: agile transformation through incremental improvements during operation
Industry: Automotive OEM | Period: 9 months | Team size: 5 consultants
In times of disruptive upheaval – from global newcomers and geopolitical volatility to increasing sustainability requirements, electromobility and software-defined, highly individualized products – complexity is growing to a new level. The decisive step: a cultural shift towards agile structures and systematic process optimization. This is how innovative strength, outstanding quality and focused customer orientation merge into a powerful engine for forward-looking solutions – the foundation for a leading position in international competition.
To ensure long-term competitiveness, the overall vehicle development of a premium car manufacturer is being realigned: It is to become more adaptable, focused and responsive in order to react confidently to market changes today and tomorrow. A standardized, agile working model for around 3,000 employees – from management to teams – is at the heart of this transformation. Targeted coaching in agile methods and mindset is creating a common understanding that still leaves room for department-specific requirements. This cultural and methodological change has a lasting impact on day-to-day collaboration.
The Challenge
- Breaking down historically grown silos: Overall vehicle development operates in a highly complex network of different hierarchies and specialist areas. Historically grown silos and lengthy decision-making processes make value stream-oriented collaboration difficult and need to be broken down in a targeted manner.
- Anchoring change in ongoing operations: At the same time, the transformation must not slow down ongoing operations. Changes in working methods must be designed in such a way that they take effect seamlessly without jeopardizing productivity and time-to-market.
- Create a shared understanding of the target vision: A shared understanding of the new methods and tools is essential. Only if the added value of the agile way of working is clearly communicated and made tangible will the necessary acceptance and self-motivation be created in the team.
- Lack of complete transparency: Finally, transparency forms the backbone of agile organizations. Open insight into processes, responsibilities, resources and priorities ensures that everyone involved works on value creation in a targeted manner and that innovative strength is sustainably increased.
We see concrete results: shorter decision-making processes, fewer meetings and significantly improved time-to-market. OR Real-time transparency in projects has enabled us to optimally allocate resources and minimize risks OR With the new rituals and tools, our workflow is now leaner, more flexible and geared towards creating real added value.
XY Product Owner Product sustainability
The Success Journey
01
Co-creation: enabling knowledge sharing and fast results
With the “lead by example” approach, we as external coaches bring agile procedures, principles and values directly into the ongoing transformation work by exemplifying them and ensuring transparency and understanding.
The close collaboration between internal experts and external coaches in transformation teams enabled the transfer of knowledge into the organization. This enabled initial results to be achieved quickly and the agile mindset to grow organically and sustainably throughout the entire company.
02
Scale-by-design: enabling sustainable acceptance for broad use
The working model and rollout concept were developed for a scalable implementation. Early maturity level and environment analyses delivered quick wins and created immediate benefits. Precise adjustments were made based on the generic working model and the individual needs of the individual areas as well as the real framework conditions. These serve to anchor the agile working model in the company and lead the vision to long-term success. This approach enabled implementation on time and on budget with maximum acceptance and directly noticeable added value.
03
Best practices: Developing pilot-driven blueprints
The individual working model was then brought to life in targeted pilot projects in productive environments. This allowed the customized working model to be introduced and further developed quickly and with minimal risk. The resulting empirical database provides valuable insights. Based on these results, tailor-made blueprints and best practices are created that can be seamlessly transferred to other areas and continuously optimized.
04
Inspect & Adapt: Continuous optimization
The continuous “Inspect & Adapt” cycle creates a robust framework for the agile transformation and far beyond. Individual development stages - based on the agile maturity levels - ensure that each further development fits seamlessly into the overall organizational structure and enables sustainable success. These stages are run through in short iterations and measures for further optimization are immediately defined on the basis of empirical data. The new way of thinking and approach enables an agile response to changing market and company conditions.
The Impact at Launch
- Higher throughput – shorter time-to-market
Clearly defined processes, rituals and roles allow orders to be managed in an orderly manner, priorities to be set transparently and resources to be allocated in a targeted manner. This increases throughput, minimizes non-value-adding activities and noticeably accelerates time-to-market. This keeps the focus on value creation at all times, while decision paths become leaner. - Lean coordination: Minimized reporting effort, maximum focus
The effort required for coordination and reporting is significantly reduced if the right experts are always in contact at the right time. Endless meetings are no longer necessary, decisions are on the table more quickly and are immediately comprehensible for everyone involved. Within just two months, committee time was reduced by 15% – while maintaining the same level of quality. - Real-time transparency for agile resource utilization and risk minimization
In a volatile market environment, tool-supported transparency ensures optimal resource utilization and maximum flexibility. Everyone knows at all times who is working on which topics and which tasks are due next. Information rounds become superfluous, direct communication improves, costs fall and risks can be effectively minimized.
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