How do agility and Automotive SPICE® go together?

The most important things at a glance:

1. Why does it make sense for companies to engage with agility and Automotive SPICE®?
2. What constitutes agile development in Automotive SPICE®?
3. How are agility and automotive connected?
4. What experience do you have with the implementation of agile methods, taking into account current regulations such as Automotive SPICE® or ISO 26262 - Functional Safety?
5. Summarizing remarks on agility and Automotive SPICE®

In times of constant change, it is important for successful companies to focus intensively on agility and Automotive SPICE®. Find out why in this article.

Why does it make sense for companies to engage with agility and Automotive SPICE®?

The automotive industry is in a constant state of change. And this means that Approaches related to development and are being optimized ever more rapidly. An increase in product dynamics and complexity can be clearly observed due to changes in new and extensive products and services. In order to keep pace with this development, changes within the company, processes and forms of cooperation are necessary. Agility and flexibility are the key prerequisites for meeting the requirements of automotive E/E development.

If you want to be on a par with the competition, you should focus more and more on Agility and Automotive SPICE® set.

But what changes exactly do you need to consider and address? On the one hand, the Complexity of the products and the number and Speed of requirement changes. On the other hand, the Time-to-market shorter and shorter. In order to keep the competition at bay in a new and unfortunately also unstable field of technology, it is particularly advisable to always stay up to date in order to stay one step ahead of the competition. Through Agile methods and practices this can also be implemented. This is because agile methods can "Development of new technologies" (including autonomous driving, connected cars and electromobility) can be an important support for a company during implementation. Agility therefore complements Automotive SPICE® practices in many ways.

What constitutes agile development in Automotive SPICE®?

1. The development is in several, small steps (iteration) (takes a maximum of one to four weeks).
2. Within each development step, a product part is delivered and at the same time Customer feedback caught up.
3. The following principle applies: "Quality First". This means that bug fixing and stability come before the development of new features.
4. The Development teams work independently and have greater decision-making power, as there is no micromanagement.

Reflection on work processes

We regularly reflect on how work processes can be further optimized and how the teams can work more effectively. This is important:

1. Only start a task if you think you have sufficient knowledge to complete it.
2. Communicate current developments and progress transparently.
3. Develop quick and effective solutions together as a team.

In the combined approach, the Automotive SPICE® requirements and the ISO 26262 requirements are examined first. Both have a large overlap with Automotive SPICE®. By combining both models, both Automotive SPICE® requirements and ISO 26262 requirements are considered in the evaluation - and the existing synergies are thus optimally taken into account. The additional process and method requirements of ISO 26262 are also examined using FS-specific questions.

How are agility and automotive connected?

Agility and automotive are clearly linked. Studies prove this. They show how agile methods can

1. the Dealing with changing priorities in management is improved.
2. the Productivity of employees increases, as the Team morale and thereby the Motivation rise.
3. the Transparency and Predictability increase in the project.

All on the condition that agile development processes are integrated into internal company processes.

On the one hand, you can see that agile methods support the requirements of Automotive SPICE® very well and that they can be implemented even better as a result. On the other hand, agile practices are not completely sufficient for other processes, such as configuration and delivery management.

Nevertheless, agile methods and Automotive SPICE® complement each other on many levels. As a result, established automotive requirements can be implemented even better. While agility relates more to the processes in the team and the human factors, Automotive SPICE® focuses more on the fundamental processes and existing work projects. If agile development is also combined with continuous integration, test-driven development and a high degree of process automation, greater benefits can be achieved for the company.

What experience do you have with the implementation of agile methods, taking into account current regulations such as Automotive SPICE® or ISO 26262 - Functional Safety?

The overriding principle as soon as you want to use agile methods in conjunction with Automotive SPICE® and ISO 26262 is: "Functional safety first, then agility". This is derived from the previous section. Better handling of changing priorities, improved transparency and stronger team morale (achieved through agile approaches) can also be applied to the development of safety-critical systems.

Agile methods therefore do not exclude functional safety, but rather complement the processes. At the same time, however, companies should always weigh up the extent to which agile methods are an advantage for functional safety. After all, functional safety should always have a higher priority than agility.

Summarizing remarks on agility and Automotive SPICE®

Agile approaches are the ideal response to a dynamic market environment because they

• enable short development cycles,
• Ensure transparency and clear responsibilities,
• allow interdisciplinary problem solving by globally distributed teams and continuous learning.

Agile methods can bring significant additional benefits in the automotive environment. They can also be used without contradicting Automotive SPICE® if established basic automotive requirements continue to be met. For a coverage analysis, it is advisable to assign the agile elements to the process results.

Automotive SPICE® focuses on processes and projects, while agile methods concentrate on the team and the human factors in development. Today, agile working is used in global development projects with several hundred developers at numerous locations.

Some agile practices support Automotive SPICE® requirements well, but specific additions are needed.

Agile development provides greater benefits when combined with continuous integration, test-driven development and a high degree of process automation.

We support and plan the optimization of your processes and methods at every stage of development and implementation. You can always rely on us and the results of our work.

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