When worlds collide – a comparative analysis of issues impeding adoption of agile for hardware

The objective of this paper is to explore challenges identified for implementation of scrum for hardware development intersect with agile principles found in the literature. A series of comparative analyses are done at the textual level, through logical intersections, and through thematic analysis. It is shown that there are five underlying themes found across two sets of scrum challenges (constraints of physicality and the 13 principles). These five themes include: flexiblity, chunkability, scalability, endurability, and teamability. These five themes further are found related to the defining principles of the agile manifesto. Using this understanding, future efforts will include empirical case study work to determine the impact that these have on application of scrum methods and tools. Additionally, guidelines should be developed to help hardware product engineers in applying scrum.