AGILE IN DEFENSE PROJECTS: IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE

1.????????????Introduction. Its ?popular knowledge that Agile Frameworks are only adopted in Corporates but very little is said about Agile Framework adoption in Defense Projects. Whilst exploring the subject for How to adopt Agile methodologies ? during my research I was encouraged to read about the SAAB Gripen E , Sweden’s Fighter Plane Project. How SAAB adopted the Agile Framework is a very interesting. A lot of learning gained from SAAB’s journey which helped in my project management journey implementing Agile.

2.????????????Most Defense projects are high cost and strategic in value, specifically projects involving design & manufacture of submarines, aircrafts & ships. Aircrafts & submarines are more complex as they involve designing platforms, which are required to operate in extremes of human envelope working against nature. The case in point is, that the process of making such extreme machines also becomes costly if not managed effectively & efficiently. SAAB saw an opportunity to catalyse the Scrum / Agile Frame work in their GRIPEN-E fighter development project.

?3.????????????When we look at Agile its related to being a ?Mindset often, involving continuous ?thinking whilst managing a project. Agile if implemented diligently brings in flexibility, adaptability, commitment, capacity to work load alignment & ?high degree of transparency to the benefit of the Product Development. A methodology which not only helps teams to ensure that variances in the product build requirements is quickly brought to the surface, but also the process issues which effect the cadence are brought to light and also, expedites the response of teams to mitigate or rectify it. Having said that, the learning’s from SAAB’s Agile Methodology implementation journey is highlighted below:-

?(a)???????????Product Building v/s Way of Building Product.?In big projects like fighter aircraft manufacturing , the product (the fighter jet) ?is very costly involving high value material , expertise & technology. But the moot point is the process or the way of making it is also costly. Which is an aspect given limited thought in Highly Functional Organisations . As they are anchored in the work , that they seldom have critical look into the imperfections of management ?for achieving effectiveness and efficiency. SAAB looked into this aspect with a keen eye for detail, ?to restructure & reorganise on lines of Agile/Scrum framework to achieve results.

(b)???????????Organisation Harmony & Team Synchronisation. Dedicated, co-located & cross functional teams looking at software , hardware , fuselage design & metallurgical/ material requirements all aligned towards the main goal; the final product Gripen-E Jet Fighter. This was done by full scale transparency with information available on KANBAN boards and teams empowered to respond with full authority, taking the decision making power to the level at which ?information & expertise to respond to the problem rests. Hence, decentralising decision making for achieving expeditious increments towards final product delivery. Teams had full freedom to generate their own innovative solution. Thereby, minimising Organisational Hierarchy, a very rigid entity of a Waterfall framework in a Functional Organisation.

?(c)????????????Response to Variance.?Variance is nothing but change , which is often encountered in Projects leading to manifested risks. More often in fighter projects the stakeholder mainly the customer who is the pilot becomes vital to design and development of the final product. So, product owner who interacts with these pilots have to be good at stakeholder engagement. SAAB made the product owner as proxy customers to test the design features , technical improvements & tasks and prioritised the increments towards final delivery. ??Here, Product owner had to?be an astute communicator to interact between teams & customers. The vital kingpin were the Product Owner(s).

?(d)???????????Managing Complexity. With over 1000 engineers and many teams doing critical interdependent work, the vital requirement was smooth integration. This required Enterprise level cadence & synchronisation. So every iteration was broken into manageable increments, completed in sprints of 3 weeks and time boxed to a quarter, quantified by the targets to be achieved within that timeframe. This helped the development steps towards building the fighter. ?Adopting Scrum helped SAAB not only to quickly force issues & variances to the surface, but also respond to it expeditiously. This made the Organisation structurally Agile. As Conway’s Law says Organisational Structure drives Product/Software Structure as it should not other way round (figure below indicates)

?(e)???????????Workload Management.?We see this all the time ; Team Workload > Team Capacity. With Scrum Framework adoption , transparency or clarity of what to do next ?& work load prioritisation reduced the bane of Multitasking , unfinished work & ?stress leading to better effectiveness , efficiency & most important greater productivity. Hence , better management of workload.

?(f)?????????????System Thinking View. Having an enterprise level system thinking view gave teams better transparency & clarity for managing integration. This helped establish targets by a top down & bottom up approach with well-defined delivery to validate & verify the product.

?(g)???????????Strategic Planning.???????A system view & transparency helped establish road map with check points or nodes where Waterfall met Agile/Scrum. This met ?necessities of milestones being transparent achieving organisational alignment with less chances of incorrect movement , meeting correct development steps. Though Agile increased the number of milestones but it also help break it down to manageable iterations and increments with tight monitoring at all levels with Scrum events.

?(h)???????????Continuous Improvement.?????With Scrum retrospective for individual teams and Scrum retrospective scaled across teams to not only help highlight technical issues , process issues but leadership issues also. So , process & product feedback both were diligently analysed to understand problems & institute measures. KAIZEN all the way.

4. Conclusion.???????????Finally, Agile methodology catalysed the entire process to build an effective 4th Generation plus fighter at a lower cost ‘MAKING A DIFFERENCE’. A cost effective solution meeting all stated requirements. Achieved by changing or let’s say transforming the WAY OF BUILDING/ MANUFACTURING JET FIGHTERS. A pioneering feat by SAAB & a management learning & motivation for many Organisations & firms in Defense Production. ??

?Way to Go SAAB !?

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