How to make swarms work.

“Swarm” is our Daimler word for scrum team. We use swarms for complex cross-functional projects, e.g. building the Digital Twin of a car or a new global procurement system.

Swarms – another way of doing things.

Working in swarms is one of the eight game-changing principles within the “Leadership 2020” initiative, which we drive forward throughout the company. Very simply defined, swarms are cross-functional groups with clear roles delivering a product in an agile way – in other words, a “Daimler Swarm” is a scrum team.

From an IT perspective, it was a great help that the notion of a swarm was introduced throughout the company by “Leadership 2020”, making it easier for our IT teams to apply the agile and scrum methodology with our business partners.

Where we work in swarms.

Let me introduce you to two of our current projects where we use swarm methods: one is developing and implementing a new procurement system (NPS) – a large-scale project, which is there to take procurement at Daimler to the next level; another one is building Digital Twins for each of our vehicles to track hardware and software changes made to the physical counterpart in real-time.

Truly agile? With over 80 experts?

Both are large projects with over 80 experts each - from different business units and continents, including Asia, South America, and Europe.

Now you may be asking how this works out. Over 80 people don’t really seem agile at first glance. That’s why in both examples the teams are made up of different modules, which work together as the need demands – with the focus on one common goal. 

Agility ensures creativity and user centricity.

According to the scrum methodology, the swarm teams break software requirements down into small portions. During Backlog Preparation, the Product Owners plan and prioritize the topics. They then enter these topics into the modules, where the scrum teams refine them for the Sprint Planning.

Within short sprints, they specify, implement, and test. This accelerates the process and enables us to take on board user feedback, and to accommodate new requirements and trends more easily.

Fixed roles, clear rules, and key communication moments.

To ensure best communication, the swarm teams share key moments such as daily stand-ups - not with the whole swarm, but within the modules. This helps the team members to discuss and coordinate the current progress of work.

Furthermore, review meetings are held after each sprint, and serve to check the content of the work produced – initially at the module level (Sprint Review) and then for the entire project (Bazaar). The integration between agile teams is key to building a consistent product.

We also found that an open culture of communication in which everyone is free to voice their opinion combined with a good dose of discipline are main success factors in our swarms.

Workshops with experts from outside the swarm.

Specific topics call for specific knowledge – sometimes also from outside the swarm. Workshops and deep-dive sessions with experts help to address these topics and support the swarm team with additional expertise. This approach helps ensure that requirements are incorporated into the ongoing system development.

And it works – not just in theory.

Developing a new global procurement system or a Digital Twin for each vehicle are projects with many stakeholders and great international reach. But broken down into small pieces, we have delivered productive go-lives just months after starting them – which not only makes me proud, it also shows that swarming works – not just in theory. 

I like being around our swarm teams: always a good atmosphere.