A guideline for modelling relations of embodiment and function in agile development

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A guideline for modelling relations of embodiment and function in agile development Patric Grauberger1   · Jonas Heimicke1   · Samuel Nann1 · Albert Albers1   · Sven Matthiesen1  Received: 2 December 2019 / Accepted: 28 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020  OPEN

Abstract In current product development, the increased usage of agile approaches from software development is observable. With these approaches, improved responsiveness of developer teams to the dynamics of today’s markets is desired. However, the gain of technical knowledge in these approaches has so far received little support, leading to difficulties in implementation in engineering design projects that deal with physical product aspects. This contribution aims to provide a guideline to gain technical knowledge about physical products in agile processes through the usage of qualitative modelling of embodiment function relations. This guideline is developed by integrating and adapting the Contact and Channel approach into the agile approach Agile Systems Design. It aims at aiding the evolutionary and iterative development in rapid cycles through fractal modelling of qualitative technical knowledge. The guideline is applied in two development projects. It shows potential to support developer teams by providing different aspects of the Contact and Channel approach in different phases of agile projects, depending on the tackled task. Keywords  Engineering design · Design process · Design method · Agile development

1 Introduction The development context of mechatronic systems is subject to increasingly complex requirements that change dynamically [1]. They can be traced back to non-transparent product development processes with a large number of stakeholders that impose inhomogeneous and mostly implicit goals on the developed products. To meet the resulting uncertainties, companies started to implement agile approaches. They allow higher responsiveness to changes in the development context through an iterative and incremental procedure, compared to classic approaches such as the waterfall [2, 3]. Agile approaches such as Scrum according to Schwaber [4] or Design Thinking [5] make agile principles operational for self-organized and cross-functional developer teams through short sprints, continuous review and feedback

loops [6]. Through this, developer teams follow an iterative approach to increase the customer value of a product in the best possible way [7]. However, these approaches usually address project management (Scrum) or creative problem-solving (Design Thinking) and do not take into account that products are mostly developed in generations and not "on white paper" [8]. Accordingly, they do not contain any mechanisms to stimulate the technical experience of the developers and do not integrate this experience into the development context. Especially in agile approaches, this is necessary, as physical prototypes are built for decision and validation purposes from the start of the development. The developers need to carry out design activities much earlier t