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Developers can learn a lot from other industries. As a thought exercise, is it possible to build a passenger aircraft using agile techniques?
Forgetting cost for now; how feasible is it to use iterative and incremental development for both the hardware (fuselage, wings, etc) as well as software, and still come out with a working and safe product which meets the customer’s requirements at the time of delivery?
Does it make sense to refactor a plane?
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Boeing was an early Agile adopter in 2008 surpassing its rival, Airbus, in 2012 by deploying a newly renovated 737 Max 8 faster to market. In 2018/2019, two of the 737 MAX planes went down due to a software error, deployed to production with minimal testing or user training.
Agile – a project management approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the life cycle. Agile development – an umbrella term specifically for iterative software development methodologies. Popular methods include Scrum, Lean, DSDM and eXtreme Programming (XP).
Agile project management virtually eliminates the chances of absolute project failure. Working in sprints allows teams to develop a working product from the beginning or fail fast and take another approach.
The agile movement revolutionised the way technology companies operated and was a key driving force behind successes like Google, Facebook and Airbnb. But, two decades after it started, the movement is now dead with the final blow dealt by McKinsey recently promoting an “agile transformation office”.
Agile in software and Agile in manufacturing are really quite different, although they share similar principals and values.
Agile in manufacturing emerged in Japan in the 1950s. Read up on W.E. Deming and the Toyota Production System to find out more. It's all about constantly improving the process whereby a product is reproduced.
Agile in software evolved in the early 1990s as a rapid development model. It's all about constantly improving the product.
You can certainly build a plane using Agile manufacturing methods, I've no doubt that some already are. Anything built in Japan definitely will be as Agile manufacturing is very well established there (it's taught in primary schools).
You couldn't build a plane using Agile software methods because you can't afford to rapidly change the product - in software changes and mistakes are cheap and reproduction is free. This isn't the case for aviation.
You could design a prototype plane using something like Agile software methods - but it would have to be standardised in order to be reproduced (a design task in itself).
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