— differences, maturity, Scrum, advantage, guidance  …

Speaker: Kevin Thompson, Ph.D , Agile Practice Lead, CPrime
Meeting Date: Thursday, December  3, 2015
Time: 6.00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm sandwich dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: AMD Commons Building / AMD Campus, Sunnyvale
Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.
Presentation: Using Agile in a Hardware Project In 2014, cPrime and TCGen conducted a survey of fourteen companies to understand how they develop hardware products, and how they employ Agile techniques to achieve their goals.
  We found that most of the obvious differences between hardware and software development have to do with the nature and sequencing of deliverables, in ways that impact the work to be done, but do not invalidate the concept of an Agile process. We discovered some fundamental differences between software and hardware, such as the evolving nature of hardware maturity, and how to translate the role of the Scrum Master to the requirements of hardware development without impacting budget. Our key finding is that many of the Agile techniques pioneered for software development apply, with some modification, to hardware development as well.
In this presentation, Kevin Thompson will summarize the research findings, and provide practical guidance about how to structure an Agile process for hardware development. He will describe how common Agile concepts map well to hardware development. He will also address how hardware-specific considerations shape an Agile process differently from what is commonly seen in software development.

Bio: Kevin Thompson, Ph.D., is a physicist, former software developer and project manager, and current researcher and consultant in the field of Agile Project Management. As cPrime’s Agile Practice Lead, Dr. Thompson has trained thousands of people in Scrum and Kanban, and created cPrime’s Agile Scaling and Portfolio-Management solutions and consulting standards. He has helped over one hundred clients, ranging from very small to very large, with Agile development of Web applications, Data Warehouse & Business Intelligence systems, Cloud Computing, Compilers, computer games, and medical products. Dr. Thompson is committed to advancing the state of the art of Agile Project Management, not only within, but beyond, the world of software-product development. His pioneering RAGE paper (Recipes for Agile Governance in the Enterprise), innovation in Agile Portfolio Management, and current research in Agile Hardware development reflect this commitment. Dr. Thompson earned his BS in Physics from Santa Clara University, and his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University.