How Configuration Management supports the shift in Customer Focus

Co-Authors: Lucas Heckmann, Florian Böhme, Jean-Hervé Poisson & Badia Dandana

This is the second article in the CM+Agile series. This time we will dive into the required shift in Customer Focus and how Configuration Management can support this shift.

Why do corporations like most Western Automotive OEMs struggle with products that have short life cycles?

Corporations like most Western Automotive OEMs face significant challenges when it comes to developing products with short iterations. One of the main reasons for this lies in the existing thought patterns, which do not translate well to software products. Traditionally, the automotive industry placed great emphasis on physical attributes like panel gaps. However, in today’s era where software plays an increasingly vital role in products, these thought patterns need to be adjusted. While panel gaps remain an important quality aspect, a new motto emerges:

“Software quality is the new panel gap.”

Another issue is the often neglected but required shift in customer focus from personas to actual customers. From an agile perspective, customer focus is crucial in product development and should enjoy high priority even in product identification. In the realm of software features with a short time to market, it’s crucial to thoroughly consider the increasing importance of variability, which in turn adds to the complexity of development.

Agile Customer Focus in Product Development

One of the fundamental principles of the Agile Manifesto is customer focus. Agile methods are employed in product development to adhere to this principle. This includes early and regular delivery of tangible features, which can have different life cycles depending on their category. 

The first step is to understand the customer. Then, we must understand how our product or system should be designed to meet customer desires. Models like the KANO model can be helpful in this regard. 

The KANO model addresses 3 categories of features to include. The first, basic features must be fulfilled, and they often do not require frequent updates. This also includes defining interfaces for potential future features or components. 

Secondly, performance features are characterized by the fact that an increased implementation linearly enhances customer satisfaction. Here, it is important to determine from customer understanding and the market which development iteration cycles are necessary. 

Necessity of Short Development Cycles in Enthusiasm Features

The third category consists of enthusiasm features, which often come with new functionalities, apps, or the like. It is precisely in this area where the need for short development cycles is greatest, as enthusiasm features frequently provide significant advantages over the competition.

Even with enthusiasm features, certain components will still have a longer development cycle like hardware, whereas the software can follow a shorter cycle. When identifying the items that are relevant to your configuration, it must be clear which cycle they are following. This is relevant for identification, impact analysis, and planning of changes.

Challenges for Configuration Management

The increased customer focus also requires adjustments in configuration management. In the past, systems were primarily derived and identified from functions. Nowadays, modular product structures and the identification of necessary development cycles are also part of it. To accommodate for the right level of development iteration cycles, the modularity and interface definitions must match with the need for changing requirements. 

A chassis typically does not change a lot over time for a given platform, but it does constrain the other modules that need to be developed. The iteration cycle you need on the chassis is less than the iteration cycle you need for the infotainment system. Both are shared across different vehicles. The infotainment system can be completely changed during a facelift of the model, while the chassis will remain as-is. This translates to how you need to break down the product and identify the various modules and interfaces. Agility is then about the ability to accommodate these different iteration cycles and the ability to accommodate any changes to these iteration cycles when required.

When done right the product breakdown will allow for changes to be implemented fast and efficiently without having to worry about the integrity of the configuration and performance and behavior of the car. 

Note that this is not only about the development itself but also about the industrialization of the changes in the factory and supply chain. If you are only able to develop new documentation fast, but not industrialize these changes, you just created a choke point. The focus on becoming agile should not only be on the development side of the organization but an organization-wide endeavor. 

These extensions and new insights enable product managers to adjust the project organization accordingly and respond to customer needs and market requirements.

Why Long Development Cycles Are Accepted in Agility

The question is why agile configuration management allows long development cycles, even though rapid market responsiveness is one of the main arguments for agility. This can be easily explained when considering customer focus. From the customer’s perspective, rapid response is especially required for enthusiasm features. Updates and advancements at the core of a product, such as panel gaps in the automotive industry, are more often than not planned and implemented on a new product or platform.

Traditionally, panel gaps were a benchmark of German engineering. However, while automotive companies require about 5-7 years to bring a new vehicle to market, companies like Amazon release thousands of updates daily. While you probably do not want a car manufacturer sending thousands of updates daily to your car due to concerns for driving safety, the ability to improve and provide new infotainment features will change the business model of most car manufacturers.

Source:  (The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim)

Note that for the above companies the lack of strict regulations for safety like in automotive, is allowing this kind of frequency. However Tesla releases about 150 updates per year, of which most do not fall in the category of safety-related, but in 2023 alone there were at least 6 updates related to Full Self Drive.

In any case, the required maturity level of your configuration management (and systems engineering) capabilities increases with the frequency of releases and the number of regulations to adhere to. Otherwise, you pay the price for costly quality escapes, delays, or recall campaigns which are unacceptable for OEMs in the current transforming market environments.

Compatibility of Agility and Traditional Product Development

The compatibility of these two approaches necessitates substantial changes. Enthusiastic software requires agility, while exceptional hardware demands perfection. This requires a transformation in engineering disciplines and configuration management. Both HW and SW engineers need to collaborate based on clearly defined interfaces and a common language for these which need to become part of the configuration baseline. 

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The key is to develop new concepts, and thought patterns and adopt agile values such as customer focus – and continually improve them

Change always goes in hand with opportunity. Traditional and established market leads, also in the world of relatively long-lasting products like cars, can be caught up by new incumbents. 

For everyone, it will be a primary challenge to find the right balance between ever-increasing regulatory requirements and the required feature variability & agility in engineering.

Conclusion

Customer focus is a crucial principle of Agile where the key ability is to continually match product iterations with customer expectations. This requires a shift of perspective in engineering disciplines, especially from the more traditional hardware-defined engineering. A mature Configuration Management can support by implementing new approaches for product identification, e.g. tracking the expected life cycle of items or fostering collaboration between HW and SW engineering with truly overarching product breakdowns and accommodating changes to every iteration cycle. As a side effect, this will also increase trust in the integrity of the product as well as enable staying in line with regulations like UNECE r156  SUMS.

There is no universal solution; the key lies in developing new concepts and thought patterns, embracing agile values like customer focus, and continually improving them.

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Header Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash