One frequently asked question for hardware or embedded projects considering Scrum is, “How can we get stuff done every sprint? It takes longer to develop a piece of hardware than could ever fit in a two-week sprint!” Hardware development needs to take a slightly different view on iterations and iterating than software development.
When the WIKISPEED engineers were first working on the interior, they realized that the lack of an emergency brake was slowing down their progress. The brake handle sits between the seats, close to the gearshift and to the attach points for the seats and seat belts. Because no one knew what the emergency brake handle looked like, they were unwilling to commit to design decisions on these nearby components.
The solution was “version 0.01” of the emergency brake: a cardboard box that said, “the brake handle will fit in this box.” That was enough functionality that the team could move forward on nearby components, even though nobody had any illusions that this cardboard box would actually hold the car in place!
When working with hardware, you will iterate on your designs:
In the case of v0.01 of the emergency brake, the acceptance test was “Can the engineers design the surrounding components with confidence?” The cardboard box satisfied this test. Other components were judged to be of higher value, so they stayed with the cardboard box until the other components were finished enough.
When developing software with Agile, each iteration should produce potentially deliverable functionality. That may not be possible when working with hardware, so you may need to iterate on a particular item many times before the design is satisfactory. In the case of the WIKISPEED X-Prize entrant, those subsequent iterations included, “An emergency brake to hold the car in place,” and “An emergency brake which produces no resistance when the car is in motion.”
You may also need to iterate on your acceptance tests, especially as you strive to automate them. Before WIKISPEED performed a real crash test, they had done many Finite Element simulations. These are cheap and repeatable, because all they need is computer time. Then they had a real crash test performed. That crash produced results that were different from their simulation, so they iterated. They used the real crash data to improve their simulation. Eventually their simulations became close enough to reality that they no longer needed the expensive physical tests.
Next: Hardware Design Patterns
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
mailchimp_landing_site | 1 month | The cookie is set by MailChimp to record which page the user first visited. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
CONSENT | 2 years | YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data. |
_ga | 2 years | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
_gat_gtag_UA_42152348_1 | 1 minute | Set by Google to distinguish users. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. |
_gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
NID | 6 months | NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. |
YSC | session | YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. |
yt-remote-connected-devices | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
yt-remote-device-id | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
COMPASS | 1 hour | No description |
cookies.js | session | No description available. |
S | 1 hour | No description available. |