Agile SPICE™ Solution Provider

Why Agile SPICE?

Agile methods are used today to ensure fast, flexible and effective development despite the high complexity of products and development environments and despite the late detailing of requirements.

In particular, agile project management methods such as Kanban or SCRUM are successfully applied in whole or in part at one or more project levels. Ticket systems and stand-up meetings are established tools that support communication and coordination. Requirements are transferred to individual user stories and planned in sprints. At the end of the sprint, a deliverable release with a defined added value for the customer is always created.

Automotive SPICE® and Agile methods

In Automotive SPICE® (ASPICE®) the experiences of the automotive industry in standard processes were described with their activities and expected work results.

In agile development, certain activities and work results are also expected, but others. At least at first glance. On closer inspection there are also overlaps.

While the basic project goals are very similar in both methods, the approaches are very different, which is also reflected in the vocabulary and the focus of the content. However, they do not contradict each other, as is so often assumed and claimed.

In the past, ASPICE was usually associated with the classic waterfall model. The plannability of milestones in the VDA 6.3 product cycle speaks for the waterfall model.

Agile development processes have many advantages: Speed, flexibility, iterative development, continuous delivery capability, transparency, teamwork, employee motivation, appreciation and much more. However, agile development processes must be supplemented and suitably “translated” to meet the safety and quality expectations of the industry.

The many apparent conflicts and misunderstandings that today make cooperation and understanding between ASPICE and the agile world difficult are to be reduced with Agile SPICE.

What is Agile SPICE™?

SPICE stands for “Software/System Process Improvement and Capability Determination. Automotive SPICE® is by far the most widely used SPICE model in the world and is regularly updated. Conformity to ASPICE® is demanded by the automotive industry as well as by various other industries. With Agile SPICE™ a new plugin for Automotive SPICE™ is entering the test phase, which integrates the proven elements of agile processes in an ASPICE framework and thus becomes more valuable for the ASPICE dominated industry than before.

Agile SPICE™ as a bridge to Automotive SPICE™

The intacs™ working group “Agile” develops with Agile SPICE™ a bridge to Automotive SPICE™ for agile developers and coaches. Agile SPICE reflects the experiences in the agile development world, its core values and vocabulary and restructures them in a way that they can be measured and evaluated with the methods of ASPICE.

One goal is to show that an agile project management can meet the expectations of effectiveness, transparency and reliability just like a classical project management. Furthermore, it is also the goal that evaluation methods such as ASPICE can be used to show the strengths and potentials of agile developments and thus further improve agile processes and make them safer.

Agile SPICE ia a bridge to Automotive SPICE

 AGL.1 Agile Work Management

In ASPICE, the “MAN.3 Project Management” process covers the basic practices of project planning and control. In Agile SPICE these are summarized in a different form and in agile language in “AGL.1 Agile Work Management”.

This involves working with backlogs, sprints and burn-down diagrams. Epics and user stories are implemented from the system level down to the domain level and down to the software units in increasing detail step-by-step and as a team effort.

Pilot Projects and Feedback

The working group has released AGL.1 for pilot testing. Feedback from the use and assessments of agile projects will be collected to be considered in the next sprint.

Alexander Mackert
Principal Consultant & CEO

ASPICE® Assessment Quotation

Our team has a lot of international experience and has offices in Germany, India and China. Get in touch with us and request a quote for an Automotive SPICE® Assessment.

We are also happy to accompany you on your journey to the targeted competence level through pre-assessment and improvement workshops .