The MAHD Framework has been adopted by leading product development organizations in over 20 countries, spanning industries from consumer electronics to defense systems. Teams use MAHD-based agile methods to accelerate development, adapt to change, and strengthen their focus on customer value.
Every organization is unique. If you’re seeking the benefits of agile for hardware, schedule a complimentary discussion to explore how the MAHD Framework can help you deliver faster results with greater customer impact.
MAHD IPAC Iterations deliver a clear understanding of tangible project progress through demonstrated prototype functionality and feedback with throughout the development process.
The MAHD Framework starts with collaboration among team members to identify critical project elements, such as customer needs, risk, innovation, schedule, targets, and resources. Collaboration continues on a regular basis to ensure that the project remains on track.
The MAHD On-ramp results in a comprehensive view of the project in a fraction of the time typical of traditional processes. Teams start with an aligned Iteration Plan ready for execution.
With a consistent focus on demonstrable progress and learning through customer feedback and technical evaluation loops, data is gathered early for faster and better resource/scope/schedule tradeoff decisions.
At its core, the MAHD Framework emphasizes early and consistent focus on resolving unknowns, prioritizing customer value, and leveraging rapid learning and execution to mitigate both technical and commercial risks.
Investing in process improvement should drive measurable business results. Based on experience and customer feedback, the MAHD Framework consistently accelerates time-to-market—delivering solutions, on average, 25% faster—while increasing customer value and reducing costs. This yields significant financial benefits to organizations by:
To estimate how the ROI of your projects can be improved with the MAHD Framework, use our Project ROI Estimator to compare results of traditional methods vs a MAHD approach.
Waterfall processes have been around for decades, and about 80% of companies use some form of phase-gate NPD process. These processes provide an overall governance structure but little guidance on how to manage an effective way of working. Rigid project management tools attempt to fill the gaps, but most teams find they hinder rather than improve efforts. Some of the top challenges with waterfall processes include:
Agile methods and the MAHD Framework can help with each of these challenges. Browse the 10 Benefits of MAHD Vs. Traditional NPD to learn more.
Most development teams struggle with waterfall methods, but software teams had it the worst. Why spend months documenting a plan when a team can start coding, learn, test with real users and add features incrementally? Agile’s learning cycles, team orientation, and backlog prioritization methods are a much better fit, which is why the adoption of agile has been so rapid.
Hardware leaders and executives find it difficult to visualize how agile tactics can work for hardware. This can be exacerbated by relying on the same software coaches and scrum masters to train hardware teams. These trainers often had no real hardware experience and just assume the standard agile tactics will work.
This major gap in both the tactics taught and the skills of the trainers leave many hardware teams struggling to see the value in agile.
Teams who focus on the core Agile principles and modify their behavior and ways-of-working to build on these principles will be successful. Those who are trying to fit the Agile software tactics into an existing NPD framework will not. Agile principles are sound, but the tactics of Agile must be modified whether you apply the MAHD Framework or design your own.
Agile was not conceived or defined with hardware in mind. As a result, attempting to implement Agile without modifications can be unproductive at best and even disastrous. However, hardware-based product development can get big benefits with agile.
To make it work, teams must abandon what they think they know about agile and look at the principles with a fresh perspective. They must be comfortable initiating a project without detailed requirements, actively collaborate with their colleagues, consider rapid prototyping as possible and necessary, and acknowledge that customers need to experience solutions to provide meaningful feedback.
Once this mindshift happens, the tactics are straightforward and the benefits follow quickly.
Agile works. There is unlimited research that support agile methods are superior to traditional waterfall approaches for both software AND hardware. So why don’t more hardware teams adopt agile methods?
The objections to adopting Agile for hardware we often hear:
Because most people directly associate the tactics of Agile they are familiar with, such as Scrum, these objections are well-founded.
However, each of these objections are easily addressed with the right tactics. It’s desirable and possible to manage to a schedule; prototype development should be strategic, no dogmatic; lead times and dependencies can easily align with agile tactics, etc.
With tactics designed for hardware, the MAHD Framework removes these objections so teams can focus on what works, and not the dogma common to agile.
Download the comprehensive Introduction to MAHD E-book to learn about the key elements of the MAHD Framework.
Request a 30-minute overview and discussion of your situation. We can provide an overview of the MAHD Framework and help you determine if MAHD is a good fit for your goals.
