Architecture in the agile context
An independent review was commissioned by FleetBoard in order to put architecture work in an agile context to the test and improve it.
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An independent review was commissioned by FleetBoard in order to put architecture work in an agile context to the test and improve it.
Last modified:
Daimler FleetBoard develops and sells telematics-based Internet services for efficient fleet management. Telematics devices in trucks as well as vehicle and transport management services and their operation are part of its portfolio. With the telematics solutions of Daimler FleetBoard, transport companies can save up to 15 percent fuel in construction-site, distribution, and long-distance traffic and can manage their logistics processes better.
For its telematics products, Daimler FleetBoard is developing software for embedded systems and for information systems. For several years the development has been following agile principles and has been built on SCRUM. In order to manage the complexity and quality of the products, a strong focus is placed on software architecture. For this purpose, architecting has been organized similar to SCRUM and has been integrated into the development process.
In order to evaluate architecting in the agile context and possibly improve it, Daimler FleetBoard commissioned Fraunhofer IESE with the performance of an independent review. In this review, it was checked to which extent the current practices serve to accomplish the goals at Daimler FleetBoard and to which extent best practices are adhered to.
As a basis of the evaluation, Fraunhofer IESE worked with about 20 stakeholders to elicit the most important goals to be accomplished by architecting. In summary, these are high product quality and suitable standards for the development. Based upon this, practices in the following areas were discussed:
This is what Thomas Kindler, Manager Server Platform, Daimler FleetBoard, has to say: