Scrum integration in stage-gate models for collaborative product development — A case study of three industrial manufacturers

The relevance of collaborative Product Development (PD) is rising with the decrease of product life cycles combined with growing customer demands. Industrial manufacturers now experience competition in the global market where differentiation is necessary for survival. Hence, in order to differentiate from low-cost competitors and increase PD performance, some industrial manufacturers now seek competitive advantage by experimenting with new ways for collaborative PD. This includes integrating customer-focused agile process models like Scrum from the software industry into their existing PD models. Thus, instead of replacing traditional stage-gate models, agile methods are currently integrated in existing PD models generating hybrid solution for collaborative PD. This paper includes a study of three industrial cases that have successfully integrated Scrum into the stage-gate process model for collaborative PD. The paper introduces the three functional hybrid models, including the impact on PD performance, PD roles and customer collaboration.