Next generation hardware development: The role of technology intelligence to reduce uncertainty in Agile new Product Development

Companies are adapting their traditional development processes, aiming for project-specific designs that are referred to as “Agile Product Development” - flexible, adaptive and accelerated processes. Implementing these principles supports developers to react to challenges such as shortened innovation cycles. Still, agile product development is an endeavor with many uncertainties. Agile methods aim at reducing these uncertainties through a balancing of predictive work (e.g. information gathering, forecasting, planning) and adaptive work (e.g. prototyping, trial-and-error, validated learning). However, companies often fail at successfully conducting predictive work in order to avoid uncertainties in the product development process. Methods for forecasting and information generation have to date not been described in the context of agile new product development. The authors explore if and how the concept of technology intelligence - a widely used method of information generation - can be used for agile new product development. Based on the identified shortcomings of current technology intelligence, the authors draft an adjusted concept for agile technology intelligence. Underlying premises and suitable methods are presented and discussed as a first step towards a comprehensive methodology.