This research presents four barriers to deploying agile methods in established R&D organizations that develop complex, mechatronic products. While prior research has identified success factors and common challenges when implementing agile methods, their adaptation in established multidisciplinary product development work, where coordination across diverse engineering domains is crucial, remains underexplored. Drawing on a qualitative case study based on two years of interviews and discussion meetings, we have studied barriers that emerge when deploying agile methods in an organization where legacy practices and organizational logics conflict with the new methods.

Our findings highlight twelve challenges that are categorized into four key barriers: complex dependencies & coordination, existing structures, new application & setting, and ambiguous values & benefits. The study thus offers insights into the barriers of changing workways in established R&D organizations and makes a threefold contribution: (1) identifying four barriers to agile adoption, (2) suggesting future research questions, and (3) providing practical advice for managers planning to deploy agile methods or other technological or methodological transformations that challenge the status quo. Managers should not assume immediate benefits, but instead be prepared to adapt the agile methods to their specific context. They should listen to those perceived as change averse and consider educating ‘boundary spanners’, that is, individuals who bridge engineering knowledge with method know-how. These roles help evaluate dependencies for coordination, identify rigid structures and articulate potential benefits to bridge the gap between the old and the new.

The agile promises of simplicity, responsiveness to change and enhanced operational efficiency from a customer perspective seem to have attracted attention from R&D units governed by bureaucratic traditions that were originally designed for predictability and control. When implemented, agile methods challenge much of the old logic, manifesting in habits, routines, processes and practices. Yet, several institutional pressures seem to be pulling the organization back towards its old ways. We introduce the concept organizational gravity to describe the combined institutional pressures that affected the possibility to reap the benefits from the transformation, by pulling the organization back towards their traditional workways. Although the setting for this research was the benefits of agile methods during agile transformations, we believe that the results may inform also other transformations, such as digitalization. All in all, we identify 10 forces pulling backwards and categorize these into three forms of organizational gravity.

This research critically examines the reasons for adopting agile methods in a multidisciplinary R&D unit developing complex, mechatronic products. By studying how stakeholders undertake and experience the agile transformation, the study challenges the assumption that agile methods inherently address the problems of modern product development. Using qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and roundtable discussions over a 2-year period, this paper explores the reasons for and results from adopting agile methods in one case organization. The findings highlight a mismatch between expected benefits of agile methods and the practical implementation of such work methods, highlighting the complexity of agile transformations. The study concludes that the impact of agile methods is inseparable from the quality of their implementation and contextual adaptation both to the specifics of the complex, mechatronic products being developed and to the need for coordination between disciplines in the R&D unit.

This research explores the challenges of adopting agile methods in multifunctional productdevelopment, studying the R&D division in a large international company. Using a qualitative method,we seek to understand how stakeholders experience and undertake this ongoing change. Over a 14-month period, in-depth interviews and meetings with managers from various units were conducted.

Our findings highlight the multifaceted challenges encountered in the transition towards agilemethodologies. Key barriers include organizational antagonism, lack of role models, establishingcross-organizational coordination, receiver capacity, and classic change management problems. Ourstudy underscores the need for nuanced managerial strategies to navigate these obstacles effectively.From formalizing new routines to acknowledging external constraints, managers must anticipate andaddress various challenges to ensure successful agile transformations.

The study adds to the current understanding of agile methodologies as new form of organizing R&D ina multifunctional product development setting. We offer insights into the stepwise adoption of agilepractices in multifunctional product development, making three key contributions: (1) identifyingobstacles in adopting agile methods, (2) suggesting areas for future research, and (3) providingpractical advice for managers overseeing multifunctional R&D projects.

This research explores the challenges of adopting agile methods in multifunctional product development, studying the R&D division in a large international company. Using a qualitative method, we seek to understand how stakeholders experience and undertake this ongoing change. Over a 14-month period, in-depth interviews and meetings with managers from various units were conducted. 

Our findings highlight the multifaceted challenges encountered in the transition towards agile methodologies. Key barriers include organizational antagonism, lack of role models, establishing cross-organizational coordination, receiver capacity, and classic change management problems. Our study underscores the need for nuanced managerial strategies to navigate these obstacles effectively. From formalizing new routines to acknowledging external constraints, managers must anticipate and address various challenges to ensure successful agile transformations.

The study adds to the current understanding of agile methodologies as new form of organizing R&D in a multifunctional product development setting. We offer insights into the stepwise adoption of agile practices in multifunctional product development, making three key contributions: (1) identifying obstacles in adopting agile methods, (2) suggesting areas for future research, and (3) providing practical advice for managers overseeing multifunctional R&D projects.

Collaboration is a long and strong academic tradition. Over the years we have seen many investments in increasing collaborations, nationally and internationally, such as Erasmus +, EIT etc. Many of these attempts fall short, there are some collaborations, some development of platforms/infrastructure, but as soon as funding ends, collaboration ends. This paper makes a strong argument for a structured approach to inter-organizational university collaborations where the opportunities and challenges of different alternatives are evaluated. The paper proposes that solutions for national inter-organizational university collaborations can be designed by combining the choice of technical educational platforms with an idea for how to organize the collaborative processes.  

We argue that it is possible to stake out the overall approach for inter-organizational university collaborations. Learning from previous initiatives, there are three main alternatives to choose from; (1) Focus on creating organizational collaborations; (2) Focus on creating and sharing content; and (3) Focus on creating common delivery of courses. It is noteworthy to mention that these are not mutually exclusive alternatives but can and should be combined.  

The nature of designing and developing new products and services inherently means having todeal with the unknown. This has garnered research attention from many perspectives over the years.Today we know both how to categorize ambiguity and reasons for sustaining or mitigating it. Yet,what practitioners actually do when facing ambiguity is not well understood. For this reason, weintroduce the concept of negotiating ambiguity, meaning to engage in conversation, to makeinterpretations or create meaning, when facing ambiguity. The purpose is to explore how design andnew product development work is made to progress when facing ambiguity. We study this in twocases: one of service design work and one of product design and development work. Usingobservations and semi-structured interviews, three contributions are derived from the material. First,we show that negotiating ambiguity does not stand apart from the ongoing design and developmentwork. Secondly, we portray 14 activities for negotiating ambiguity. Thirdly, the activities arecategorized into four strategies for negotiating ambiguity, namely: constructing points of reference,mediating between perspectives, anchoring in expertise, and visualizing the future. By leveraginginsights from the paper, managers can strengthen how ambiguity is negotiated in theirorganizations, for instance by recognizing the skill of negotiating ambiguity when recruiting andtraining employees.

The nature of designing and developing new products and services inherently means having todeal with the unknown. This has garnered research attention from many perspectives over the years.Today we know both how to categorize ambiguity and reasons for sustaining or mitigating it. Yet, what practitioners actually do when facing ambiguity is not well understood. For this reason, we introduce the concept of negotiating ambiguity, meaning to engage in conversation, to make interpretations or create meaning, when facing ambiguity. The purpose is to explore how design and new product development work is made to progress when facing ambiguity. We study this in two cases: one of service design work and one of product design and development work. Using observations and semi-structured interviews, three contributions are derived from the material. First,we show that negotiating ambiguity does not stand apart from the ongoing design and development work. Secondly, we portray 14 activities for negotiating ambiguity. Thirdly, the activities are categorized into four strategies for negotiating ambiguity, namely: constructing points of reference, mediating between perspectives, anchoring in expertise, and visualizing the future. By leveraging insights from the paper, managers can strengthen how ambiguity is negotiated in their organizations, for instance by recognizing the skill of negotiating ambiguity when recruiting and training employees.

This paper challenges the view that ambiguity is undesirable. Doing so enables us to break free from a long tradition of approaching ambiguity as a hindrance to be avoided or reduced. In this paper, an alternative view is presented that shows that the very essence of creativity and innovation in design and new product development (NPD) work revolves around ambiguity. A practice perspective is adopted to empirically and qualitatively study the ongoing design and NPD work in observations and interviews. In contrast to the design and NPD literature’s emphasis on reducing ambiguity as a fundamental prerequisite for finalizing projects, the present article demonstrates that the emergence of ambiguity is a prerequisite for undertaking design and NPD work: ambiguity creates room for maneuver in-between the multiple or vague interpretations. The contribution thus shows how ambiguity continuously opens up a space for action wherein new interpretations may emerge with regards to the design outcome, its intended market and the process for its creation.