Agile Development in Automotive Software Development: Challenges and Opportunities

In modern cars, most of the functionalities are controlled by software. The increased significance of software-based functionality has resulted in various challenges for automotive industry, which is slowly transitioning towards being a software centric industry. Challenges include the definition of key competencies, processes, methods, tools, and organization settings to accommodate combined development of software and hardware. Based on qualitative research, this paper aims at understanding the applicability of agile methods to automotive software development. Our explorative case study with one of the development sections at Volvo Car Cooperation identified challenges in their software development process related to process perception and reactive mode, multi-tasking and frequent task switching, individualism and lack of complete knowledge, as well as long communication chains and low cross-function mind set. Moreover it prepares a transition of software development at this multinational automotive company towards agile by relating agile principles and practices to automotive software process challenges.