Agile Development is not something you might think of when you think of John Deere. It’s a term associated with software development that is “based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.” Guess what? That’s what John Deere is doing according to Aaron Senneff, Development Manager at John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group. He leads and participates in the groups formed to conduct this “agile development” of new John Deere products of all kinds.
During the John Deere FarmSight Tech Summit I talked with Aaron about how John Deere is using agile development. He says that the company sees it “as an opportunity for us to accelerate not just our product development cycle but our innovation portfolio.” The process works by having groups meet every two months to set a vision for what they want to accomplish over the next two months. At the end of those two months they start all over again. The process includes personnel from all of John Deere’s divisions. Some of the products being announced now like MyJohnDeere.com came directly out of this process.
You can listen to my interview with Aaron here: Interview with Aaron Senneff