Owning

the Sky with Agile

Building a Jet Fighter Faster, Cheaper, Better with Scrum

Jörgen Furuhjelm Johan Segertoft Joe Justice and J.J. Sutherland
Project Manager Project Manager Scrum Inc.
R&D Avionics Software Justice@scruminc.com
Saab Aeronautics Saab Aeronautics jj@scruminc.com
jorgen.furuhjelm@saabgroup.com johan.segertoft@saabgroup.com


Abstract While predecessors to Test Driven Develop-
Advanced military systems are some of the most ment and related Agile practices such as
expensive and most complex research, design, dedicated, co-located, cross functional teams
and manufacturing challenges in the world. The
sheer cost of military procurement worldwide is with flexible priorities have been used in
measured in the trillions of dollars, and for fighter jet design as early as 1960 [2], modern
decades costs risen seemingly indefinitely. As a Agile practices such as Scrum roles and release
result, many companies are seeking new ways of burn down charts in complex systems may be
working that will control costs while delivering pioneered by Saab Aeronautics.
the highest quality. Saab Defense has adopted
an Agile process to address the issue in both
3. Agile at Saab
hardware and software teams to produce a new

multi-role strike fighter, the JAS 39E Saab
Saab introduced Agile [3] practices approxi-
Gripen.
mately ten years ago during updates of the
previous Gripen versions. First, small
1. Introduction independent teams of software developers
adopted Scrum [4], serving as incubators for
The cost of Defense procurement is on a Agile. Rigorous Scrum was the initial backbone
seemingly ever escalating cycle in the West. In of the Saab Agile framework, and as it spread,
the United States programs are now measured it evolved through continuous improvement.
in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Cost The cornerstones of Scrum are still present,
increases from initial estimates can rise more but other aspects have evolved to allow teams
than 60% [1]. to interpret and tailor the framework to their
particular process.
One defense manufacturer decided that it was
not only what they were building that was In the new Gripen fighter program, the Gripen
driving up costs, it was the way they were E, Agile practices are implemented at every
building it, their process itself. level and in every discipline: software,
hardware and fuselage design. The Saab Agile
Saab Aeronautics is a few years into the framework contains practices from Lean,
development program for the new Gripen E Scrum, Kanban, XP and others. Practices are
mutli-role fighter. Saab has adopted an Agile not prescriptive. Individual teams and groups
approach to organizing itself and its efforts, have the autonomy to develop the best
delivering results more quickly, with higher implementation for their particular local
quality, and at drastically lower cost. context. Different teams have varied levels of
Agile maturity. For that reason autonomy at
the team level is critical, giving teams the
2. Precedent
freedom to incrementally improve their

practice constantly.
Agility has decades deep roots in complex

military systems, and impressively Saab may
Saab has learned that commitment and clarity
be first to market with a complete fighter jet
drive performance and efficiency. Commit-
built using the modern practices of Scrum.
ment is needed at the individual and team

level, i.e. commitment to the project, to the

process, and to each other. Please see the cited

studies that have shown that the key drivers of grouped in more than 100 teams. Scrum and
human motivation are autonomy, mastery, and Agile practices provide tools to manage the
purpose [5]. At Saab, decisions are driven variability. The transparency inherent in the
down to the team level wherever possible. Scrum framework surfaces those variances
Teams are empowered both in process and quickly and regularly.
technical terms. They self-organize where
applicable, and customize the framework At Saab, the Agile teams have a common
locally. Technical ownership is delegated to the rhythm and a stable pulse. All teams have
teams. There is minimized organizational Sprints of three weeks and they begin and end
hierarchy, and efforts are made to be on the same day. Saab also found the need for
completely transparent. Each one of these synchronization beyond single Sprints, and
organizational decisions is an effort to increase developed a method for iterations in quarterly
a sense of commitment at every level cycles; Increments.
throughout the program.
The project master plan is broken down
Clarity is the critical translation of vision into iteratively. At the top level is the Development
action. While, clarity is important throughout Step, a well-defined functional target for a
the Saab Agile framework, there is a particular larger release, typically towards a specific test
design focus. Each team should always aircraft. The Development Step synchronizes
understand what is desired of them. Not activities in several of the major disciplines
required, as that would stifle the very creative such as airframe, installation, system
problem solving Saab is looking for, but development, support systems etc. Addition-
desired. The team has clarity on the true goal, ally it defines what is important to achieve
but has the freedom to create their own during, e.g., the corresponding test flight
innovative solutions to get there. period. A Development Step is in turn divided
into several Increments with smaller more
In an Agile consumer product organization this manageable functional and product deliveries.
clarity comes from the customer feedback The Increment is time boxed to a quarter
generated by regular, incremental releases. which leads to a Sprint pace of four three-week
The Gripen E program does not have that Sprints.
luxury. But that feedback is so important, that
Saab uses the Product Owner as a proxy for the Increment targets are established each
customer. The Product Owner is responsible quarter. These targets are established with a
for establishing the value of features and top-down meet bottom-up approach.
works with all stakeholders on different Functional targets are broken down using
management levels re-prioritizing them on a anatomies and other techniques and before
regular cadence. committing to targets set by management the
teams go through all targets, make rough
In the design and construction of a fighter sprint plans and check what is feasible and not.
plane, the Product Owner must not only There is a structured system of meetings to
consider features, but also risk mitigation, identify dependencies on the team-level and
process and technical improvements, and make them visible across the project. These
other tasks that all need to be prioritized in the meetings are echoed every three week Sprint.
same backlog. With a project as large as a In those smaller time boxes targets and
fighter plane, this requires regular and dependencies are identified in a more detailed
recurring gatherings with focus on integration and actionable fashion.
issues. Constantly examining and improving
communication is critical to establishing Each increment ends with a very well-defined
clarity across the organization. delivery in order to validate and verify the
product. Those formal releases also drive
process improvement each quarter. But each
4. Manage Variability
and every week during the Increment, smaller

releases are made to assure frequent feedback
The development of the Gripen E fighter is
on product integration and design. Most of the
highly complex with more than 1000 engineers
problems that arise in any large product
development occur at the integration stage. By 6. Strategic Planning
testing integration on a cycle even shorter than
a single Sprint, Saab is able to make those At Saab, in contrast to some Agile implementa-
issues visible early and take corrective action tions, a key element for success is rigorous
quickly. strategic planning. The strategic plan is a vital
constraint. It forces teams to visualize their
current road-map and how it fits into that plan.
5. Prioritization
That visualization is an important

communication tool between Product Owners.
These regular cycles or Increment/quarter and
However, strategic plans must be seen as living
3-week Sprint give a pulse and rhythm to
documents in constant need of modification
development. But simply identifying what
based on feedback.
needs to be done is in some ways the far

simpler effort in an Agile environment. Now
In reality, the strategic plan is one of the more
the critical act of prioritizing the product
notable areas where Agile practices are
backlog comes into play, for a very simple
connected with traditional project manage-
reason: team workload is most often greater
ment. The need for a strategic plan should
than team capacity. Prioritization brings
however not be confused with a micro-
clarity on what should be done next, and what
managed Gantt-chart laying out detailed work
are the most valuable things for the team to be
for years to come. Instead the granularity of
working on. Without prioritization the curses
the plan differs depending on focus. The
of so many projects rise up: multitasking,
current development step contains many more
unfinished work, unneeded stress. Team
details than future steps.
efficiency and productivity plummets. As does

that crucial sense of commitment.
By continuously incorporating team learning

and practice, milestones become more detailed
The Gripen E program uses Scrum to drive
over time and less prone to movement once
team-level prioritization. The Product Owners,
they reach the correct development step. The
deviating from core Scrum in that each covers
development steps are subdivided into
4-8 development teams, set the priority of the
increments or quarters, those increments into
workload in the Product Backlog, a single
three week iterations or Sprints. In practice,
ordered list of all the work to be done. This is
Saab has found that the total number of
not a top down process, team knowledge and
milestones actually increases with Agile. As
learning are taken into consideration. Included
teams approach the time horizon they will
in this backlog are not only features to be
break down those large milestones into
developed but risks to be mitigated and
manageable, actionable, and sensible pieces.
process improvements to be acted on.

The Product Owners’ challenging task is to act 6. Continuous Improvement
as the interface between the upper manage-
ment functions and the team level. An Kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous
extensive amount of coordination needs to be improvement, has been a corner-stone in
carefully managed in such a large project. It is Lean production for many years, and Saab
essential that at the time of the teams’ Sprint aims to achieve the same relentless
Planning at the start of each Sprint, the backlog systematic approach to improvement also in
is complete and ready for the team to the development process. Fortunately the
immediately execute. The team is perfectly foundation for doing this is a core practice in
clear on what needs to be delivered, what Scrum: the Retrospective.
dependencies exist, and can begin the Sprint
with confidence. The Product Owner is The Retrospective, held at the end of each
responsible for creating clarity for the teams as Sprint, delivers a process improvement for the
to what the internal customers want, while at team to implement the following Sprint. Over
the same time leveling out the inevitable noise the years Saab has evolved Retrospective to
to make sure teams are clear on what needs to include not only the team perspective. There is
be done. also a Retrospective of Retrospectives, across
teams. This is a scaled version to address 8. Conclusion
feedback from the teams, common problems
and solutions, as well as leadership issues and Scrum creates a good framework to organize
management aspects from the Sprint. teams, and provide transparency in order to
improve and enhance communication. Saab
As vital as the short feedback loop on product adds constraints such as common pulse in
is, the feedback loop on process is no less order to scale and enable multiple teams to
important. Many teams, or groups of teams, play in tune. At the same time Saab provide
use daily Kanban-boards for impediments and degrees of freedom for individual progress,
improvements in order to shorten the feed- enhancing autonomy.
back loop even further.
The Agile practice at Saab focuses on enabling
teams to continuously improve their perform-
7. Agile Catalysts
ance. The goal is for every engineer, every day,

to carry out the highest priority task with a
To understand how Saab can break the
minimum of obstacles. This creates an
escalating cost curve that seems to be industry
environment of clarity for the teams,
standard we need to look at pre-requisites for
maximizing their sense of commitment.
an Agile framework. When setting up the

Gripen E program a modular architecture and
Through Agile practices Saab can manage
thus flexibility for future updates was a driving
variability and drive performance with clarity
focus. Modularity of design allows modularity
and commitment. The result is an aircraft
of organization. Conway’s Law [6] shows that
delivered for lower cost, with higher speed,
organizational structure drives product
and greater quality.
structure. At Saab the product is aligned with
the organization. Each team has a clear-cut
responsibly for one or several of the modules. 9. References
This contributes to those vital qualities
discussed earlier, clarity and commitment. [1] U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2015).
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Assessment to Address
Due to the modular design and the fact that test Affordability Challenges (GAO-15-364).
airplanes are very costly and time-consuming
[2] https://defenseissues.wordpress.com/
to produce Saab has focused on building state- 2014/01/11/comparing-modern-western-
of-the-art simulators. These allow for those fighters/
short feedback cycles. The teams can
immediately evaluate a design choice in [3B] http://www.agilemanifesto.org/
desktop simulators. http://www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

In addition to virtual simulations, Saab has [4] K. Schwaber, "Scrum Development Process,"
their pilots on the same site in Linkoping in in OOPSLA Business Object Design and
southern Sweden as the Gripen E development Implementation Workshop, J. Sutherland, D. Patel,
C. Casanave, J. Miller, and G. Hollowell, Eds.
teams. This allows close interaction between
London: Springer, 1997
the development teams and pilots. Feedback is
provided every sprint. Validation also takes [5] Pink, Daniel (2009) Drive: The Surprising Truth
place with pilots from the customers. of What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books, New York

Saab’s focus on autonomous teams both [6] Conway, Melvin E. (April 1968), "How do
reduces bureaucracy and encourages decision Committees Invent?", Datamation 14 (5): 28–31
making at the lowest possible level in the
project organization. There is a system to
escalate issues on a daily basis to remove
hindrances as quickly as possible, and solve
them at the lowest possible level.