We help organizations to improve their quality, efficiency, flexibility and time to market by establishing agile management methods and setting up frameworks to scale these methods across locations, disciplines and entire organizations. Especially in complex environments, CBC focuses on generating and implementing an agile mindset mainly based on the following frameworks and methods:

• Kanban

As a way to implement an agile mindset, CBC’s solution includes the conception, training, and implementation of holistic Kanban approaches for entire engineering communities, transforming engineering from a push into a pull system.
Within Kanban, the overall workflow is managed in such a way that simultaneous work in progress is limited. This provides a better workload balance and yields a permanent high level of productivity. Furthermore, Kanban comes with a high degree of visualization, so that project progress and bottlenecks can be identified quickly.

• Scrum

Through implementing Scrum as an agile and iterative approach, CBC helps organizations to react dynamically to short-term changes. With Scrum, we enable clients to develop complex products within an iterative framework. This includes the set-up of multiple scrum teams in different countries. Each team organizes its own activities and works independently, which enables quick and target-oriented decisions. With our certified Scrum Masters, we support and coach the client’s teams to ensure a successful and sustainable implementation.

• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®)

To sustainably implement the agile mindset in an organization and to leverage the benefits of the agile development methods, CBC supports organizations with the demand-tailored implementation of the Scale Agile Framework (SAFe®). With our certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPC)  we set up and support Agile Release Trains on program levels together with our customers, in order to coordinate and manage the dependencies between multiple Scrum teams efficiently.

• Continuous Integration (CI)

CBC helps organizations to become agile in all key areas, including Continuous Integration (CI) of software. This approach enables clients to regularly integrate and test even small code changes in their applications. Features can be verified while under development and modification requests can be implemented more easily. This way, clients can react quickly to new automation requirements and avoid the need for “big bang” software integration.

CBC supports teams in moving towards incremental delivery cycles and fast feedback in order to improve the software quality. We evaluate the existing software integration strategy, identify issues and derive solutions to achieve the target maturity level. Even minor improvements can bring a noticeable impact to the teams.

CBC supports organizations in multiple process improvement activities. Our natural backbone is our understanding of ASPICE (Automotive Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination), which we utilize not only in conventional projects but also in an agile context. In general, our projects focus on two steps:

• CBC Process Harmonization and Usability Management

With the CBC Process Harmonization and Usability Management we aim to apply standard processes in development projects that revealed issues in a previous assessment. We own a set of analysis methods and tools, which we select in collaboration with our customers. Sometimes interviews, workshops or surveys are sufficient to evaluate the root causes of process issues – depending on the severity. In large-scale software development projects, where we consider not only process conformity but overall software quality improvements, CBC utilizes modern software analytics approaches. These techniques allow us to understand relationships and provide insights along the whole development cycle, making traceability gaps obvious. This kind of “health check” supports the creation of sustainable process improvement measures, including suggesting development best practices.

• CBC ASPICE Conformity and Assessment Readiness Management

With our CBC ASPICE Conformity and Assessment Readiness Management the key goal is to check standard processes for their ability to meet the ASPICE requirements and improve them. Through this evaluation we identify weaknesses and gaps between the current and desired capability level. In line with our transparent and traceable conclusions, CBC provides guidance to close the gaps, such as setting measurable process performance objectives for ASPICE capability level 2 and 3 or audit preparation coaching.

CBC helps organizations to make systematic and consistent use of quality assurance methods and tools, in order to avoid product risks and potential design defects, while at the same time eliminating potential liability issues. Our toolset includes safety analysis techniques such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) as well as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). These, reduce system risks and can challenge the product design in a very early development phase. CBC provides holistic project support during the analysis life cycle with methodology training, moderation of technical workshops, documentation of functional safety analyses and system reliability assessment. In addition, we apply Hazard Analysis & Risk Assessments (HARA), check that safety requirements are met, and evaluate hazards based on severity, frequency, and probability of exposure. There could also be complex situations with hazardous consequences, such as mechanical defects. Such cases require a profound analysis of the operating parameters and system design. Performing a Dependent Failure Analysis (DFA) enables error chains and root causes associated with fatigue fractures, for example, to be identified. In combination with a Transfer Path Analysis (TPA) at system level, this allows improvement strategies to be elaborated to reduce risk and ensure a robust product design. In order to ensure optimum product quality, we use Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to define strategic development focus areas.