Agile systems engineering versus agile systems engineering

This paper explores recent developments in agile systems engineering. We draw a distinction between agility in the systems engineering process versus agility in the resulting system itself. In the first case the emphasis is on carefully exploring the space of design alternatives and to delay the freeze point as long as possible as new information becomes available during product development. In the second case we are interested in systems that can respond to changed requirements after initial fielding of the system. We provide a list of known and emerging methods in both domains and explore a number of illustrative examples such as the case of the Iridium satellite constellation or recent developments in the automobile industry.