Agile Technical Management of Industrial Contracts: Scrum Development of Ground Segment Software at the European Space Agency

ESOCI (the European Space Agency's Operation Centre) is experimenting with Agile and Scrum methodologies in its quest for improving productivity, enhancing project visibility and control, reducing time to market, improve software quality and increasing user satisfaction. In this article we present lessons learned from applying Agile in general and Scrum in particular to a number of projects, from applying a few Agile best practices to full Scrum. ESOC has traditionally developed its software using a waterfall life cycle mostly under Firm Fixed Price contracts, in this context using Agile brings challenges from project management, contracts and quality control perspective. Using a coaching approach, delivered by SixSq a Swiss-based company specialised in agile and Scrum coaching and development, the organisation has managed to accelerate its integration of Scrum, including industrial teams developing the software, and already yields positive results which are promising for the future.