No. And Yes.

This week I had an interesting conversation about shortening time-to-market through agility.

Case study:

A German company has a total development time for a product of two years – from conception, development, testing, production, to market launch. 

The American and Chinese competitors are already reaching 12–18 months.

The question for me:

How can agile development help the company get to market sooner and achieve ROI accordingly sooner?

My first, honest reaction:

Unfortunately, it's a myth that agile development can achieve ROI faster.

Why is that?

No product development has ever been carried out simultaneously using both traditional and agile methods on an identical product, which is why there can be no empirical evidence comparing development times or costs.

Consultants often misleadingly use the argument "earlier ROI through agile" to convince potential clients to switch to agile working methods with them. This creates a false impression.

Nevertheless, agile working methods allow you to get to market faster!

If you focus on developing improvement potential with an agile project, program, or even an agile task force (!) that can be gradually incorporated into the company's value chain, agile working methods make an excellent contribution to reducing time to market:

• With cross-functional teams that map the value chain, reduce waste, and break down silos!

• Identify savings potential through direct communication, especially with a focus on reducing process and lead times

• Empower employees to optimize (or establish!) parallelization

• Promote innovation and ideas at and from all levels

• Likewise, identify and utilize automation potential, with input from both management and employees

Agility can be used excellently to implement LEAN principles, utilize the know-how of all employees for improvement, and increase work motivation and identification – and THAT WILL also bring time savings!

Furthermore, well-designed MVPs and the incremental delivery of working products definitely have a direct impact on time-to-market and ROI – even if this is admittedly more difficult in the area of ​​hardware development.

Conclusion:

Agile working (or rather, the agile mindset) can really enable you to achieve ROI sooner – indirectly.

Questions? Criticism? Comments?

I'm always interested in learning more and look forward to hearing about your experiences with this topic and your answers!

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last update: 25-06-2025 (improved layout mobile layout)