Analysis of the criteria for comparing Systems Engineering and agile methods

Increasingly complex products and the resulting need for interdisciplinary development are challenges that should be focused on to ensure a company's competitiveness. Based on this, the development of new products and technologies related to for example sustainability and digitalization requires new approaches. Given this background, agile methods and Systems Engineering (SE) are experiencing great popularity. While there are first combined approaches, the fundamental differences and similarities between Agile and SE have not yet been adequately illuminated. To analyze these trends and tackle the challenges, the aim of this paper is to enable a qualified comparison of SE and agile methods. Therefore, we examine criteria to compare Agile and Systems Engineering approaches. First, a definition and discussion of both Systems Engineering and agile product development is given. An analysis of the literature has shown that a complete set of relevant comparison criteria between the two approaches does not exist. Therefore, a complete set of comparison criteria has been formed from the literature and the experience of experts. Ultimately, the criteria proposed in this paper create a basis for a subsequent comparison.