Leading Living Labs share know-how and expertise in AHA domain and agile development

Thessaloniki Active and Healthy Ageing Living Lab (Thess-AHALL), PAsteur Innovative Living Lab Of Nice (PAILLON 2020), LicaLab and ICT Usage Lab (Inria) participated in a workshop on “The impacts of living labs in agile development in the Active and Healthy Ageing domain”, organized by CAPTAIN H2020 project, France/Francophonie Living Labs, EnoLL (Health Expert Group) and hosted by Nively SAS and 27 Delvalle, held on Friday, 8 February 2018 in Nice.

The main objective of the workshop was to present core living lab projects, as well as, to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience among participants –stakeholders, living lab managers, and other interested parts- on agile methodologies, which are applied on concrete living labs, in their daily operational tasks from the requirements elicitation to product/service development. In an open discussion, all attendants had the opportunity to describe the impacts of the living labs in fulfilling the needs of companies for agile development in general but mainly in Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) domain, except for sharing their own experiences in any of the methods used in a Living Lab project.

It is known that many traditional project teams and companies run into trouble when they try to define all of the requirements up front. Agile development enables the practitioners to elicit detailed requirements up front, while then they can also do the same when they actually need the information. It is particularly true for project and products in the healthcare domain, which investigate new ICT approaches aiming at a proof of concept or MVP (Minimum Viable Product), investment in detailed requirements documents early in the project which could be wasted when the requirements inevitably change (pivot), should be avoided. Therefore, the methodologies used in living labs based on user engagement, continuous feedback or continuous data collection, etc. throughout the project’s or product’s life-cycle seem to efficiently support agile development.

After the completion of the presentations, the participating Living Lab representatives had the opportunity to run an effective discussion on the future actions and roadmap on agile development and the relevant living lab project methodologies. All participants expressed their satisfaction for the useful outcomes that emerged from the workshop, regarding the crucial role of living labs on the AHA domain and renewed their appointment for a “follow-up” meeting in the future,which will bring even more ideas and new perspectives for further development, new partnerships and exchange of know-how.