Events • On Demand | Watch Time: 15 min
When Digital Meets Manufacturing: How to Drive Agile Delivery at Scale
ACCELERATE 2025: Virtual Summit for Product and Portfolio Leaders by Dragonboat
Delivering outcomes at scale in a global enterprise is never simple—especially when you’re balancing hardware, software, and digital services.
In this fireside chat, Lucas Smith, Director of Agile and Program Services at Toyota Connected, shares how his team is evolving the product operating model to enable agile delivery across complex portfolios. We’ll look at how Toyota connects strategy to execution, synchronizes work across vehicle lines and digital products, and keeps teams aligned in a fast-changing environment.
What You’ll Learn:
- Balancing Agility and Standardization: How Toyota Connected maintains team autonomy while establishing the right guardrails for visibility. Learn how product leaders can standardize reporting while keeping flexibility for individual teams.
- Managing Complex Dependencies: How to handle cross-product dependencies across dozens of teams, vendors, and initiatives—and how Toyota Connected created visibility across multiple dimensions using a unified portfolio approach.
- Digital Evolution in Manufacturing: How Toyota shifted from static vehicle delivery to continuous digital experiences, adopting a product-focused mindset that delivers ongoing customer value.
Lucas also shares how Dragonboat enables automated tracking, reporting, and capacity insights—freeing teams from manual updates and giving leaders real-time visibility to guide investment decisions with confidence.
Key Takeaways
- Balance Standardization with Team Autonomy: Establish standardized processes for visibility and dependency management while granting teams the flexibility to operate independently and innovate effectively.
- Adapt Processes to Product Lifecycle Stages: Tailor approaches based on the lifecycle phase—embracing rapid experimentation during innovation and implementing structured processes during scaling and production.
- Prioritize a Single Source of Truth: Consolidate product data, initiatives, and dependencies into a unified platform like Dragonboat to eliminate inefficiencies, enhance real-time visibility, and improve decision-making.
- Focus on Evolving Customer Experiences: Shift from static product delivery to ongoing customer engagement, ensuring experiences evolve throughout the product lifecycle to stay relevant and competitive.
- Leverage Testing Environments for Iteration: Use intermediate testing environments and phased deployment strategies like canary releases to mitigate risks, gather feedback, and refine products before scaling updates.
Read more in our article Accelerating Agile Digital + Complex Manufacturing Product Delivery at Scale.
Featured Speaker
Lucas Smith
Director of Agile & Program Services, Toyota Connected
Lucas Smith leads Agile and Program Services at Toyota Connected, where his team drives innovation in connected mobility, intelligent vehicles, safety services, mobile apps, and big data machine learning. With 20+ years of experience across engineering, product ownership, and agile transformation, including roles at Boeing and as a professional Scrum trainer, Lucas is passionate about building high-performing teams that deliver meaningful impact through innovative product development.
