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Context
In a world of high dynamics and uncertainties, it is almost impossible to have a long-term prediction of which products, services, or features will satisfy the needs of the customer. To counter this situation, the conduction of Continuous Improvement or Design Thinking for product discovery are common approaches. A major constraint in conducting product discovery activities is the high effort to discover and validate features and requirements. In addition, companies struggle to integrate product discovery activities into their agile processes and iterations.
Objective
This paper aims at suggests a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent on Design Thinking activities. To operationalize DEW, proposals for practitioners are presented that can be used to integrate product discovery into product development and delivery.
Method
A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. In addition, we conducted an expert workshop to develop proposals for the integration of product discovery activities into the product development and delivery process.
Results
First, we present the "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" in form of a formula. Second, we identified requirements that must be fulfilled for systematic integration of product discovery activities into product development and delivery. Third, we derived from the requirements proposals for the integration of product discovery activities with a company's product development and delivery.
Conclusion
The developed "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" provides a tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. Integrating product discovery with product development and delivery should ensure that the results of product discovery are incorporated into product development. This aims to systematically analyze product risks to increase the chance of product success.
Context: Companies that operate in the software-intensive business are confronted with high market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies as well as fast-changing customer behavior. Traditional product roadmapping practices, such as fixed-time-based charts including detailed planned features, products, or services typically fail in such environments. Until now, the underlying reasons for the failure of product roadmaps in a dynamic and uncertain market environment are not widely analyzed and understood.
Objective: This paper aims to identify current challenges and pitfalls practitioners face when developing and handling product roadmaps in a dynamic and uncertain market environment.
Method: To reach our objective we conducted a grey literature review (GLR).
Results: Overall, we identified 40 relevant papers, from which we could extract 11 challenges of the application of product roadmapping in a dynamic and uncertain market environment. The analysis of the articles showed that the major challenges for practitioners originate from overcoming a feature-driven mindset, not including a lot of details in the product roadmap, and ensuring that the content of the roadmap is not driven by management or expert opinion.
Context: Nowadays the market environment is characterized by high uncertainties due to high market dynamics, confronting companies with new challenges in creating and updating product roadmaps. Most companies are still using traditional approaches which typically fail in such environments. Therefore, companies are seeking opportunities for new product roadmapping approaches.
Objective: This paper presents good practices to support companies better understand what factors are required to conduct a successful product roadmapping in a dynamic and uncertain market environment.
Method: Based on a grey literature review, essential aspects for conducting product roadmapping in a dynamic and uncertain market environment were identified. Expert workshops were then held with two researchers and three practitioners to develop best practices and the proposed approach for an outcome-driven roadmap. These results were then given to another set of practitioners and their perceptions were gathered through interviews.
Results: The study results in the development of 9 good practices that provide practitioners with insights into what aspects are crucial for product roadmapping in a dynamic and uncertain market environment. Moreover, we propose an approach to product roadmapping that includes providing a flexible structure and focusing on delivering value to the customer and the business. To ensure the latter, this approach consists of the main items outcome hypothesis, validated outcomes, and discovered outputs.
Today, companies face increasing market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies, and rapid changes in customer behavior. Traditional approaches to product development typically fail in such environments and require companies to transform their often feature-driven mindset into a product-led mindset. A promising first step on the way to a product-led company is a better understanding of how product planning can be adapted to the requirements of an increasingly dynamic and uncertain market environment in the sense of product roadmapping. The authors developed the DEEP product roadmap assessment tool to help companies evaluate their current product roadmap practices and identify appropriate actions to transition to a more product-led company. Objective: The goal of this paper is to gain insight into the applicability and usefulness of version 1.1 of the DEEP model. In addition, the benefits, and implications of using the DEEP model in corporate contexts will be explored. Method: We conducted a multiple case study in which participants were observed using the DEEP model. We then interviewed each participant to understand their perceptions of the DEEP model. In addition, we conducted interviews with each company's product management department to learn how the application of the DEEP model influenced their attitudes toward product roadmapping. Results: The study showed that by applying the DEEP model, participants better understood which artifacts and methods were critical to product roadmapping success in a dynamic and uncertain market environment. In addition, the application of the DEEP model helped convince management and other stakeholders of the need to change current product roadmapping practices. The application also proved to be a suitable starting point for the transformation in the participating companies.
Context: Agile practices as well as UX methods are nowadays well-known and often adopted to develop complex software and products more efficiently and effectively. However, in the so called VUCA environment, which many companies are confronted with, the sole use of UX research is not sufficient to find the best solutions for customers. The implementation of Design Thinking can support this process. But many companies and their product owners don’t know how much resources they should spend for conducting Design Thinking.
Objective: This paper aims at suggesting a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent for Design Thinking activities.
Method: A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. Design Thinking was introduced into the regular development cycle of an industry Scrum team. With the support of UX and Design Thinking experts, a formula was developed to determine the appropriate effort for Design Thinking.
Results: The developed “Discovery Effort Worthiness Index” provides an easy-to-use tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. A company can map the corresponding Design Thinking methods to the results of the DEW Index calculation, and product owners can select the appropriate measures from this mapping. Therefore, they can optimize the effort spent for discovery and validation.
Context: The software-intensive business is characterized by increasing market dynamics, rapid technological changes, and fast-changing customer behaviors. Organizations face the challenge of moving away from traditional roadmap formats to an outcome-oriented approach that focuses on delivering value to the customer and the business. An important starting point and a prerequisite for creating such outcome-oriented roadmaps is the development of a product vision to which internal and external stakeholders can be aligned. However, the process of creating a product vision is little researched and understood.
Objective: The goal of this paper is to identify lessons-learned from product vision workshops, which were conducted to develop outcome-oriented product roadmaps.
Method: We conducted a multiple-case study consisting of two different product vision workshops in two different corporate contexts.
Results: Our results show that conducting product vision workshops helps to create a common understanding among all stakeholders about the future direction of the products. In addition, we identified key organizational aspects that contribute to the success of product vision workshops, including the participation of employees from functionally different departments.
Context: Many companies are facing an increasingly dynamic and uncertain market environment, making traditional product roadmapping practices no longer sufficiently applicable. As a result, many companies need to adapt their product roadmapping practices for continuing to operate successfully in today’s dynamic market environment. However, transforming product roadmapping practices is a difficult process for organizations. Existing literature offers little help on how to accomplish such a process.
Objective: The objective of this paper is to present a product roadmap transformation approach for organizations to help them identify appropriate improvement actions for their roadmapping practices using an analysis of their current practices.
Method: Based on an existing assessment procedure for evaluating product roadmapping practices, the first version of a product roadmap transformation approach was developed in workshops with company experts. The approach was then given to eleven practitioners and their perceptions of the approach were gathered through interviews.
Results: The result of the study is a transformation approach consisting of a process describing what steps are necessary to adapt the currently applied product roadmapping practice to a dynamic and uncertain market environment. It also includes recommendations on how to select areas for improvement and two empirically based mapping tables. The interviews with the practitioners revealed that the product roadmap transformation approach was perceived as comprehensible, useful, and applicable. Nevertheless, we identified potential for improvements, such as a clearer presentation of some processes and the need for more improvement options in the mapping tables. In addition, minor usability issues were identified.
Context: Nowadays, companies are challenged by increasing market dynamics, rapid changes and disruptive participants entering the market. To survive in such an environment, companies must be able to quickly discover product ideas that meet the needs of both customers and the company and deliver these products to customers. Dual-track agile is a new type of agile development that combines product discovery and delivery activities in parallel, iterative, and cyclical ways. At present, many companies have difficulties in finding and establishing suitable approaches for implementing dual-track agile in their business context.
Objective: In order to gain a better understanding of how product discovery and product delivery can interact with each other and how this interaction can be implemented in practice, this paper aims to identify suitable approaches to dual-track agile.
Method: We conducted a grey literature review (GLR) according to the guidelines to Garousi et al.
Results: Several approaches that support the integration of product discovery with product delivery were identified. This paper presents a selection of these approaches, i.e., the Discovery-Delivery Cycle model, Now-Next-Later Product Roadmaps, Lean Sprints, Product Kata, and Dual-Track Scrum. The approaches differ in their granularity but are similar in their underlying rationales. All approaches aim to ensure that only validated ideas turn into products and thus promise to lead to products that are better received by their users.
It is essential for the success of a company to set a strategic direction in which a product offering will be developed over time to achieve the company vision. For this reason, roadmaps are used in practice. in general, roadmaps can be expressed in various forms such as technology roadmaps, product roadmaps or industry roadmaps. From the point of view of industry, the basic purpose of a roadmap is to explore, visualize and communicate the dynamic linkage between markets, products and technology.
Nowadays companies are facing increasing market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies and shifting user expectations. Together with the adoption of lean and agile practices this situation makes it increasingly difficult to plan and predict upfront which products, services or features should be developed in the future. Consequently, many organizations are struggling with their ability to provide reliable and stable product roadmaps by applying traditional approaches. This paper aims at identifying and getting a better understanding of which measures companies have taken to transform their current product roadmapping practices to the requirements of a dynamic and uncertain market environment. This also includes challenges and success factors within this transformation process as well as measures that companies have planned for the future. We conducted 18 semi-structured expert interviews with practitioners of different companies and performed a thematic data analysis. The study shows that the participating companies are aware that the transformation of traditional product roadmapping practices to fulfill the requirements of a dynamic and uncertain market environment is necessary. The most important measures that the participating companies have taken are 1) adequate item planning concerning the timeline, 2) the replacement of a fixed time-based chart by a more flexible structure, 3) the use of outcomes to determine the items (such as features) on the a roadmap, 4) the creation of a central roadmap which allows deriving different representation for each stakeholder and department.