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A fast way to test business ideas and to explore customer problems and needs is to talk to them. Customer interviews help to understand what solutions customers will pay for before investing valuable resources to develop solutions. Customer interviews are a good way to gain qualitative insights. However, conducting interviews can be a difficult procedure and requires specific skills. The current ways of teaching interview skills have significant deficiencies. They especially lack guidance and opportunities to practice. Objective: The goal of this work is to develop and validate a workshop format to teach interview skills for conducting good customer interviews in a practical manner. Method: The research method is based on design science research which serves as a framework. A game-based workshop format was designed to teach interview skills. The approach consists of a half-day, hands-on workshop and is based on an analysis of necessary interview skills. The approach has been validated in several workshops and improved based on learnings from those workshops. Results: Results of the validation show that participants could significantly improve their interview skills while enjoying the game-based exercises. The game-based learning approach supports learning and practicing customer interview skills with playful and interactive elements that encourage greater motivation among participants to conduct interviews.
Context: Companies need capabilities to evaluate the customer value of software intensive products and services. One way of systematically acquiring data on customer value is running continuous experiments as part of the overall development process. Objective: This paper investigates the first steps of transitioning towards continuous experimentation in a large company, including the challenges faced. Method: We conduct a single-case study using participant observation, interviews, and qualitative analysis of the collected data. Results: Results show that continuous experimentation was well received by the practitioners and practising experimentation helped them to enhance understanding of their product value and user needs. Although the complexities of a large multi-stakeholder business to-business (B2B) environment presented several challenges such as inaccessible users, it was possible to address impediments and integrate an experiment in an ongoing development project. Conclusion: Developing the capability for continuous experimentation in large organisations is a learning process which can be supported by a systematic introduction approach with the guidance of experts. We gained experience by introducing the approach on a small scale in a large organisation, and one of the major steps for future work is to understand how this can be scaled up to the whole development organisation.
Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs have been implemented, inter alia, to improve quality and speed of software development. SPI addresses many aspects ranging from individual developer skills to entire organizations. It comprises, for instance, the optimization of specific activities in the software lifecycle as well as the creation of organizational awareness and project culture. In the course of conducting a systematic mapping study on the state-of-the-art in SPI from a general perspective, we observed Software Quality Management (SQM) being of certain relevance in SPI programs. In this paper, we provide a detailed investigation of those papers from the overall systematic mapping study that were classified as addressing SPI in the context of SQM (including testing). From the main study’s result set, 92 papers were selected for an in-depth systematic review to study the contributions and to develop an initial picture of how these topics are addressed in SPI. Our findings show a fairly pragmatic contribution set in which different solutions are proposed, discussed, and evaluated. Among others, our findings indicate a certain reluctance towards standard quality or (test) maturity models and a strong focus on custom review, testing, and documentation techniques, whereas a set of five selected improvement measures is almost equally addressed.
Turning students into Industry 4.0 entrepreneurs: design and evaluation of a tailored study program
(2022)
Startups in the field of Industry 4.0 could be a huge driver of innovation for many industry sectors such as manufacturing. However, there is a lack of education programs to ensure a sufficient number of well-trained founders and thus a supply of such startups. Therefore, this study presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of a university course tailored to the characteristics of Industry 4.0 entrepreneurship. Educational design-based research was applied with a focus on content and teaching concept. The study program was first implemented in 2021 at a German university of applied sciences with 25 students, of which 22 participated in the evaluation. The evaluation of the study program was conducted with a pretest–posttest-design targeting three areas: (1) knowledge about the application domain, (2) entrepreneurial intention and (3) psychological characteristics. The entrepreneurial intention was measured based on the theory of planned behavior. For measuring psychological characteristics, personality traits associated with entrepreneurship were used. Considering the study context and the limited external validity of the study, the following can be identified in particular: The results show that a university course can improve participants' knowledge of this particular area. In addition, perceived behavioral control of starting an Industry 4.0 startup was enhanced. However, the results showed no significant effects on psychological characteristics.
In the era of digital transformation, the notion of software quality transcends its traditional boundaries, necessitating an expansion to encompass the realms of value creation for customers and the business. Merely optimizing technical aspects of software quality can result in diminishing returns. Product discovery techniques can be seen as a powerful mechanism for crafting products that align with an expanded concept of quality - one that incorporates value creation. Previous research has shown that companies struggle to determine appropriate product discovery techniques for generating, validating, and prioritizing ideas for new products or features to ensure they meet the needs and desires of the customers and the business. For this reason, we conducted a grey literature review to identify various techniques for product discovery. First, the article provides an overview of different techniques and assesses how frequently they are mentioned in the literature review. Second, we mapped these techniques to an existing product discovery process from previous research to provide concrete guidelines for establishing product discovery in their organizations. The analysis shows, among other things, the increasing importance of techniques to structure the problem exploration process and the product strategy process. The results are interpreted regarding the importance of the techniques to practical applications and recognizable trends.
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: 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, 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.
Context: A product roadmap is an important tool in product development. It sets the strategic direction in which the product is to be developed to achieve the company’s vision. However, for product roadmaps to be successful, it is essential that all stakeholders agree with the company’s vision and objectives and are aligned and committed to a common product plan.
Objective: In order to gain a better understanding of product roadmap alignment, this paper aims at identifying measures, activities and techniques in order to align the different stakeholders around the product roadmap.
Method: We conducted a grey literature review according the guidelines to Garousi et al.
Results: Several approaches to gain alignment were identified such as defining and communicating clear objectives based on the product vision, conducting cross-functional workshops, shuttle diplomacy, and mission briefing. In addition, our review identified the “Behavioural Change Stairway Model” that suggests five steps to gain alignment by building empathy and a trustful relationship.
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.