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Context: Organizations are increasingly challenged by dynamic and technical market environments. Traditional product roadmapping practices such as detailed and fixed long-term planning typically fail in such environments. Therefore, companies are actively seeking ways to improve their product roadmapping approach. Goal: This paper aims at identifying problems and challenges with respect to product roadmapping. In addition, it aims at understanding how companies succeed in improving their roadmapping practices in their respective company contexts. The study focuses on mid-sized and large companies developing software-intensive products in dynamic and technical market environments. Method: We conducted semi structured expert interviews with 15 experts from 13 German companies and conducted a thematic data analysis. Results: The analysis showed that a significant number of companies is still struggling with traditional feature based product-roadmapping and opinion based prioritization of features. The most promising areas for improvement are stating the outcomes a company is trying to achieve and making them part of the roadmap, sharing or co-developing the roadmap with stakeholders, and the establishing discovery activities.
Through increasing market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies and shifting user expectations coupled with the adoption of lean and agile practices, companies are struggling with their ability to provide reliable product roadmaps by applying traditional approaches. Currently, most companies are seeking opportunities to improve their product roadmapping practices. As a first challenge they have to assess their current product roadmapping capabilities in order to better understand how to improve their practices and how to switch to a new approach. The aim of this article is to provide an initial maturity model for product roadmapping practices that is especially suited for assessing the roadmapping capabilities of companies operating in dynamic and uncertain market environments. Based on interviews with 15 experts from 13 various companies the current state of practice regarding product roadmapping was identified. Afterwards, the model development was conducted in the context of expert workshops with the Robert Bosch GmbH and researchers. The study results in the so-called DEEP 1.0 product roadmap maturity model which allows companies to conduct a self assessment of their product roadmapping practice.
Context: Organizations are increasingly challenged by high market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies and shifting user expectations. In consequence, many organizations are struggling with their ability to provide reliable product roadmaps by applying traditional roadmapping approaches. Currently, many companies are seeking opportunities to improve their product roadmapping practices and strive for new roadmapping approaches. A typical first step towards advancing the roadmapping capabilities of an organization is to assess the current situation. Therefore, the so-called maturity model DEEP for assessing the product roadmapping capabilities of companies operating in dynamic and uncertain environments has been developed and published by the authors.
Objective: The aim of this article is to conduct an initial validation of the DEEP model in order to understand its applicability better and to see if important concepts are missing. In addition, the aim of this article is to evolve the model based on the findings from the initial validation.
Method: The model has been given to practitioners such as product managers with the request to perform a self-assessment of the current product roadmapping practices in their company. Afterwards, interviews with each participant have been conducted in order to gain insights.
Results: The initial validation revealed that some of the stages of the model need to be rearranged and minor usability issues were found. The overall structure of the model was well received. The study resulted in the development of the version 1.1 of the DEEP product roadmap maturity model which is also presented in this article.
Context: Organizations are increasingly challenged by dynamic and technical market environments. Traditional product roadmapping practices such as detailed and fixed long-term planning typically fail in such environments. Therefore, companies are actively seeking ways to improve their product roadmapping approach.
Goal: This paper aims at identifying problems and challenges with respect to product roadmapping. In addition, it aims at understanding how companies succeed in improving their roadmapping practices in their respective company contexts.
Method: We conducted semi-structured expert interviews with 15 experts from 13 German companies and conducted athematic data analysis.
Results: The analysis showed that a significant number of companies is still struggling with traditional feature-based product-roadmapping and opinion-based prioritization of features. The most promising areas for improvement are stating the outcomes a company is trying to achieve and making them part of the roadmap, sharing or co-developing the roadmap with stakeholders, and establishing discovery activities.
Workshops and tutorials
(2018)
The 19th International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2018) hosted two workshops and three tutorials. The workshops and tutorials complemented and enhanced the main conference program, offering a wider knowledge perspective around the conference topics. The topics of the two workshops were Hybrid Development Approaches in Software Systems Development (HELENA) and Managing Quality in Agile & Rapid Software Development Processes (QUaSD). The topics of the tutorials were The human factor in agile transitions – using the personas concept in agile oaching, Process Management 4.0 – Best Practices, and Domain-specific languages for specification, development, and testing of autonomous systems.
Delivering value to customers in real-time requires companies to utilize real-time deployment of software to expose features to users faster, and to shorten the feedback loop. This allows for faster reaction and helps to ensure that the development is focused on features providing real value. Continuous delivery is a development practice where the software functionality is deployed continuously to customer environment. Although this practice has been established in some domains such as B2C mobile software, the B2B domain imposes specific challenges. This article presents a case study that is conducted in a medium-sized software company operating in the B2B domain. The objective of this study is to analyze the challenges and benefits of continuous delivery in this domain. The results suggest that technical challenges are only one part of the challenges a company encounters in this transition. The company must also address challenges related to the customer and procedures. The core challenges are caused by having multiple customers with diverse environments and unique properties, whose business depends on the software product. Some customers require to perform manual acceptance testing, while some are reluctant towards new versions. By utilizing continuous delivery, it is possible for the case company to shorten the feedback cycles, increase the reliability of new versions, and reduce the amount of resources required for deploying and testing new releases.
Rapid value delivery requires a company to utilize empirical evaluation of new features and products in order to avoid unnecessary product risks. This helps to make data-driven decisions and to ensure that the development is focused on features that provide real value for customers. Short feedback loops are a prerequisite as they allow for fast learning and reduced reaction times. Continuous experimentation is a development practice where the entire R&D process is guided by constantly conducting experiments and collecting feedback. Although principles of continuous experimentation have been successfully applied in domains such as game software or SAAS, it is not obvious how to transfer continuous experimentation to the business to-business domain. In this article, a case study from a medium-sized software company in the B2B domain is presented. The study objective is to analyze the challenges, benefits and organizational aspects of continuous experimentation in the B2B domain. The results suggest that technical challenges are only one part of the challenges a company encounters in this transition. The company also has to address challenges related to the customer and organizational culture. Unique properties in each customers business play a major role and need to be considered when designing experiments. Additionally, the speed by which experiments can be conducted is relative to the speed by which production deployments can be made. Finally, the article shows how the study results can be used to modify the development in the case company in a way that more feedback and data is used instead of opinions.
Entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises usually have issues on developing new prototypes, new ideas or testing new techniques. In order to help them, in the last years, academic Software Factories, a new concept of collaboration between universities and companies have been developed. Software Factories provide a unique environment for students and companies. Students benefit from the possibility of working in a real work environment learning how to apply the state of the art of the existing techniques and showing their skills to entrepreneurs. Companies benefit from the risk-free environment where they can develop new ideas, in a protected environment. Universities finally benefit from this setup as a perfect environment for empirical studies in industrial-like environment. In this paper, we present the network of academic Software Factories in Europe, showing how companies had already benefit from existing Software Factories and reporting success stories. The results of this paper can increase the network of the factories and help other universities and companies to setup similar environment to boost the local economy.
Hardly any software development process is used as prescribed by authors or standards. Regardless of company size or industry sector, a majority of project teams and companies use hybrid development methods (short: hybrid methods) that combine different development methods and practices. Even though such hybrid methods are highly individualized, a common understanding of how to systematically construct synergetic practices is missing. In this article, we make a first step towards a statistical construction procedure for hybrid methods. Grounded in 1467 data points from a large‐scale practitioner survey, we study the question: What are hybrid methods made of and how can they be systematically constructed? Our findings show that only eight methods and few practices build the core of modern software development. Using an 85% agreement level in the participants' selections, we provide examples illustrating how hybrid methods can be characterized by the practices they are made of. Furthermore, using this characterization, we develop an initial construction procedure, which allows for defining a method frame and enriching it incrementally to devise a hybrid method using ranked sets of practice.
Among the multitude of software development processes available, hardly any is used by the book. Regardless of company size or industry sector, a majority of project teams and companies use customized processes that combine different development methods— so-called hybrid development methods. Even though such hybrid development methods are highly individualized, a common understanding of how to systematically construct synergetic practices is missing. In this paper, we make a first step towards devising such guidelines. Grounded in 1,467 data points from a large-scale online survey among practitioners, we study the current state of practice in process use to answer the question: What are hybrid development methods made of? Our findings reveal that only eight methods and few practices build the core of modern software development. This small set allows for statistically constructing hybrid development methods. Using an 85% agreement level in the participants’ selections, we provide two examples illustrating how hybrid development methods are characterized by the practices they are made of. Our evidence-based analysis approach lays the foundation for devising hybrid development methods.
Regardless of company size or industry sector, a majority of project teams and companies use customized processes that combine different development methods-so-called hybrid development methods. Even though such hybrid development methods are highly individualized, a common understanding of how to systematically construct synergetic practices is missing. Based on 1,467 data points from a large-scale online survey among practitioners, we study the current state of practice in process use to answer the question: What are hybrid development methods made of? Our findings reveal that only eight methods and few practices build the core of modern software development. This small set allows for statistically constructing hybrid development methods.
For years, agile methods are considered the most promising route toward successful software development, and a considerable number of published studies the (successful) use of agile methods and reports on the benefits companies have from adopting agile methods. Yet, since the world is not black or white, the question for what happened to the traditional models arises. Are traditional models replaced by agile methods? How is the transformation toward Agile managed, and, moreover, where did it start? With this paper we close a gap in literature by studying the general process use over time to investigate how traditional and agile methods are used. Is there coexistence or do agile methods accelerate the traditional processes’ extinction? The findings of our literature study comprise two major results: First, studies and reliable numbers on the general process model use are rare, i.e., we lack quantitative data on the actual process use and, thus, we often lack the ability to ground process-related research in practically relevant issues. Second, despite the assumed dominance of agile methods, our results clearly show that companies enact context-specific hybrid solutions in which traditional and agile development approaches are used in combination.
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.
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.
How to prioritize your product roadmap when everything feels important: a grey literature review
(2021)
Context: A key factor in achieving product success is to identify what and in which order outputs must be launched in order to deliver the most value to the customer and the business. Therefore, a well-established process to discover and prioritize the content of the product roadmap in the right way is crucial for the success of a company. However, most companies prioritize their product roadmap items based on opinions of experts or the management. Additionally, increasing market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies and fast changing customer behavior complicate the conduction of the prioritization process. Therefore, many companies are struggling to finding and establishing suitable techniques for prioritizing their product roadmap.
Objective: In order to gain a better understanding of the prioritization process in a dynamic and uncertain market environment, this paper aims to identify suitable techniques for the prioritization in such environments.
Method: We conducted a Grey Literature Review according to the guidelines of Garousi et al.
Results: 18 techniques for the prioritization of the product roadmap could be identified. 15 techniques are primarily used to prioritize outputs by considering factors such as the expected impact or effort. Two technique are most suitable for prioritizing risky assumptions that need to be validated and one technique focuses on the prioritization of outcomes. All techniques have in common that they should be conducted as cross-functional team activity in order to include different perspectives in the prioritization process.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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: 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: Currently, most companies apply approaches for product roadmapping that are based on the assumption that the future is highly predicable. However, nowadays companies are facing the challenge of increasing market dynamics, rapidly evolving technologies, and shifting user expectations. Together with the adaption of lean and agile practices it makes it increasingly difficult to plan and predict upfront which products, services or features will satisfy the needs of the customers. Therefore, they are struggling with their ability to provide product roadmaps that fit into dynamic and uncertain market environments and that can be used together with lean and agile software development practices.
Objective: To gain a better understanding of modern product roadmapping processes, this paper aims to identify suitable processes for the creation and evolution of product roadmaps in dynamic and uncertain market environments.
Method: We performed a Grey Literature Review (GLR) according to the guidelines from Garousi et al.
Results: 32 approaches to product roadmapping were identified. Typical characteristics of these processes are the strong connection between the product roadmap and the product vision, an emphasis on stakeholder alignment, the definition of business and customer goals as part of the roadmapping process, a high degree of flexibility with respect to reaching these goals, and the inclusion of validation activities in the roadmapping process. An overall goal of nearly all approaches is to avoid waste by early reducing development and business risks. From the list of the 32 approaches found, four representative roadmapping processes are described in detail.
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.
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.
Providing a digital infrastructure, platform technologies foster interfirm collaboration between loosely coupled companies, enabling the formation of ecosystems and building the organizational structure for value co-creation. Despite the known potential, the development of platform ecosystems creates new sources of complexity and uncertainty due to the involvement of various independent actors. For a platform ecosystem to succeed, it is essential that the platform ecosystem participants are aligned, coordinated, and given a common direction. Traditionally, product roadmaps have served these purposes during product development. A systematic mapping study was conducted to better understand how product roadmapping could be used in the dynamic environment of platform ecosystems. One result of the study is that there are hardly any concrete approaches for product roadmapping in platform ecosystems so far. However, many challenges on the topic are described in the literature from different perspectives. Based on the results of the systematic mapping study, a research agenda for product roadmapping in platform ecosystems is derived and presented.
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.
Product roadmaps in the new mobility domain: state of the practice and industrial experiences
(2021)
Context: The New Mobility industry is a young market that includes high market dynamics and is therefore associated with a high degree of uncertainty. Traditional product roadmapping approaches such a detailed planning of features over a long-time horizon typically fail in such environments. For this reason, companies that are active in the field of New Mobility are faced with the challenge of keeping their product roadmaps reliable for stakeholders while at the same time being able to react flexibly to changing market requirements.
Objective: The goal of this paper is to identify the state of practice regarding product roadmapping of New Mobility companies. In addition, the related challenges within the product roadmapping process as well as the success factors to overcome these challenges will be highlighted.
Method: We conducted semi-structured expert interviews with 8 experts (7 German company and one Finnish company) from the field of New Mobility and performed a content analysis.
Results: Overall the results of the study showed that the participating companies are aware of the requirements that the New Mobility sector entails. Therefore, they exhibit a high level of maturity in terms of product roadmapping. Nevertheless, some aspects were revealed that pose specific challenges for the participating companies. One major challenge, for example, is that New Mobility in terms of public clients is often a tender business with non-negotiable product requirements. Thus, the product roadmap can be significantly influenced from the outside. As factors for a successful product roadmapping mainly soft factors such as trust between all people involved in the product development process and transparency throughout the entire roadmapping process were mentioned.
Context: The manufacturing industry is facing a transformation with regard to Industry 4.0 (I4). A transformation towards full automation of production including a multitude of innovations is necessary. Startups and entrepreneurial processes can support such a transformation as has been shown in other industries. However, I4 has some specifics, so it is unclear how entrepreneurship can be adapted in I4. Understanding these specifics is important to develop suitable training programs for I4 startups and to accelerate the transformation.
Objective: This study identifies and outlines the essential characteristics and constraints of entrepreneurial processes in I4.
Method: 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts in the field of I4 entrepreneurship. The interviews were analysed and categorized by qualitative analyses.
Results: The interviews revealed several characteristics of I4 that have a significant impact on the various phases of the entrepreneurial process. Examples of such specifics include the difficult access to customers, the necessary deep understanding of the customer and the domain, the difficulty of testing risky assumptions, and the complex development and productization of solutions. The complexity of hardware and software components, cost structures, and necessary customer-specific customizations affect the scalability of I4 startups. These essential characteristics also require specialised skills and resources from I4 startups.
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.
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.
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.
Introducing continuous experimentation in large software-intensive product and service organisations
(2017)
Software development in highly dynamic environments imposes high risks to development organizations. One such risk is that the developed software may be of only little or no value to customers, wasting the invested development efforts.Continuous experiment ation, as an experiment-driven development approach, may reduce such development risks by iteratively testing product and service assumptions that are critical to the success of the software. Although several experiment-driven development approaches are available, there is little guidance available on how to introduce continuous experimentation into an organization. This article presents a multiple-case study that aims at better understanding the process of introducing continuous experimentation into an organization with an already established development process. The results from the study show that companies are open to adopting such an approach and learning throughout the introduction process. Several benefits were obtained, such as reduced development efforts, deeper customer insights, and better support for development decisions. Challenges included complex stakeholder structures, difficulties in defining success criteria, and building experimen- tation skills. Our findings indicate that organizational factors may limit the benefits of experimentation. Moreover, introducing continuous experimentation requires fundamental changes in how companies operate, and a systematic introduction process can increase the chances of a successful start.
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.