Laura Lehtola - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Laura Lehtola
Roadmapping problems in practice: value creation from the perspective of the customers
Requirements Engineering, 2013
ABSTRACT Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for adding business value to a so... more ABSTRACT Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for adding business value to a software product. The marketing literature has placed increasing emphasis on customer value and that value is created in customers’ everyday activities. This paper presents an action research study on the roadmapping problems of two software product companies. The key findings were that customer knowledge was fragmented across different functions of the companies and that roadmapping neglected service development. To solve these problems, the analysis of customer value and customers’ processes was integrated into roadmapping. Facilitated workshops with cross-functional teams were used to analyze the customers’ processes in their entirety and to create a holistic view to roadmapping. The lessons learned offer practical means for software companies to shift their focus from the prioritization of software features to the analysis of customers’ processes and the prioritization of customers’ activities. That shift can promote value for customers and uncover new service business opportunities. Accordingly, this paper provides a six-step approach to adopt the value-creation logic from the customers’ perspective into the existing roadmapping process of a company.
Integrating analysis of customers' processes into roadmapping: The value-creation perspective
2011 IEEE 19th International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2011
Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for combining a business strategy with rel... more Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for combining a business strategy with release planning. Furthermore, the marketing literature has placed increasing emphasis on the importance of understanding customers' processes and customer value. This paper presents an action research study on the roadmapping problems of two software product companies. The key findings were that customer knowledge was fragmented across
Empirical Evaluation of Two Requirements Prioritization Methods in Product Development Projects
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
ABSTRACT Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important but difficult activity in prod... more ABSTRACT Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important but difficult activity in product development. The literature offers methods for requirements prioritization, but many authors report that practices in companies are mostly informal. In this study, we evaluated two requirements prioritization methods from the requirements engineering literature in industrial product development projects. In the first case, the users of the system evaluated the pair-wise comparison technique (5) for prioritizing user needs. In the second case, practitioners evaluated Wiegers' method (18) for change requests. The findings from the cases provide information about the suitability of the prioritization methods for product development work. In addition, our findings indicate why it might be challenging for practitioners to employ a requirements prioritization method.
Proceedings IEEE Joint International Conference on Requirements Engineering, 2002
Introducing requirements engineering appears to involve a cultural change in organizations. Such ... more Introducing requirements engineering appears to involve a cultural change in organizations. Such a cultural change requires that requirements are defined and managed systematically, not only from a technical point of view, but also from the customers' and users' points of view. This paper describes experiences gained from four Finnish organizations that have started to introduce requirements engineering to their product development. The goal of this study was to evaluate which factors support, and which prevent, a cultural change. Linking business goals to technical requirements via user needs and user requirements was one of the key improvement actions that supported cultural change. Eliciting needs directly from real users and representing user requirements in the form of use cases were also key activities. However, bringing about a change of culture was challenging because both managers and product development engineers held beliefs that prevented active user need elicitation and systematic user requirement documentation.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important activity in product development. In thi... more Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important activity in product development. In this paper, we describe the current state of requirements prioritization practices in two case companies and present the practical challenges involved. Our study showed that requirements prioritization is an ambiguous concept and current practices in the companies are informal. Requirements prioritization requires complex context-specific decision-making and must be performed iteratively in many phases during development work. Practitioners are seeking more systematic ways to prioritize requirements but they find it difficult to pay attention to all the relevant factors that have an effect on priorities and explicitly to draw different stakeholder views together. In addition, practitioners need more information about real customer preferences.
15th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2007), 2007
Long-term product planning (i.e. roadmapping) is an approach that companies operating in the soft... more Long-term product planning (i.e. roadmapping) is an approach that companies operating in the software product business have used to bridge the gap between business planning and product development. A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies developing software products need to select requirements for forthcoming releases based on the business decisions of the company. However, in practice, connecting requirements engineering decisions and business management is far from trivial. This paper reports lessons learned from four software product companies that recognize the need for more business-oriented longterm product planning. The study was conducted using the action research approach. We identified four practices that seem to strengthen the link between business decisions and requirements engineering. These are: 1) explicating the planning levels and time horizons needed in product planning, 2) separating the planning of business goals relating to products from R&D resource allocation, 3) conducting open-ended planning by pre-defined rhythm and 4) emphasizing whole-product thinking.
From Feature Development to Customer Value Creation
2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2009
Marketing experts emphasize that the creation of superior customer value is a key element for com... more Marketing experts emphasize that the creation of superior customer value is a key element for companies' success. Understanding how to create value for customers, however, is not trivial in practice. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of requirements engineering ...
2009 16th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, 2009
Involving users in software development has been reported to increase the probability of product ... more Involving users in software development has been reported to increase the probability of product and project success, as well as user satisfaction. User involvement can occur in the tasks of several different organizational functions, including a dedicated user-centered team. This article presents the results of a case study conducted to understand the current state of user involvement practice in a company producing software solutions for consumers, enterprises, and service providers. The company has recently established a centralized user experience team to provide user-centered practices for the entire development organization. Feedback was found as the most common type of user information, while concrete user participation in the development process was lacking. However, it was perceived that an organized way of involving users in the development process is needed. We hope the detailed findings and insights of this case study will act as the basis for user involvement research in the future.
The challenge of release planning
2011 Fifth International Workshop on Software Product Management (IWSPM), 2011
ABSTRACT Size and complexity of today's software products are continuously growing. This ... more ABSTRACT Size and complexity of today's software products are continuously growing. This has made it increasingly difficult to decide which features shall be implemented in a product's next version. Consequently, release planning, the process of planning for the next release of an evolving product has been recognized as a wicked problem. Existing studies on wicked problems suggest that it would be too simple to deal with them with intelligence gathering, linear thinking and rational decision making. Yet, it appears that this is precisely how many companies are currently trying to plan their forthcoming product releases. Although the characteristics of release planning challenges are visible and documented in the literature, is this challenge really seen? This paper reviews existing release planning practices introduced in the literature in order to understand the underlying assumptions they have been built on. The identified assumptions are then compared with reported release planning characteristics. As a result, the paper identifies the gap between the problem characteristics and the current solutions, and outlines conditions for more adequate release planning approaches to deal with release planning as complex wicked problems.
Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering, 2008
Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 2006
In a company producing off-the-shelf software for mass markets, the future development steps of t... more In a company producing off-the-shelf software for mass markets, the future development steps of the products cannot be negotiated with one or few customers. The decisions concerning the priorities of the requirements must be made within the company, the developer bearing all the financial risks included. This means that finding the right priorities for the requirements is important. However, requirements prioritization is recognized as a difficult activity in software product development. The literature offers methods for requirements prioritization, but many authors report that practices in companies are mostly informal. In this study, we evaluated two requirements prioritization methods in industrial product development projects. In the first case, the users of the system evaluated the pair-wise comparison technique for prioritizing user needs. In the second case, practitioners evaluated Wiegers' method for change requests. In addition, we interviewed 11 practitioners from 6 companies about their current requirements prioritization practices and the models that they use as a basis of their prioritization decisions. Our findings indicate that prioritization methods may have limited ability to support decision-making in a complex area like requirements prioritization in market-driven product development. In addition, there are practical difficulties in the usage of methods, and therefore, prioritization results should be taken more as being indicative than as an ultimate truth.
Requirements Engineering, 2009
A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies need to sele... more A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies need to select requirements for forthcoming releases. However, in practice, connecting requirements engineering (RE) and business planning is far from trivial. This paper describes the lessons learned from four software product companies that have recognized the need for more business-oriented long-term planning. The study was conducted using the action research approach. We identified five practices that seem to strengthen the link between business decisions and RE. These are (1) explicating the planning levels and time horizons; (2) separating the planning of products' business goals from R&D resource allocation; (3) planning openendedly with a pre-defined rhythm; (4) emphasizing wholeproduct thinking; and (5) making solution planning visible. To support whole-product thinking and solution planning, we suggest that companies create solution concepts. The purpose of the solution concept is to provide a big picture of the solution and guide RE activities.
Linking the Business View to Requirements Engineering: Long-Term Product Planning by Roadmapping
… , 2005. Proceedings. 13th …, 2005
Companies moving into the software product business and growing in size face new challenges that ... more Companies moving into the software product business and growing in size face new challenges that cannot be tackled completely with old practices. For example, the future development steps of the off-the-shelf products can-not be negotiated with just one or a few customers any ...
The Role of User Involvement In Requirements Quality and Project Success
… 2005. Proceedings. 13th …, 2005
User involvement is the key concept in the development of useful and usable systems and has posit... more User involvement is the key concept in the development of useful and usable systems and has positive effects on system success and user satisfaction. This paper reports the results of interviews and a survey conducted to investigate the role of user involvement in defining user ...
Proceedings. 2004 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, 2004. ISESE '04., 2004
This paper reflects on three cases where the focus group method was used to obtain feedback and e... more This paper reflects on three cases where the focus group method was used to obtain feedback and experiences from software engineering practitioners and application users. The focus group method and its background are presented, the method's weaknesses and strengths are discussed, and guidelines are provided for how to use the method in the software engineering context. Furthermore, the results of the three studies conducted are highlighted and the paper concludes in a discussion on the applicability of the method for this type of research. In summary, the focus group method is a cost-effective and quick empirical research approach for obtaining qualitative insights and feedback from practitioners. It can be used in several phases and types of research. However, a major limitation of the method is that it is useful only in studying concepts that can be understood by participants in a limited time. We also recommend that in the software engineering context, the method should be used with sufficient empirical rigor.
Roadmapping problems in practice: value creation from the perspective of the customers
Requirements Engineering, 2013
ABSTRACT Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for adding business value to a so... more ABSTRACT Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for adding business value to a software product. The marketing literature has placed increasing emphasis on customer value and that value is created in customers’ everyday activities. This paper presents an action research study on the roadmapping problems of two software product companies. The key findings were that customer knowledge was fragmented across different functions of the companies and that roadmapping neglected service development. To solve these problems, the analysis of customer value and customers’ processes was integrated into roadmapping. Facilitated workshops with cross-functional teams were used to analyze the customers’ processes in their entirety and to create a holistic view to roadmapping. The lessons learned offer practical means for software companies to shift their focus from the prioritization of software features to the analysis of customers’ processes and the prioritization of customers’ activities. That shift can promote value for customers and uncover new service business opportunities. Accordingly, this paper provides a six-step approach to adopt the value-creation logic from the customers’ perspective into the existing roadmapping process of a company.
Integrating analysis of customers' processes into roadmapping: The value-creation perspective
2011 IEEE 19th International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2011
Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for combining a business strategy with rel... more Roadmapping has been recognized as a critical activity for combining a business strategy with release planning. Furthermore, the marketing literature has placed increasing emphasis on the importance of understanding customers' processes and customer value. This paper presents an action research study on the roadmapping problems of two software product companies. The key findings were that customer knowledge was fragmented across
Empirical Evaluation of Two Requirements Prioritization Methods in Product Development Projects
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
ABSTRACT Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important but difficult activity in prod... more ABSTRACT Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important but difficult activity in product development. The literature offers methods for requirements prioritization, but many authors report that practices in companies are mostly informal. In this study, we evaluated two requirements prioritization methods from the requirements engineering literature in industrial product development projects. In the first case, the users of the system evaluated the pair-wise comparison technique (5) for prioritizing user needs. In the second case, practitioners evaluated Wiegers' method (18) for change requests. The findings from the cases provide information about the suitability of the prioritization methods for product development work. In addition, our findings indicate why it might be challenging for practitioners to employ a requirements prioritization method.
Proceedings IEEE Joint International Conference on Requirements Engineering, 2002
Introducing requirements engineering appears to involve a cultural change in organizations. Such ... more Introducing requirements engineering appears to involve a cultural change in organizations. Such a cultural change requires that requirements are defined and managed systematically, not only from a technical point of view, but also from the customers' and users' points of view. This paper describes experiences gained from four Finnish organizations that have started to introduce requirements engineering to their product development. The goal of this study was to evaluate which factors support, and which prevent, a cultural change. Linking business goals to technical requirements via user needs and user requirements was one of the key improvement actions that supported cultural change. Eliciting needs directly from real users and representing user requirements in the form of use cases were also key activities. However, bringing about a change of culture was challenging because both managers and product development engineers held beliefs that prevented active user need elicitation and systematic user requirement documentation.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important activity in product development. In thi... more Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important activity in product development. In this paper, we describe the current state of requirements prioritization practices in two case companies and present the practical challenges involved. Our study showed that requirements prioritization is an ambiguous concept and current practices in the companies are informal. Requirements prioritization requires complex context-specific decision-making and must be performed iteratively in many phases during development work. Practitioners are seeking more systematic ways to prioritize requirements but they find it difficult to pay attention to all the relevant factors that have an effect on priorities and explicitly to draw different stakeholder views together. In addition, practitioners need more information about real customer preferences.
15th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2007), 2007
Long-term product planning (i.e. roadmapping) is an approach that companies operating in the soft... more Long-term product planning (i.e. roadmapping) is an approach that companies operating in the software product business have used to bridge the gap between business planning and product development. A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies developing software products need to select requirements for forthcoming releases based on the business decisions of the company. However, in practice, connecting requirements engineering decisions and business management is far from trivial. This paper reports lessons learned from four software product companies that recognize the need for more business-oriented longterm product planning. The study was conducted using the action research approach. We identified four practices that seem to strengthen the link between business decisions and requirements engineering. These are: 1) explicating the planning levels and time horizons needed in product planning, 2) separating the planning of business goals relating to products from R&D resource allocation, 3) conducting open-ended planning by pre-defined rhythm and 4) emphasizing whole-product thinking.
From Feature Development to Customer Value Creation
2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2009
Marketing experts emphasize that the creation of superior customer value is a key element for com... more Marketing experts emphasize that the creation of superior customer value is a key element for companies' success. Understanding how to create value for customers, however, is not trivial in practice. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of requirements engineering ...
2009 16th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, 2009
Involving users in software development has been reported to increase the probability of product ... more Involving users in software development has been reported to increase the probability of product and project success, as well as user satisfaction. User involvement can occur in the tasks of several different organizational functions, including a dedicated user-centered team. This article presents the results of a case study conducted to understand the current state of user involvement practice in a company producing software solutions for consumers, enterprises, and service providers. The company has recently established a centralized user experience team to provide user-centered practices for the entire development organization. Feedback was found as the most common type of user information, while concrete user participation in the development process was lacking. However, it was perceived that an organized way of involving users in the development process is needed. We hope the detailed findings and insights of this case study will act as the basis for user involvement research in the future.
The challenge of release planning
2011 Fifth International Workshop on Software Product Management (IWSPM), 2011
ABSTRACT Size and complexity of today's software products are continuously growing. This ... more ABSTRACT Size and complexity of today's software products are continuously growing. This has made it increasingly difficult to decide which features shall be implemented in a product's next version. Consequently, release planning, the process of planning for the next release of an evolving product has been recognized as a wicked problem. Existing studies on wicked problems suggest that it would be too simple to deal with them with intelligence gathering, linear thinking and rational decision making. Yet, it appears that this is precisely how many companies are currently trying to plan their forthcoming product releases. Although the characteristics of release planning challenges are visible and documented in the literature, is this challenge really seen? This paper reviews existing release planning practices introduced in the literature in order to understand the underlying assumptions they have been built on. The identified assumptions are then compared with reported release planning characteristics. As a result, the paper identifies the gap between the problem characteristics and the current solutions, and outlines conditions for more adequate release planning approaches to deal with release planning as complex wicked problems.
Guide to Advanced Empirical Software Engineering, 2008
Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 2006
In a company producing off-the-shelf software for mass markets, the future development steps of t... more In a company producing off-the-shelf software for mass markets, the future development steps of the products cannot be negotiated with one or few customers. The decisions concerning the priorities of the requirements must be made within the company, the developer bearing all the financial risks included. This means that finding the right priorities for the requirements is important. However, requirements prioritization is recognized as a difficult activity in software product development. The literature offers methods for requirements prioritization, but many authors report that practices in companies are mostly informal. In this study, we evaluated two requirements prioritization methods in industrial product development projects. In the first case, the users of the system evaluated the pair-wise comparison technique for prioritizing user needs. In the second case, practitioners evaluated Wiegers' method for change requests. In addition, we interviewed 11 practitioners from 6 companies about their current requirements prioritization practices and the models that they use as a basis of their prioritization decisions. Our findings indicate that prioritization methods may have limited ability to support decision-making in a complex area like requirements prioritization in market-driven product development. In addition, there are practical difficulties in the usage of methods, and therefore, prioritization results should be taken more as being indicative than as an ultimate truth.
Requirements Engineering, 2009
A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies need to sele... more A strong link between strategy and product development is important, since companies need to select requirements for forthcoming releases. However, in practice, connecting requirements engineering (RE) and business planning is far from trivial. This paper describes the lessons learned from four software product companies that have recognized the need for more business-oriented long-term planning. The study was conducted using the action research approach. We identified five practices that seem to strengthen the link between business decisions and RE. These are (1) explicating the planning levels and time horizons; (2) separating the planning of products' business goals from R&D resource allocation; (3) planning openendedly with a pre-defined rhythm; (4) emphasizing wholeproduct thinking; and (5) making solution planning visible. To support whole-product thinking and solution planning, we suggest that companies create solution concepts. The purpose of the solution concept is to provide a big picture of the solution and guide RE activities.
Linking the Business View to Requirements Engineering: Long-Term Product Planning by Roadmapping
… , 2005. Proceedings. 13th …, 2005
Companies moving into the software product business and growing in size face new challenges that ... more Companies moving into the software product business and growing in size face new challenges that cannot be tackled completely with old practices. For example, the future development steps of the off-the-shelf products can-not be negotiated with just one or a few customers any ...
The Role of User Involvement In Requirements Quality and Project Success
… 2005. Proceedings. 13th …, 2005
User involvement is the key concept in the development of useful and usable systems and has posit... more User involvement is the key concept in the development of useful and usable systems and has positive effects on system success and user satisfaction. This paper reports the results of interviews and a survey conducted to investigate the role of user involvement in defining user ...
Proceedings. 2004 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, 2004. ISESE '04., 2004
This paper reflects on three cases where the focus group method was used to obtain feedback and e... more This paper reflects on three cases where the focus group method was used to obtain feedback and experiences from software engineering practitioners and application users. The focus group method and its background are presented, the method's weaknesses and strengths are discussed, and guidelines are provided for how to use the method in the software engineering context. Furthermore, the results of the three studies conducted are highlighted and the paper concludes in a discussion on the applicability of the method for this type of research. In summary, the focus group method is a cost-effective and quick empirical research approach for obtaining qualitative insights and feedback from practitioners. It can be used in several phases and types of research. However, a major limitation of the method is that it is useful only in studying concepts that can be understood by participants in a limited time. We also recommend that in the software engineering context, the method should be used with sufficient empirical rigor.