Juhani Warsta

New directions on agile methods: a comparative analysis

Agile software development methods have caught the attention of software engineers and researchers worldwide. Scientific research is yet scarce. This paper reports results from a study, which aims to organize, analyze and make sense out of the dispersed field of agile software development methods. The comparative analysis is performed using the methods life-cycle coverage, project management support, type of practical guidance, fitness-for-use and empirical evidence as the analytical lenses. The results show that agile software development methods, without rationalization, cover certain/different phases of the software development life-cycle and most of them do not offer adequate support for project management. Yet, many methods still attempt to strive for universal solutions (as opposed to situation appropriate) and the empirical evidence is still very limited. Based on the results, new directions are suggested In principal, it is suggested to place emphasis on methodological quality - not method quantity.

Evolution of Secondary Software Businesses: Understanding Industry Dynamics

Primary software industry originates from IBM’s decision to unbundle software-related computer system development activities to external partners. This kind of outsourcing from an enterprise internal software development activity is a common means to start a new software business serving a vertical software market. It combines knowledge of the vertical market process with competence in software development. In this research, we present and analyze the key figures of the Finnish secondary software industry, in order to quantify its interaction with the primary software industry during the period of 2000–2003. On the basis of the empirical data, we present a model for evolution of a secondary software business, which makes explicit the industry dynamics. It represents the shift from internal software developed for competitive advantage to development of products supporting standard business processes on top of standardized technologies. We also discuss the implications for software business strategies in each phase.

Mobile multimedia services development: value chain perspective

This paper describes and analyses the mobile value chain development, value generation and mobile application development processes. The study is based on eight small multimedia and software companies that use the latest technological possibilities provided by the mobile Internet. The development processes analyzed give a good understanding of how the mobile value chain is made up as seen from the perspective of the development of state-of-the-art mobile multimedia service and content applications (MMS) within the companies studied. The mobile multimedia applications in question were games, short films, music videos, still pictures, and advertisement videos. The processes were scrutinized in order to find out how the different groups of developers act together with their value net partners according to the preset project plan as they develop new applications and content in the mobile multimedia environment. The essential elements, actors as well as their roles in the MMS development processes were analyzed in order to depict the structure of a mobile value network.

The Formation and Management of a Software Outsourcing Partnership Process

The focus of this research is on outsourcing partnerships - what is the process involved in the formation and management of a software research and development (R & D) outsourcing partnership. A complete picture of a software outsourcing partnership life cycle cannot be found in the literature. Because of that a synthesis outsourcing partnership life cycle model has been created based on the models found in other studies. Empirical data from a software R & D outsourcing partnership case is analysed based on the synthesis model, and a new, improved model is created. The new model gives a more in-depth insight into the formation and management process of an outsourcing partnership. Even though the model is created and presented mainly from the customer company viewpoint, it has been affected by the partner company viewpoint as well, as the case data was collected from both companies

Software Business Education for Software Engineers: Towards an Integrated Curriculum

All software is developed to create value to its stakeholders. Software engineering decisions and business value are closely linked with each other: technical decisions may have a profound impact on the business potential of software. Yet, software engineering education usually does not provide students with sufficient knowledge on business-related issues. We believe that the general business education is too abstract and unfocused to address the specific characteristics of software business. This paper suggests specific areas of business competencies that should be integrated into the software engineering curriculum. In addition, we compare these topics with software business curricula in three Finnish universities.

Value Network Positioning of Expected Winners: Analysis of the Top Software Business Start-ups

The focus of this paper is on trying to answer the question how the most promising ICT start-ups are positioned with regard to value creation in growing markets. The results of the study show that there are clearly a few most promising positions in the value network of emerging markets: either an infrastructure or application software supplier, or an application service provider.

Evolution of secondary software product businesses: Momentum of concurrent enterprising

A growing part of commercial software production is provided by the so-called secondary software industry, involving both software products and services offered by other industries than the actual software industry, i.e. the primary industry. We have been investigating the evolution of businesses in the secondary software industry in two phases, first by developing a framework to analyse the change of host industries from closed and vertical to open and horizontal especially in terms of software products. Secondly, we have studied a set of selected industries in a pivotal era called the momentum of concurrent enterprising in this paper. The key finding is: the value creation is moving towards service offerings - which are product-based, but so that products are designed and built by the other network parties. For the OEM company it is thus essential to estimate how the market opening process will affect the success of its emerging service businesses, including the role of software products in this process.

Process view on the software contracting in the Internet business

The paper examines the software contracting process and its interaction with other business processes and especially with software processes in an Internet business environment. We start by studying the software company as clusters of different processes. The company processes are divided into management processes, business processes, and work processes. The software contracting process is part of the business processes. We study the influence of the contracting process over the software process and value building from the point of view of the business processes. As we introduce two generic contracting models, we also try to answer to the questions: Why do companies make contracts and what makes the contract process so interesting and worthwhile studying, especially in the new (mobile) Internet environment. Lastly we outline a new tentative contract process model based on our case material from an Internet software company and its contracting process.

Contractual Versatility in Software Business

This empirical study addresses the problem of how Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS), tailored, and Modified-off-the-Shelf (MOTS) software contracting has been approached, in practice. The focus of the study is on analyzing different contractual characterizations of the three models of software business. The empirical part of the study was completed by analyzing twelve software producing companies — eight were Finnish firms established in the Silicon Valley area in the USA and the rest were local Finnish firms with international operations. The research produced a number of practical insights for managing and developing the contracting process.