Value Creation in Agile Software Development for Embedded Software

Licentiate thesis, 2015

The basic aim for software development organizations is to maximize value creation for a given investment. To amplify and speed up the value creation efforts, Agile and Lean Software Development have gained much popularity during the last decade. The very first principle of Agile Manifesto reflects on the highest priority to be satisfying customers through delivery of valuable software. Similarly Lean principles have a particular emphasis on Value and the first principle of Lean software development considers every activity or process to be Waste unless it adds some Value to either the company or its customers. Independent of how Value is defined, Value creation is achieved through various means and methods. However, to be able to maximize the Value, a good understanding of the concept sounds essential. Thus it is important to know what are the most important Value aspects for a software development organization or various stakeholders and what are the strategies used in software development organizations to drive Value and assure the Value creation. As the core concept of lean thinking is to maximize Value creation through elimination of Waste and non-adding activities, it is also important to know how Waste is perceived, evaluated and eliminated. This licentiate thesis is based on three empirical studies: (1) A single case study on customer-specific teams (CST) in a large agile software development organization showing how CSTs create customer Value. (2) A multiple case study investigating the concept of Value, how is it perceived, applied and evaluated amongst various software development organizations. (3) A multiple case study investigating the concept of Waste, how is it perceived, eliminated and measured amongst various software development organizations.