Software startups operate under various uncertainties and the demand on their ability to deal with change is high. Agile methods are considered a suitable and viable development approach for them. However, the competing needs for speed and quality may render certain agile practices less suitable than others in the startup context. The adoption of agile practices can be further complicated in software startups that adopt the Lean Startup approach. To make the best of agile practices, it is necessary to first understand whether and how they are used in software startups. This study targets at a better understanding of the use of agile practices in software startups, with a particular focus on lean startups. Based on a large survey of 1526 software startups, we examined the use of five agile practices, including quality related (regular refactoring and test first), speed related (frequent release and agile planning) and communication practice (daily standup meeting). The findings show that speed related agile practices are used to a greater extent in comparison to quality practices. Daily standup meeting is least used. Software startups who adopt the Lean Startup approach do not sacrifice quality for speed more than other startups do.
Jevgenija Pantiuchina, Marco Mondini, Dron Khanna et al.· International Conference on...· 84 citations· ⚡4
It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds; firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startup’s progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototyping.
Anh Nguyen-Duc, Xiaofeng Wang, P. Abrahamsson· International Conference on...· 44 citations· ⚡5
To compete in this age of disruption, large companies cannot rely on cost efficiency, lead time reduction and quality improvement. They are now looking for ways to innovate like startups. Meanwhile, the awareness and use of the Lean startup approach have grown rapidly amongst the software startup community in recent years. This study investigates how Lean internal startup facilitates software product innovation in large companies and identifies its enablers and inhibitors. A multiple case study approach is followed in the investigation. Two software product innovation projects from two large companies are examined, using a conceptual framework that is based on the method-in-action framework and extended with the previously developed Lean-Internal Corporate Venture model. Seven face-to-face in-depth interviews of the employees with different roles are conducted. Within-case analysis and cross-case comparison are applied to draw the findings from the cases. A generic process flow summarises the common key processes of Lean internal startups. The findings suggest that an internal startup that is initiated management or employees faces different challenges. A list of enablers of applying Lean startup in large companies are identified, including top management support and cross-functional team. Both cases face different inhibitors due to the different process of inception, objective of the team and type of the product. Our contributions are threefold. First, this study is one of the first attempt to investigate the use of Lean startup approach in large companies empirically. Second, the study shows the potential of the method-in-action framework to investigate the Lean startup approach in non-startup context. The third is a general process of Lean internal startup and the evidence of the enablers and inhibitors of implementing it, which are both theory-informed and empirically grounded.
Henry Edison, Nina M. Smørsgård, Xiaofeng Wang et al.· Journal of Systems and Softw...· 78 citations· ⚡6
Internet-of-Things applications are not only the new opportunity for digital businesses but also a major driving force for the modification and creation of software systems in all industries and businesses. Compared to other types of software-intensive products, the development of Internet-of-Things applications lacks a systematic approach and guidelines. This paper aims at understanding the methodological commonalities among startups who are developing Internet-of-Things products. Using the SEMAT Essence framework, we captured common team compositions, common types of Minimum Viable Products and common way of working in early stage Internet-of-Things startups. We found that startups include various engineering and business competence, but do not cover all of what is needed. The development of Internet-of-Things applications adopts certain speed-favor approaches, i.e. rapid prototyping, iterative development and outsourcing. The finding implies some recommendations for both researchers and practitioners in the area of Internet-of-Things development.
Anh Nguyen-Duc, K. Khalid, T. Lønnestad et al.· International Conference on...· 10 citations
Recent studies have proposed the use of experiments to guide software development in order to build features that the user really wants. Some authors argue that this approach represents a new way to develop software that is different from the traditional requirement-driven one. In this position paper, we propose the discipline of Hypotheses Engineering in comparison to Requirements Engineering, highlighting the importance of proper handling hypotheses that guide experiments. We derive a set of practices within this discipline and present how the literature has tackled them up to now. Finally, we propose a set of research questions that could guide future work towards helping practitioners.
With the expansion of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) across critical and regulated industries, systems must be continuously updated to remain resilient. At the same time, they should be extremely secure and safe to operate and use. The DevOps approach caters to business demands of more speed and smartness in production, but it is extremely challenging to implement DevOps due to the complexity of critical CPSs and requirements from regulatory authorities. In this study, expert opinions from 33 European companies expose the gap in the current state of practice on DevOps-oriented continuous development and maintenance. The study contributes to research and practice by identifying a set of needs. Subsequently, the authors propose a novel approach called Secure DevOps and provide several avenues for further research and development in this area. The study shows that, because security is a cross-cutting property in complex CPSs, its proficient management requires system-wide competencies and capabilities across the CPSs development and operation.
P. Abrahamsson, Goetz Botterweck, Hadi Ghanbari et al.· International Journal of Sys...· 14 citations
Metrics can be used by firms to make more objective decisions based on data. Software startups in particular are characterized by the uncertain or even chaotic nature of the contexts in which they operate. Using data in the form of metrics can help software startups to make the right decisions amid uncertainty and limited resources. However, whereas conventional business metrics and software metrics have been studied in the past, metrics in the specific context of software startups have not been studied. In this chapter, we present the results of a multivocal literature review to offer you 118 metrics practitioner experts think software startups should measure. These metrics can give you ideas for what your startup should measure.
Kai-Kristian Kemell, Xiaofeng Wang, Anh Nguyen-Duc et al.· Fundamentals of Software Sta...· 8 citations· ⚡1
The restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic required software development teams to adapt, being forced to work remotely and adjust the software engineering activities accordingly. In the studies evaluating these effects, a few have assessed the impact on software engineering activities from a broader perspective and after a period of time when teams had time to adjust to the changes. No studies have been found comparing software startups and established companies either. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on software development activities after one year of the pandemic restrictions, comparing the results between startups and established companies. Our approach was to design a cross-sectional survey and distribute it online among software development companies worldwide. The participants were asked about their perception of COVID-19’s pandemic impact on different software engineering activities: requirements engineering, software architecture, user experience design, software implementation, and software quality assurance. The survey received 170 valid answers from 29 countries, and for all the software engineering activities, we found that most respondents did not observe a significant impact. The results also showed that software startups and established companies were affected differently since, in some activities, we found a negative impact in the former and a positive impact in the latter. Regarding the time spent on each software engineering activity, most of the answers reported no change, but on those that did, the result points to an increase in time. Thus, we cannot find any relation between the change in time of effort and the reported positive or negative impact.
Hosna Hooshyar, E. Guerra, Jorge Melegati et al.· IEEE Access· 4 citations