Best Practices for Software Product Development

Best Practices for Software Product Development

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  Best Practices forSoftware Product Development Prof. Dr. A. Mädche Chair of Information Systems IV, Business School and Institute for Enterprise Systems (InES), University of Mannheim http://eris.bwl.uni-mannheim.de http://ines.uni-mannheim.de Walldorf, November 6th 2012
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  Agenda Agenda 1 Motivation 2 State-of-the-Art in Science and Practice 3 Best Practices 4 Summary 2
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  Motivation  Global competition  Global users Globalization  Global development teams Software Industrialization Consumerization Vendors • Cost pressure • Growing customer expectations • Shorter development cycles • Importance of user experience • Specialization & Standardization 3
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  Agenda Agenda 1 Motivation 2 State-of-the-Art in Science and Practice 3 Best Practices 4 Summary 4
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  (Software) Product Development Knowledgeand Concepts from Research and Practice Information Science Practice Systems Product Vision Global Innovation & Strategy Software Management NPD Lean Product Development Marketing Research … R&D Development Management Coordination Product Pricinples Software Design Roadmapping Launch Engineering Lines Tactics Scrum Thinking & Release … … Mgt. Model-Driven Development Human Computer Design SWOT … Focus Groups Interaction Prototyping Marketing Management … Product Science GOMS Launch Psychology Team Composition & Performance 5
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  Science: Success Factorsfor Product Development (Management Science Perspective) (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995) 6
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  Science: Usability Methods Analysis Card Sorting Focus Groups Scenarios Task Analysis Ethnography … Contextual Analysis Personas Design Wireframe Paper Sketches Guidelines Prototyping … High-Fidelity Prototyping Evaluation Survey Cognitive Walkthrough Think Aloud … Eye Tracking Usability Testing GOMS Analysis (Nielson, 1993), (Sharp, 2007), (Cooper, 2007) 7
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  Practice: Product Developmentin the Automotive Industry  Prototyping  Milestone-based  Interdisciplinary 8
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  Practice: Product Developmentat Apple Based on an interview with Steve Jobs in 2010 the following fundamental product development principles at Apple can be extracted: • User Experience Centric Design • Long-Term Vision • Deep Leadership Engagement • Small Focused Teams • Razor-sharp focus on your niche (R&D Management Blog, 2011) 9
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  Practice: SVPG ProductDevelopment Process Model Used by: (SVPG Website, 2012) 10
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  Agenda Agenda 1 Motivation 2 State-of-the-Art in Science and Practice 3 Best Practices 4 Summary 11
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  Best Practices Six keybest practices for software product development can be distilled from science and practice: Product Continuous Clear Product Vision & Stakeholder Scope Leadership Integration Focused, Inter- Artifact- Incremental disciplinary centric & Milestone- Empowered Development Based Teams Approach 12
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  Best Practice 1:Vision & Leadership Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone- disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Teams Approach • Leadership Engagement: … • Clear Strategy & Long-Term Execution Plan: Company Product Product Strategy Strategy Planning 13
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  Best Practice 2:Focused, Inter- Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration disciplinary and Empowered Teams Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone- disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Teams Approach  Cross-functional: Business, Design, and Technical Skills  Decision Power: Roles & responsibilities  Coordination & Communication: Constant information exchange, transparent hand-over  Trust: performing team with moderate tenure 14
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  Best Practice 3:Clear Product Scope Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone-  Scoping trades-off viability, desirability, disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Teams Approach and feasibility. It is complex, requires time and competencies.  Clear product scope is necessary condition for product execution (in new product development and development of release of an existing product)  Explicit articulating product principles or design principles helps to establish shared understanding and to stay focused. 15
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  Best Practice 4:Artifact-Centric Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration Development Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone- People’s interactions with products are multisensory: disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Teams Approach allow for active touching, exploring and interacting. 16
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  Best Practice 5:Continuous Stakeholder Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration Integration Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone- disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Continuous integration of the various stakeholders in Teams Approach product development should be ensured: Suppliers & Services Buyer Ecosystem End-Users 17
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  Best Practice 6:Incremental & Milestone- Product Vision & Leadership Clear Product Scope Continuous Stakeholder Integration Based Approach Focused, Inter- Incremental & Artifact-centric Milestone- disciplinary Develo-pment Based Empowered Teams Approach  Solution space is huge: Allow for incremental exploration to find an optimal solution for a given problem.  However, there have to be milestones with explicit decision points, e.g. production execution should not be started without a clear scope. 18
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  Agenda Agenda 1 Motivation 2 State-of-the-Art in Theory and Practice 3 Best Practices 4 Summary 19
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  Summary 1 • (Software) product development requires a broad spectrum of soft and hard skills. • A comprehensive knowledge base in science and 2 practice providing insights for successful software product development exists • Six best practices for software product development 3 have been identified and based on existing work in science and practice. 20
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  Thank you foryour attention! Q&A Prof. Dr. Alexander Mädche +49 621 181 3606 maedche@es.uni-mannheim.de Chair of Information Systems IV, Business School and Institute for Enterprise Systems, University of Mannheim http://eris.bwl.uni-mannheim.de http://ines.uni-mannheim.de 21
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  References Brown, S.L. &Eisenhardt, K.M., 1995. Product Development: Past Research, Present Findings, and Future Directions. The Academy of Management Review, 20(2), p.353- 378. Nielsen, J., 1993. Usability Engineering, Academic Press. Sharp, H., 2007. Interaction design : beyond human-computer interaction, Wiley. Cooper, A., 2007. About face 3 : the essentials of interaction design, Wiley. R&D Management Blog, 2011,http://rdmanagement.blogspot.de/2011/05/steve-jobs- methodology-for-apple-r.html SPVG Websites, 2012, http://www.svproduct.com/. 22