Creating minimum viable products in industry-academia collaborations

Jürgen Münch, Fabian Fagerholm, Patrik Johnson, Janne Pirttilahti, Juha Torkkel, Janne Järvinen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference article in proceedingsScientificpeer-review

43 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Customer value determines how products and services succeed in the marketplace. Early assessment of customer value is important for software startups, spin-off companies, and new product development in existing companies. Software technology often influences customer value and typically defines the main competitive advantage in both entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial settings. Value-related feedback from real customers is needed during software development and maintenance, and decision-making should be increasingly based on empirical evidence acquired through experiments. Getting such value-related feedback usually requires a so-called minimum viable product (MVP), i.e., an artefact that may be incomplete in functionality or quality, but displays characteristics that allows determining its customer value. In this article we report on a case study which used industry-academia collaboration for creating such an MVP. Our goal was to identify strengths and weaknesses of such an approach to creating MVPs while providing practical recommendations for improvement. The process followed in the case study was found to be very suitable for creating MVPs, reducing company-specific risks when testing customer-value, and advancing university education.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLean Enterprise Software and Systems - 4th International Conference, LESS 2013
EditorsBrian Fitzgerald, Klaas-Jan Stol, Ken Power, Ricardo Valerdi, Kieran Conboy, Lorraine Morgan
PublisherSpringer
Pages137-151
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9783642449291
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2013
MoE publication typeA4 Conference publication
EventInternational Conference on Lean Enterprise Software and Systems - Galway, Ireland
Duration: 1 Dec 20134 Dec 2013
Conference number: 4

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume167
ISSN (Print)1865-1348

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Lean Enterprise Software and Systems
Abbreviated titleLESS
Country/TerritoryIreland
CityGalway
Period01/12/201304/12/2013

Keywords

  • Case study
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Intrapreneurship
  • Lean startup
  • Minimum viable product
  • Prototyping
  • Software factory
  • Software start-ups

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