Abstract
AbstractAgile software development (ASD) teams show their relevance through the continuous delivery of valuable software. As part of ASD, product owners have an important role in four activities: determining most valuable backlog items, refining them, and in validating and measuring business value. In this research we investigate how product owners operationalize business value delivery in these activities. We conducted 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews with product owners in the Netherlands. Overall we found that 55% operationalize value using only two of the four activities, and that 11% apply all four activities. We furthermore found that only 26.5% of these product owners use a structured prioritization method, 47% prioritize based on individual preferences and gut feeling, and 26.5% do not use any prioritization approach at all. We found five different approaches to refinement. The majority (84%) of the product owners state that they validate business value delivery, while just 24% actually measure business value. Overall we conclude that there are opportunities to bring product ownership to a higher level on operationalizing business value delivery, and that there is a clear need in practice for better structure and guidance in operationalizing business value delivery to do so.
Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland
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