Building a Shared Understanding of Customer Value in Large-Scale Agile Organization - A Case Study

Abstract

The trend of software development methods has transitioned from plan-driven approaches like waterfall method to value-driven approaches like agile methods, which has been widely reported as beneficial. Yet, there are challenges remaining within large-scale Agile organizations. One of the identified challenges that have been proven to be difficult is establishing a shared understanding of customer value. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a large-scale company currently shares their understanding of customer value, what success factors and barriers they encounter, as well as to what extent a shared understanding of customer value can be improved. A qualitative case study was conducted in a large telecom company. The data was collected through 12 semi-structured interviews, meeting observations and requirement handling documentation. Five areas of barriers were identified, customer value enabling, long communication chain, just enough documentation, customer involvement and communication and documentation tools. The finding shows the urgent barriers are related to the creation of the customer value and customer involvement. If the customer value is not defined clearly and verified by the customers to ensure the accuracy, the knowledge sharing process becomes an amplifier of inaccurate information. Based on the findings, a model is created to mitigate the barriers identified. The model forms a structured foundation of shared understanding of customer value, create a shared understanding building process and finally recommendations for just enough documentation.