Product Owner Research Articles

DECISION SUPPORT TECHNOLOGY FOR SPRINT PLANNING

Context. The article describes the relevant planning process of software projects, planning problems and different solutions to these problems basis on use of the Scrum methodology.Objective. The purpose of the work is to develop the technology for solving the sprint planning task in the face of uncertainty and possible risks from software development standpoint.Method. The most used software life cycle models are described. The choice of the Scrum as a widely used representative of agile methodology for software development is justified. An analytical review of the methods for estimation of the complexity of user stories is carried out. The major problems of sprint planning are highlighted. The model of the business process to implement an ITproject by Scrum in the form of an BPMN-diagram has been developed. The algorithm to solve the problem of Sprint Backlog planning with uncertainty has been elaborated. The common process of user stories selection from Product Backlog to Sprint Backlog and ways of solving the possible problems are considered. The task of estimation of labor intensity of user stories and the task of risk evaluation in planning are formalized. The technology of user story selection for Sprint Backlog has been developed. Numerical studies of the decision support technology proposed in the article are carried out. It allows suggesting it as the practical tool during sprint planning. The method of adequacy evaluation of proposed technology is offered. The set of key performance indicators for assessing the team performance is selected. Results. The sprint planning technology was developed, which project managers, product owners and development teams for increasing the effectiveness of decision-making process can use. Conclusions. The conducted experiments have confirmed the importance of the proposed decision support technology and allow recommending it for use in practice for planning of software projects. Scientific novelty is to improve the sprint planning process with the assistance of the proposed technology, which alleviates uncertainty while defining labor intensity of user stories and decreases time spent on decision making.

QUALITY EVALUATION OF BIOSIMILAR MEDICINES: AN OVERVIEW

Biosimilar medicines are biotherapeutics that are similar in quality, safety and efficacy to previously licensed reference biotherapeutics. The slightest change in any stage of production can cause differences in the product. Among the factors, affecting production can be listed as; host cell selection, fermenter type, ambient conditions, broth, substances used for cell culture, fermentation method and purification method. The similarity should be demonstrated by comparative quality, non-clinical and clinical tests. Research and development studies in the biopharmaceutical field bring diversity of quality control methods along with the formulation and manufacturing method of the biosimilars. Although there are some standardized and validated quality control methods given in the internationally recognized pharmacopoeias, there are many in house methods of biopharmaceutical product owners that can only be used as internal quality control methods by them. The main international sources for quality control methods of biopharmaceutics can be given as pharmacopoeias, International Organization for Standardization standards and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development methods. In this review manufacturing process, regulatory guidelines and quality control of biosimilar medicines briefly are given.
 Peer Review History: 
 Received 11 March 2019; Revised 20 April; Accepted 3 May, Available online 15 May 2020
 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency.
 Received file 
 
 Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.0/10
 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.5/10
 Reviewer(s) detail:
 Name: Dr. Mohamed Salama
 Affiliation: Modern University for Technology & Information, Egypt
 E-mail: salama47@yahoo.com
 
 Name: Dr. Maha Khalifa Ahmed Khalifa
 Affiliation:
 E-mail: mahakhalifa.ahmed@hotmail.com
 Comments of reviewer(s): 

Creating value with eHealth: identification of the value proposition with key stakeholders for the resilience navigator app

BackgroundFor a stress-management app to be persuasive and impactful, designers and developers should obtain a clear perspective of the value proposition according to key stakeholders before development. However, this is often not the case. In order to increase the chance of creating an impact by means of the Resilience Navigator app, this study aims to identify key stakeholders and work with them to gain an in-depth understanding of the value proposition of this stress-management app.MethodsThe approach used in this study builds on the approaches taken by Van Limburg et al. and Van Woezik et al. An initial list of stakeholders was identified by means of a literature scan. Stakeholders on this initial list took an online survey to identify key stakeholders with a ranking system. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subset of key stakeholders to identify the value proposition using the value proposition canvas as a framework for data collection. Finally, the value proposition was validated by key stakeholders during focus groups.ResultsThe key stakeholders identified included employees, employers, participation councils within organisations, HR advisors, product owners, company doctors, and business analysts. The interviews produced a list of approximately one hundred values from which fifteen core values were distilled. One example is to take into account time constraints experienced by users during stress periods. In general, the Resilience Navigator app’s main goal is to increase awareness of personal stress levels and causes of stress. In addition, the sub-goal is to increase skills for effective stress management. The focus groups validated the idea that the most important values were reflected in the value proposition and had been appropriately translated into design elements, according to key stakeholders.ConclusionsA thorough, bottom-up identification and validation of the value proposition for the Resilience Navigator app was obtained, reflecting key stakeholders’ varying ideas on this piece of eHealth technology. The results will facilitate the continued development of the Resilience Navigator app from the value specification phase to the design phase. In the design phase, the remaining assumptions regarding the app’s value proposition should be tested using rapid prototyping.

Social and Economic Determinants for the Development of Resource Potential of Small Forms of Agrarian Production in Ukraine

The socio-economic importance of small forms of entrepreneurship in the national economic model has significantly increased. There was substantiated an existence of specific features of small rural enterprise development of the leading European countries, since farming is the basis of family agricultural business. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the concept of low-income family-labor enterprise. There were used methods to evaluate the results of production and economic activity of farms based on the alternative ways to estimate the labor costs for the production owners. The development trends of farms in the European Union and the dynamics of the income level of the members-farm owners were analyzed. There were established the peculiarities of the farm holdings development in Ukraine and the factors that determine the specifics of their sectoral diversification. The comparative analysis of the level of production efficiency for the main types of agricultural products among the agricultural enterprises and farms of Ukraine was carried out. The need to integrate the monetary compensation of labor costs of farm members-owners as a component of their resource potential was proved. The significance of the research results to ensure the effective economic activity of small forms in Ukraine was substantiated.

Exploring Classification Techniques for Sentiment Analysis

In the recent years, there has been tremendous improvements in the Information Technology industry. Every day 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is generated, this provides sentiment analysis to become a key tool to make something out of it. This has allowed companies to grab this key acumen and automate the needed processes. This information can serve as good source for extracting useful insights regarding the products/services. It would be helpful for the product owners if these thousands of reviews could be summarized using the latest technologies. Also it would be more useful if the sentiment scores are provided for each aspects of products/services. This paper presents Sentiment Analysis for various predefined aspects for Hotel Reviews. We have used Naive Bayes Classifier for classifying hotel reviews as positive or negative and we have evaluated the performance and suggested few future enhancements.

Emerging Technologies, Market Segments, and MarkeTrak 10 Insights in Hearing Health Technology.

Hearing health care is rapidly changing through innovation in technology, services, business models, and product categories. The introduction of hearables and over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids in particular will change the market for hearing help and the role of the hearing care professionals (HCPs). This article focuses on how these products will be differentiated from HCP-fit hearing aids through their ability to address the unmet needs of different consumer segments within the population of people with hearing dysfunction. The unmet hearing needs of each segment are discussed, and the size of each segment estimated, demonstrating a large potential market for hearables and a smaller potential market for hearing aids than has been previously mentioned in the literature. The results from MarkeTrak 10's survey of consumers' attitudes toward an OTC model are reviewed, showing that approximately half of both hearing aid owners and nonowners are uncomfortable doing hearing- and hearing aid-related tasks on their own without the assistance of an HCP and would be unlikely to purchase OTC hearing aids if available today. MarkeTrak data are also shown that demonstrate that the majority of hearing aid and personal sound amplification product owners believe that the HCP helped or would have helped with their hearing devices. Finally, challenges to OTC hearing aids becoming successful are discussed.

Improving Business Product Owner Commitment in Student Scrum Projects

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and test several improvements for incorporating the Business Product Owner (BPO) role in student software projects using Scrum. Background: As the popularity of Scrum has grown, its roles and ceremonies have been utilized in student software projects, yet one of the more challenging roles to implement in the academic context is the role of BPO. Consequently, although the BPO role is central to Scrum, this role is lacking in many student Scrum projects. Methodology: Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected at a large university in the U.S. to assess the effectiveness of attempted improvements in incorporating the BPO role in 32 student Scrum projects. Contribution: This study is among the first to theorize and examine the bottom-up selection of BPOs where team members select their own BPOs as a unique project requirement. This study extends current theory to expand the development team roles when BPOs are unable to articulate requirements during co-creation activities. This study also informs us of the impact of BPO attributes on team member perceptions and it demonstrates how BPO engagement can be improved in student Scrum projects. Findings: The findings suggest that BPO engagement can be improved by (a) formalizing the BPO selection process through time-limiting responses, screening, and contractual agreements, (b) starting the BPO initiation process through co-creation activities (e.g., user story workshop), and (c) expanding the development team’s role in defining and prioritizing features during the BPO execution process through mutual steering. Recommendations for Practitioners: Based on the findings, practitioners are recommended to educate BPO’s concerning their role and its impact on the Scrum team. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers are recommended to develop and test additional mechanisms to facilitate ongoing BPO engagement. Impact on Society: Higher education needs to explore more ways of involving practitioners in student projects. Future Research: Future research should explore ways of reducing BPO attrition in student Scrum projects.

Afterwork and Overtime: The Social Reproduction of Human Capital

Afterwork and Overtime: The Social Reproduction of Human Capital

Advancing heritage tourism in the central Karoo: The South African War Battlefields Route

ABSTRACT Tourism and tourism development have the potential to make a positive impact on a region’s economic development and sustainability. In this sense, the central Karoo has a great deal to offer heritage tourists. As there are numerous battlefield sites associated with the South African War (1899–1902) (previously the Anglo-Boer War) the central Karoo offers a unique development opportunity to demarcate a designated battlefield route dedicated to the war. This study investigated the potential for the development of the proposed route by involving potential stakeholders (specifically product owners and government officials) on the route. The study was qualitative, and 33 interviews were conducted. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data. The main findings indicate a need for the development of the route and the establishment of a South African War Battlefields Route Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO).

How Pair Programming Influences Team Performance: The Role of Backup Behavior, Shared Mental Models, and Task Novelty

Many organizations and software firms these days use pair programming to meet the challenges posed by digital transformations and to meet customer needs. They use pair programming to become more agile and responsive to their competitive environment. Although some studies suggest that pair programming can potentially increase the quality of developed software code and the satisfaction and confidence of developers, very little is known as to how pair programming affects team performance. Therefore, we conducted an empirical study at one of the largest enterprise software firms that serves a large number of Fortune 500 companies, and we collected data from the software developers, Scrum masters, and product owners of 62 software development teams. Our findings show that pair programming affects team performance positively by changing cognitive structures and behavioral patterns in software teams. Pair programming helps team members develop shared mental models and, as a consequence, increases backup behavior among team members. Backup behavior is particularly valuable for teams facing high task novelty. Our findings have critical implications for organizations and senior managers as they lead their digital transformation efforts where they often rely on autonomous teams for providing digital innovation. We show that pair programming can be a key ingredient for high-performance teams. Establishing the practice of pair programming promises to be particularly valuable for those teams that lack shared mental models and teams whose members fail to provide each other backup.

AGILITY AND THE ROLE OF PROJECT — INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR INNOVATION PROJECT PERFORMANCE

As a reaction to the rapidly changing environment, organisations increasingly use agile project management (APM) methods to develop innovation. The associated process changes necessitate the adaption of organisational structures and control systems. This study draws on Simon’s Levers-of-Control framework (LOC) to explore the impact of different control levers on innovation project performance. Based on a survey of 316 project managers and product owners, the results suggest that the use of interactive project control systems and project-internal belief systems has a positive impact on the innovation outcome, regardless of the degree of agility of the project. Furthermore, we reveal that a strong project environment leads to increased use of control mechanisms on the project level and has a conducive impact on innovation project performance. The study is among the first to apply the LOC on the project level and integrate it into the agile context.

Enablers and barriers to customer involvement in agile software projects in Norwegian software industry: The Supplier´s perspective

The purpose of this study is to present the research findings about factors that contribute to making customer involvement work effectively in an agile software project and to explore factors that can provide hindrance to customer involvement. We conducted 24 interviews with practitioners working with agile software projects in Norwegian software industry. Grounded theory was used to analyse the data. Findings suggested a list of factors that can enhance customer involvement and make it more effective. We called these factors enablers to customer involvement. The factors that suppliers use for effective customer involvement are: understanding customer’s perception of success, effective communication, being forthcoming and accommodating, transparency and openness and establishing trust. Factors that suppliers think the customer should pay special attention to are: customer attention, product owner who understands business, good understanding of technical and functional side and persistent cooperation. This study also presents factors that can hinder customer involvement, thus making the customer–supplier relationship less effective. We called these barrier factors. These are: not getting enough customer time, lack of understanding on the customer’s part, people without right skills and lack of communication. Research was carried out in the Norwegian software industry and grounded theory was used for data analysis, therefore this research can be called context-specific. Research participants interviewed were project managers, therefore this study presents project managers’ viewpoints only. Another limitation is that most of the participants were from the supplier side. This study provides a theory/framework of enablers and barriers to customer involvement in agile software projects. Practitioners can use these factors to enhance customer involvement in agile projects.

Teaching physics for tomorrow: Equipping students to change the world

Why should engineers have all the fun?

RECENT AGILE REQUIREMENT ENGINEERING PRACTICES IN IT PROJECTS: A CASE ANALYSIS

Today, the implementation of high quality and efficient Requirement Engineering (RE) practices in agile software development projects, is gaining great importance. Practitioners and researchers seeks for lighter RE practices that can handle the issues of abstract, unclear and changing requirements, and at the same time that can satisfy the Agile Manifesto philosophy. This study examines importance of RE practices in agile software development projects, and explores which aspects of the RE practices are perceived as most critical and how such aspects are adapted in practice today through two different agile software development projects of a case organization. This study aims to contribute agile RE literature by providing an interpretive analysis on perception of agile RE practices from different perspectives (agile team members, product owners, some top executives). Within this context, this study draws lessons from case studies and presents beneficial agile RE guidelines for practitioners and researchers.

Challenges Faced in the Enterprise Resource Planning Material Management Section when Transitioning Towards Agile Software Development

Agile Software Development Approach is the buzzword for the Organizations working with Traditional Software Development Approach. Scrum is one of the most vital frameworks used when working towards Agile Software Development projects. Material Management is one of the salient processes of the Supply Chain Management in transforming inputs into outputs. Extreme Programming is more technical in nature and Scrum is a People focused Management approach. This scrum framework is customizable according to the project teams and it is adopted widely to effectively manage software projects. Scrum framework fits into the groove for delivering quality product at a faster pace with minimal continuous feature delivery at frequent intervals. The minimal Marketable feature is delivered at the end of each Sprint. A Sprint is an iterative activity which ends up at regular intervals. But, the way of customizing the process and giving a minimal feature delivery at the end of each Sprint in the projects act as a major challenge. Other challenges resulted in the team collaboration and the involvement of the team members in the project and in integrating the minimal marketable feature. Syncing with the product owner and the other stake holders, and participation in the sprint planning were some of the issues that the team faced. The success of the entire team in implementing the Agile Software Development approach in the Enterprise Resource Planning Material Management Section is discussed.

Breast Cancer Dataset Classification using Neural Network

Agile Software Development Approach is the buzzword for the Organizations working with Traditional Software Development Approach. Scrum is one of the most vital frameworks used when working towards Agile Software Development projects. Material Management is one of the salient processes of the Supply Chain Management in transforming inputs into outputs. Extreme Programming is more technical in nature and Scrum is a People focused Management approach. This scrum framework is customizable according to the project teams and it is adopted widely to effectively manage software projects. Scrum framework fits into the groove for delivering quality product at a faster pace with minimal continuous feature delivery at frequent intervals. The minimal Marketable feature is delivered at the end of each Sprint. A Sprint is an iterative activity which ends up at regular intervals. But, the way of customizing the process and giving a minimal feature delivery at the end of each Sprint in the projects act as a major challenge. Other challenges resulted in the team collaboration and the involvement of the team members in the project and in integrating the minimal marketable feature. Syncing with the product owner and the other stake holders, and participation in the sprint planning were some of the issues that the team faced. The success of the entire team in implementing the Agile Software Development approach in the Enterprise Resource Planning Material Management Section is discussed.

THE EFFECT OF CONSUMER VALUE AND PERSPECTIVE OF VALUE TO INTENTION TO BUY THROUGH ATTITUDE ON ORGANIC PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS IN JAKARTA

The problem of this research was to identify the impact of consumer value and perspective of value to intention to buy through attitude, which is addressed to organic personal care product. The objective of this research was to analyze the effect of consumer value and perspective of value to intention to buy through attitude in organic personal care product. The methodology of this research was quantitative approach. Data were collected by 140 users of skin and hair care’s users at mall in Jakarta. The variable factors that used on this research are consumer value (health consciousness, environmental consciousness and appearance consciousness), perspective of value, attitude and intention to buy. Data analysis used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Finding and contribution in this research was environmental consciousness, appearance consciousness, and perspective of value have positive effect on attitude; and attitude has positive effect on intention to buy organic personal care products. Research limitation/implication in this research was the data only being collected in Jakarta. These findings here provide suggestion in order to increase intention to buy organic personal care, a product owner need to focus on ecological beauty, values and informational knowledge of organic benefit in their communication campaign.

THE INFLUENCE OF CONSUMER VALUE AND PERSPECTIVE OF VALUE TO INTENTION TO BUY THROUGH ATTITUDE TO ORGANIC PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT IN JAKARTA

The problem of this research was to identify the impact of consumer value and perspective of value to intention to buy through attitude, which is addressed to organic personal care product. The objective of this research was to analyze the effect of consumer value and perspective of value to intention to buy through attitude in organic personal care product. The methodology of this research was quantitative approach. Data were collected by 140 users of skin and hair care’s users at mall in Jakarta. The variable factors that used on this research are consumer value (health consciousness, environmental consciousness and appearance consciousness), perspective of value, attitude and intention to buy. Data analysis used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Finding and contribution in this research was environmentalconsciousness, appearance consciousness, and perspective of value have positive effect on attitude; and attitude has positive effect on intention to buy organic personal careproducts. Research limitation/implication in this research was the data only being collected in Jakarta. These findings here provide suggestion in order to increase intention to buy organic personal care, a product owner need to focus on ecological beauty, values and informational knowledge of organic benefit in their communication campaign

Scrum: An Agile Software Development Process and Metrics

In a traditional software development process such as the Waterfall Model, works best in a stable environment. But, it is not flexible when it comes to change. There is a gap in the interaction between the users and the development team which leads to incomplete and misunderstood specification. Because of this, the end product is sometimes a surprise to users and this gap accelerates incorrect development of the software product. Once requirements are frozen there is no scope of accepting changes. There is a need for a framework which holds the solution for all these situations. With this premise, the agile development methodology came into existence. Scrum, an agile approach supports continuous collaboration among the customer, team members, and other stakeholders. Its time-boxed approach and continuous feedback from the product owner ensures the development of working product with essential features at all the time. This paper explains the agile software development approach, its proclamation and different frameworks of agile approach. Further illustrate most widely used framework: Scrum. This research paper covers the implementation and application of Scrum. It focuses on why Scrum is preferred over the Waterfall Model with the help of some survey results and later a discussion on some Scrum Metrics which will be helpful and accounting for the best Scrum Practices in achieving goals set by the software development team, the product owner and the customers. The outcome of this study shows that Scrum Metrics is critical and highly valuable for successful product development. The quantitative insight that these metrics provide for the Scrum Team, Product Owner and Stakeholders is necessary for achieving strong project dynamics and optimal results.

DevOps in practice: A multiple case study of five companies

Abstract Context: DevOps is considered important in the ability to frequently and reliably update a system in operational state. DevOps presumes cross-functional collaboration and automation between software development and operations. DevOps adoption and implementation in companies is non-trivial due to required changes in technical, organisational and cultural aspects. Objectives: This exploratory study presents detailed descriptions of how DevOps is implemented in practice. The context of our empirical investigation is web application and service development in small and medium sized companies. Method: A multiple-case study was conducted in five different development contexts with successful DevOps implementations since its benefits, such as quick releases and minimum deployment errors, were achieved. Data was mainly collected through interviews with 26 practitioners and observations made at the companies. Data was analysed by first coding each case individually using a set of predefined themes and thereafter perform a cross-case synthesis. Results: Our analysis yielded some of the following results: (i) software development team attaining ownership and responsibility to deploy software changes in production is crucial in DevOps. (ii) toolchain usage and support in deployment pipeline activities accelerates the delivery of software changes, bug fixes and handling of production incidents. (ii) the delivery speed to production is affected by context factors, such as manual approvals by the product owner (iii) steep learning curve for new skills is experienced by both software developers and operations staff, who also have to cope with working under pressure. Conclusion: Our findings contributes to the overall understanding of DevOps concept, practices and its perceived impacts, particularly in small and medium sized companies. We discuss two practical implications of the results.