Jan Bosch
When studying software-intensive systems companies, one of the interesting observations is that they all evolve in the same way. In earlier research, we have referred to this as the “Stairway to Heaven”. In the figure below, the speed dimension of the Stairway to Heaven model is shown. This model is a descriptive model based on … Read more
Companies spend very large amounts of resources on functionality that is commodity and does not offer any differentiation to the company and its customers. Our research shows that the R&D investment in commodity could be as high as 80-90%. Although the companies that I work with do not dispute the 80-90% numbers and do not … Read more
This week I was in Madrid to present a keynote at a workshop around variability management (VAMOS 2018). It was a fun event and to some extent a trip down memory lane as I was part of the early research community that systematically started to work on software variability management in the early 2000s. We … Read more
Every company is part of an business ecosystem. In the ecosystem, we find the partners, the suppliers, the customers, competitors, complementors as well as other stakeholders. A business ecosystem was more formally defined in the early 1990s by Moore as an economic community with three key characteristics. First, there is a symbiotic relationship between the … Read more
During the last weeks, I’ve spent time with or close to the innovation units of otherwise traditional and conventional companies. As I wrote in another post earlier this year, it seems that every company has some kind of innovation initiative ongoing. As I had a bit of time to discuss with the people responsible for … Read more
Several of the companies that I work with have change initiatives ongoing. Some of these initiatives are more technology oriented, others affect the business strategy and yet others seek to re-position the company in the ecosystem it is part of. However, all these initiatives have one thing in common: customers will be affected by the … Read more
If there is one buzzword that is getting a lot attention in the circles I operate in, it is INNOVATION. As I spent another week on the road spending time with different companies, I realized that I probably haven’t had a meeting at a single company over the last year or more where the “I” … Read more
This week I hosted a workshop on continuous deployment of software subject to functional safety standards. We agreed to keep it low profile on who participated, but several of the large companies in automotive, aeronautics, industry and defense were present, including OEMs and tier 1 suppliers. It was a good group that was dominated by … Read more
During another week on the road (Zurich, Paris and Stuttgart this time) and after discussions with dozens of people at the conferences and meetings, I noticed a pattern that repeats itself again and again in technology driven companies. For the latest major digitalization technologies, such as big data, IoT and deep learning, I have observed … Read more
Although there are still companies out there that are going through the agile transformation, most of the companies that I work with have adopted agile practices at least at the team level. Agile teams are more empowered and because of that, among others, more productive and more motivated. However, if we lift our focus up … Read more
