Changing the planning for agile and lean software development

208 Pages·2016·6.5 MB·English

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practices. Thus, creating a long-term future plan has become
challenging for software development companies.

This thesis investigates how planning has changed for agile and
lean software development from roadmap-based planning towards
continuous planning. This thesis provides empirical evidence of C
how large and global software development companies are h
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conducting planning. The empirical data were collected by n
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conducting an initial inquiry consisting of both a questionnaire in
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study and semi-structured interviews, and then, by conducting a
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multiple-case study involving three case companies.
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The results show that planning practices have changed both in a
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regard to their scope and schedule. The scope of planning in agile n
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and lean software development is not restricted to release planning g

only; instead planning should be viewed from a wider perspective fo
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involving also strategic, financial, business, and product planning.
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What is more, the time frame of plans has shortened remarkably g
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from years down to months, weeks and days. The reasons for e

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these changes are both internal and external, which are elaborated n
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in more details in the thesis. l Changing the planning
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. From roadmapping to continuous
ISBN 978-951-38-8446-8 (Soft back ed.)
ISBN 978-951-38-8445-1 (URL: http://www.vttresearch.com/impact/publications) planning
ISSN-L 2242-119X
ISSN 2242-119X (Print)
ISSN 2242-1203 (Online)
Tanja Suomalainen
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-38-8445-1
VTT SCIENCE 132
Changing the planning for
agile and lean software
development

From roadmapping to continuous
planning
Tanja Suomalainen
Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to be presented with
due permission for public examination and criticism in auditorium
IT116, at the University of Oulu, Linnanmaa, on the 9th of September
2016, at 12 noon.
ISBN 978-951-38-8446-8 (Soft back ed.)
ISBN 978-951-38-8445-1 (URL: http://www.vttresearch.com/impact/publications)
VTT Science 132
ISSN-L 2242-119X
ISSN 2242-119X (Print)
ISSN 2242-1203 (Online)
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-38-8445-1
Copyright © VTT 2016

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Juvenes Print, Tampere 2016
Preface
My dream of becoming a doctor of philosophy (PhD) was born many years ago.
Already while writing my Master’s thesis, I realised that this is something that I
wanted to do. The PhD journey has required both my passion and persistence, but
there have also been a lot of people to thank for making my dream of a completing
a PhD a reality.
First of all, I would like to thank my principal supervisor, Professor Jouni Similä,
who has over the years encouraged me to pursue the dream and believed that I
would finalise this thesis one day. Thank you also for the valuable guidance and
comments on the studies, papers, and the thesis itself. Secondly, I would like to
thank my other supervisor, Professor Veikko Seppänen, for bringing speed and
focus to the actual writing work. I am also really grateful for the endless
discussions about drawing pictures and improving the content of the thesis, as
well as your extremely fast replies to all of my questions. Thirdly, I want to thank
Professor Pekka Abrahamsson for the conversations and advice that you have
given to me along the way, which have calmed my mind in problematic situations.
I would also like to thank the reviewers of this thesis, Professor Casper
Lassenius of Aalto University, Finland, and Professor Pasi Tyrväinen of the
University of Jyväskylä, Finland. I express my sincere thanks for the time and
effort they have spent in reviewing my research and giving their constructive
comments and recommendations, which have helped me to improve the quality of
the thesis.
I am also grateful to VTT for giving me the opportunity to work on various
projects to collect the data for my thesis, as well as to write and thereafter publish
the work. I am grateful to Dr Tua Huomo, who took me into the Cloud software
program and gave me valuable advice at the beginning of the writing process.
Also, I want to thank Dr Raija Kuusela for taking me to the N4S research
programme and letting me work freely on my thesis while still believing that I could
handle it on my own. I really appreciate that you have always been there for me,
listening my troubles and excitement along the way and giving me guidance and
support when needed. Furthermore, as this thesis is based on five papers, I wish
to thank all my co-authors for their contributions. Especial thanks to colleague, co-
author, friend and aunt Dr Maarit Tihinen for your friendship, help, and
encouragement throughout. Also, I want to thank my longitudinal room-mate and
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colleague Susanna Teppola for your support and putting up with me over the
years. I also, I want to thank my colleague Kaisa Koskela-Huotari for helping me to
organise some of the interviews from one of the case companies.
Over the years, I have worked with many great people, both at VTT and in the
case companies, and I wish to thank all of you. Since this thesis would not have
been possible without the case companies involved, I offer all the case company
representatives as well as all the interviewees who are part of this research much
gratitude. Furthermore, there have been so many talented and great colleagues
during my career who I have been privileged to work with, but as you are so many,
it would be impossible to name you all here. I hope you will understand.
Then to my loved ones, I wish to express my sincere gratitude for your loving
support, understanding, and encouragement through the years. First of all, I want
to thank my loving husband Lari Suomalainen just for being there for me, and
loving me from the bottom of your heart. You have always tried to make my
dreams come true and helped me achieve my goals. I am grateful that you
understand me and my temper as well as changes in my mood so well. Then,
thanks to my loveable children: Veera, Luka, and Viola, for bringing so much love
and joy to my life. I also want to thank my mum and dad for their endless love and
support in all areas of life. I also want to thank my mother-in-law Irma
Suomalainen for taking care of my kids while I needed to work long hours, and my
grandma Rauha Oikarinen for giving all the best instructions for life and providing
me with the time to relax when I have needed it. Finally, I want to thank all my
friends who have supported and encouraged me along the way. I want to thank
my support group ‘baby greetings’, for understanding me as a woman and a mum
and empathising the small and large joys and sorrows of life. In all, this would not
have become true without all of you.

Tanja Suomalainen
Oulu, Finland, August 2016

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Academic dissertation
Supervisors Professor Jouni Similä
University of Oulu
Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
Department of Information Processing Science
P.O. Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Finland

Professor Veikko Seppänen
University of Oulu
Martti Ahtisaari Institute, Oulu Business School, and
Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
P.O. Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Finland

Reviewers Professor Casper Lassenius
Aalto University
Department of Computer Science
P.O. Box 15400, 00076 Aalto, Finland

Professor Pasi Tyrväinen
University of Jyväskylä
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland

Opponent Professor Hannu Jaakkola
Tampere University of Technology
Department of Software Engineering
P.O. Box 300, 28101 Pori, Finland

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List of original publications
This thesis is based on the following original publications which are referred to in
the text as Papers I–V. The publications are reproduced with kind permission of
the publishers.
I Suomalainen, T., Tihinen, M., and Parviainen, P. (2009). Challenges for
Product Roadmapping in Inter-company Collaboration. In: Proceedings of
the Third International Conference on Software Engineering Approaches for
Offshore and Outsourced Development (SEAFOOD). ETH Zurich,
Switzerland on July 2–3, 2009. Springer, pp. 66–80.
II Suomalainen, T., Salo, O., Abrahamsson, P., and Similä, J. (2011).
Software Product Roadmapping in a Volatile Business Environment. The
Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 84, Issue 6, pp. 958–975.
III Suomalainen, T., Kuusela, R., and Tihinen, M. (2015). Continuous
Planning: An Important aspect of Agile and Lean Development.
International Journal of Agile Systems and Management (IJASM), Vol. 8,
No. 2, pp. 132–162.
IV Suomalainen, T. (2015). Defining Continuous Planning through a Multiple-
Case Study. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of
Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES). Bolzano, Italy
on December 2–4, 2015. Springer, LNCS 9459, pp. 288–294.
V Rodrıguez, P., Haghighatkhah, A., Lwakatare, L. E., Teppola, S,
Suomalainen, T., Eskeli, J., Karvonen, T., Kuvaja, P., Verner, J. M., and
Oivo, M. (2016). Continuous Deployment of Software Intensive Products
and Services: A Systematic Mapping Study. The Journal of Systems and
Software, in press.
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Author’s contributions
Paper I ‘Challenges for product roadmapping in inter-company collaboration’
describes product roadmapping from the inter-company collaboration perspective.
Collaboration is defined as an activity in which two or more parties, e.g.
companies, departments, customers, or agencies work together to create a mutual
value and achieve a common goal. The paper discusses the challenges and
opportunities that inter-company collaboration (that is joint R&D partnerships,
customer–supplier relationships, and technology exchange agreements and
licencing) sets for product roadmapping, including, for example, the most
important activities to consider, the most typical problems and how those problems
can be avoided. The empirical research was conducted as a questionnaire study
and interviews, which were planned, carried out, and analysed by Suomalainen.
She was also responsible for the planning and execution of related research and
was the main author of the conference paper.
Paper II ‘Software product roadmapping in a volatile business environment’
develops a framework for software product roadmapping, which is used to study
the critical aspects of the product roadmapping process. The research findings
presented in the paper aim at defining product roadmapping based on the current
literature and empirical research, including an overview of roadmapping,
stakeholders of the product roadmapping process and product roadmapping
phases. The empirical research was conducted as a questionnaire study and
interviews. Both the empirical and scientific part of the research were planned,
executed, and analysed by Suomalainen. Suomalainen was the main author of the
journal paper.
Paper III ‘Continuous planning: an important aspect of agile and lean
development’ defines continuous planning though a multiple-case study. The
paper highlights the importance of continuous planning throughout an entire
organisation, including the elements of continuous planning (that is organisational
planning, strategic planning, and business planning) and their close interrelation.
Organisational planning serves to define a plan’s organisational level and the time
frames of a plan, strategic planning serves to set an overall plan of an
organisation, and business planning serves to establish the budgeting frame of a
plan. The empirical evidence of the paper is drawn from the experiences of three
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case companies in terms of how they viewed and conducted continuous planning.
The author was responsible for the planning and execution of related research.
Also, the author conducted and analysed the case studies relating to cases A and
B. Raija Kuusela conducted and analysed the case study relating to case C.
Suomalainen was the main author of the journal paper, and Kuusela and Tihinen
provided comments and feedback to the manuscript.
Paper IV ‘Defining continuous planning through a multiple-case study’ presents
the results of a multiple-case study in which the different levels of planning (that is
strategic, financial, business, product, and team) along with their time frames are
explored. The research findings presented in the paper reveal the practices of
continuous planning among the case companies with their key activities. The
empirical evidence of the paper is drawn from the experiences of three case
companies, which were collected through several interviews. Suomalainen was
responsible for planning, carrying out, and analysing the interviews. Suomalainen
was also responsible for the planning and execution of the related work and she
was the sole author of the conference paper.
Paper V ‘Continuous deployment of software intensive products and services: a
systematic mapping study’ defines the method and the main findings of a
systematic mapping study about continuous deployment. The paper classified and
analysed the literature related to continuous deployment in the software domain in
order to scope the phenomenon, provided an overview of its state-of-the-art,
investigated the scientific evidence in the reported results, and identified areas
that were suitable for further research. Suomalainen was one of the participants of
the research group conducting the systematic mapping study of the continuous
deployment. During the analysis of the research results, factors relating to
continuous deployment were divided among the researchers of the research group
based on their interests and research topics. Suomalainen was responsible for the
factors relating to fast and frequent release, including also continuous planning, as
well as agile and lean software development in the continuous deployment
context. Suomalainen was a co-author of the paper as the journal paper was
written together by the research group.

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Contents
Preface .................................................................................................................. 3
Academic dissertation ......................................................................................... 5
List of original publications ................................................................................ 6
Author’s contributions ........................................................................................ 7
List of abbreviations .......................................................................................... 11
1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 13
1.1 Background and motivation .................................................................. 15
1.2 Research questions and scope ............................................................ 16
1.3 Structure of the thesis .......................................................................... 18
2. Background and related work .................................................................... 19
2.1 Agile and lean software development .................................................. 19
2.1.1 Agile software development ...................................................... 20
2.1.2 Lean software development ...................................................... 22
2.1.3 Planning in an agile–lean organisation ..................................... 23
2.2 Roadmapping ....................................................................................... 28
2.2.1 Roadmap structure ................................................................... 29
2.2.2 Roadmapping process .............................................................. 31
2.2.3 Roadmapping participants ........................................................ 32
2.3 Continuous planning ............................................................................ 34
2.3.1 Strategic planning ..................................................................... 36
2.3.2 Business and financial planning ................................................ 38
2.3.3 Portfolio planning ...................................................................... 40
2.3.4 Product planning ....................................................................... 41
2.3.5 Release planning ...................................................................... 43
2.4 Summary of the related work ............................................................... 45
3. Research design ......................................................................................... 49
3.1 Research approach .............................................................................. 49
3.2 Research methods ............................................................................... 51
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