Fostering product innovations in software startups through freelancer supported requirement engineering

Gupta, Varun; Fernández-Crehuet, José María; Hanne, Thomas; Telesko, Rainer

doi:10.1016/j.rineng.2020.100175

Cited by 35 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Big companies also do a lot of marketing research to identify the innovative ideas for product innovation i.e., changing the product to enhance value to the customer. The startups and big companies could involve the freelancers in requirement engineering activity not only to generate new product ideas but also to create requirement models and mapping models to the requirement specification documentation [3]. The freelancers could be of prime importance in undertaking requirement management activity since they are globally distributed over the globe.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The freelancers could be of prime importance in undertaking requirement management activity since they are globally distributed over the globe. They could be used as the source of the requirements for future software versions and as a source of effective feedback for supporting the software evolution [3].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The resource limitations and flexibility issues with the organizational processes and structures will be effectively managed by outsourcing the innovative idea implementation tasks to the freelancers. Freelancers could also be meaningful sources for suggesting innovative ideas to the companies that could be implemented inhouse or outsourced to the freelancers [3].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Freelancers in the Software Development Process: A Systematic Mapping Study

2020

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[Context] Freelancers could catalyze the software development process by providing their niche skills to generate high quality outputs. They could help companies (including startups) to foster innovations by suggesting creative ideas and providing their expertise in implementing them (for instance, designing solutions, coding solutions etc.). Freelancers could effectively and efficiently work as a virtual member of the software development team. The company must make informed decisions about which task to allot to the freelancer, which freelancer to select, pricing the task, and evaluating the submitted work. On the other hand, the freelancer should make an informed decision about evaluating the monetary value of the task to be charged, trusting the requester, analyzing the skills requirement of the task (finding matches between skill requirement and skills processed), selecting the best task, and maintaining the highest level of reputation. However, the literature does not provide freelancers and the companies the guidelines that support their decision making. However, if freelancers are selected carefully for the most suitable task, the companies will benefit a lot in terms of improved software development metrics. [Objectives] The objective of this paper is to provide the research community the research trends in freelancer-supported software development. This helps to understand that which software development areas have higher concentrations of research efforts, which area has the support of empirical evidence to support management decision makings, and which area requires the research attention. [Method] The systematic study is conducted by planning the mapping protocol, executing the protocol, and reporting the findings using various visualization tools like bar charts and pie charts. The search process was planned to be executed using set of inclusion and exclusion conditions on four bibliographic databases (IEEExplore, Springerlink, Sciencedirect, and ACM digital library). The relevant papers are selected by applying inclusion and exclusion conditions. The google citations of the relevant papers are subject to the inclusion and exclusion conditions again to include the more relevant papers. Finally, the systematic schema was created and populated after analyzing the studies abstracts. [Results] The results indicate the following (a) The research focus is on generic software development (78%) rather on individual life cycle activities. (b) The number of empirical studies is limited (25%). (c) A number of studies proposing solutions and evaluating on live cases in industrial settings are missing from the literature. This is in comparison to the validation approaches (72%) i.e., solutions tested in laboratory settings. (d) At present, the literature has limited ability to provide the software companies (including startups) with the guidelines (in the form of opinions and experience reports) for involving freelancers in the software development process. (e) The reported challenges include Collaboration and Coordination (33%), Developer Recommendation (or selection) (19%), Team Formulation (14%), Task Recommendation (allocation) (14%), Task Decomposition (11%), Privacy and Security (Confidentiality) (11%), Budget Estimation (8%), Recognition (8%), Trust Issues (8%), Market Dynamism (6%), Intellectual Property Issues (6%), Participation of Crowd Worker (6%), and Capacity Utilization (3%). These challenges are highly interactive, and each challenge impacts all other challenges. (e) Recent focus of the researchers (total 7 studies in 2019) is on generic software development handling the collaboration and coordination (3 studies out of 7), Developer recommendation (2 studies out of 7), and task recommendation (2 studies out of 7). [Conclusion] The freelancer-driven software engineering research area has got the attraction of the researchers, but it will take a long time to gain maturity. This puts an urgent call for more empirical studies and evaluation-based solution research that could help companies (including startups) to foster innovations. Further, the research focus should be well distributed among the various development phases to address the unique challenges associated with individual activities. The accurate management of the freelancer in the software development could help companies and startups to foster innovations and remain competitive in the marketplace.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Freelancers in the Software Development Process: A Systematic Mapping Study

2020

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“…Three startups were about to turn into companies (on the higher end of the growth scale), and for two startups, there was growing demand for their products (they were just at the beginning of the growth scale). Further, these startups already participated in three previous case studies conducted by the authors [17][18][19], which strengthened the knowledge sharing due to familiarity of research and the startup environment.…”

Section: Case Study With Five Startupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support is provided to startups in the form of findings, knowledge exchange, financial benefits (e.g., tax benefits), residence permits to entrepreneurs, etc. For instance, during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID- 19) pandemic, the EU awarded funds to small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) via the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Pilot to work on projects that would tackle the coronavirus pandemic [2]. Startups can contribute to the growth of a country's economy by their innovative products or services, which result in garnering the attention of government officials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competency-Industry Relatedness (C-IR) Framework for Sustained Business Growth in Startups during and Beyond Pandemic: Myths and Lessons from Publicly Funded Innovative Startups

Rubalcaba¹

2021

Sustainability

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Context: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to a turbulent business environment, resulting in market uncertainties, frustrations, and rumors. Wrongly held beliefs—or myths—can hinder startups from turning new market opportunities into their favor (for example, by failing at diversification decisions) or undertaking wrong business decisions, e.g., diversifying in industries that have products of no real market value). Objectives: The objective of the paper is to identify the beliefs that drive the business decisions of startups in a pandemic and to isolate those beliefs that are merely myths. Further, this paper proposes strategic guidelines in the form of a framework to help startups make sound decisions that can lead to market success. Method: The two-step research method involved multiple case studies with five startups based in India, France, Italy, and Switzerland, to identify perceptual beliefs that drove strategic business decisions, followed by a case study of 36 COVID-19-solution focused startups, funded by the European Union (EU). The findings were validated through a survey that involved 102 entrepreneurs. The comparative analysis of two multiple case studies helped identify beliefs that were merely “myths”; myths that drove irrational strategic decisions, resulting in business failures. Results: The results indicate that startups make decisions in pandemic situations that are driven by seven myths, pertaining to human, intellectual, and financial resources. The decision on whether to diversify or continue in the same business operation can be divided into four strategic options of the Competency-Industry Relatedness (C-IR) framework: ignore, delay, phase-in, and diversify. Diversification in the same (or different industry) is less risky for startups if they have the skills, as needed, to diversify in related industries. Diversification in related industries helps startups leverage their experiences and learning curves (those associated with existing product lines) to adapt their existing products in new markets, or utilize their technologies to solve new problems via new products. The desired outcome for these startups should be sustainable business growth—to meet sustainability goals by contributing to the society and the economy. Conclusion: The C-IR framework is a strategic guide for startups to make business decisions based on internal factors, rather than myths. Accurately assessing skill diversity and the nature of new industries (or markets) will help startups leverage their existing resources optimally, without the need for (pricey) external funding. This will foster sustained business growth resulting in a nation economic development. Knowledge transfer from the Innovation ecosystem will further strengthen the C-IR framework effectiveness.

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