So Much Data; So Little Value: A multi-case study on improving the impact of data-driven development practices

Paper in proceeding, 2017

The amount of customer and product data that is collected by companies across domains is exploding. Today, connected software-intensive products permeate virtually every aspect of our lives and the actions we take generate data revealing what products we use, when we use them and how we use them. Still, companies struggle with extracting value from the data they collect, and although data collection and analysis techniques exist the impact of data is low. Typically, insights generated from data influence only smaller feature improvements and optimizations at the team level. However, as soon as decisions concern new product development and innovation at a business level, companies fall back on opinions and internal assumptions on what constitutes customer value. In this paper, and based on case study research in six embedded systems and six Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, we identify the key challenges that hinder companies in leveraging the impact of data and we present a systematic approach to value modeling that help companies address these challenges.