Within Scrum framework the role of the product owner is critical for the success of a Scrum project. Today, there exist little empirical evidence of how the role of product owner is practiced and the challenges they are faced with. This research seeks through a multiple-case study approach to explore the role of product owners. The aim of the research was to investigate the existence of a gap between theory and practice in terms of the product owner role. Qualitative data collection consisted of eight semi-structured interviews with product owners and agile coaches which then was analyzed according to what theory of the role suggests. Results showed partly multiple factors confirming a gap, for example regarding vision, prioritizing and communication, and challenges that arise from the gap, for example concerning decision-making.

Whilst there are studies that have been researching application of agile methods in different contexts, research have mainly been focused on the software industry. As the world becomes increasingly more digitised, the banking industry is having to keep up with this development and become more digital. Consequently, banks need to incorporate new flexible methods to keep up with the increasing demand for new digital products and features. However, the digital transformation and development processes are not as straightforward as in other industries because banks operate in regulated markets, making the application of agile methods more difficult. This study aimed to investigate and expand the knowledge of how agile methods are applied within the product developing processes in banks as well as what the challenges are with adopting such methods. Semi-structured interviews and internal documents were used to gather data regarding how a bank applies these methods. The main findings show that the bank applied agile methods and adapted them to suit their needs. Key themes identified from the data are agile framework adaptation, collaboration, motivation, and regulatory and internal challenges. The adaptation of specific frameworks is driven by the profile of the specific team as well as the nature of each project in a particular product area. Similarly, to pure agile methods, the motivation of workers is important for maximising productivity in the product development process. Internal and external collaboration was found to involve the interaction of internal teams and co-workers as well as receiving feedback from customers to improve their products. An important challenge in maximising agility is this sector is the regulatory environment in which banks operate in. The findings from this study contribute to the field by giving insight into how agile methods can be adapted in the context of banking by adding to existing literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges and opportunities in the communication between software developers and their stakeholders, as well as the impact that the product owners have on the communication. The research was conducted using a case study approach, and data was mainly collected through observations andinterviews with product owners and software developers at the case company Kry. The findings show that the challenges in communication are the technical language of software developers, difficulty for stakeholders to understand the software development process and difficulty for developers to understand the underlying context of a feature request. The opportunities in their communication are that the developers can better understand the reasons of a request and thus feel more engaged in the product and more satisfied towards the company; Good communication can cut development time and cost. The product owner is shown to be almost irreplaceable due to the large impact that they have. They become translators between the developers and stakeholders, enabling them to communicate better. Furthermore, they are the main point of contact for the stakeholders, thus allowing the developers to focus more on doing development work. However, this might sometimes result in that the developers get involved too late in the process, making changes costly when they discover something faulty. As a conclusion, the communication between stakeholders and developers powered by product owners greatly enhance the possibility to build good, maintainable software and lead to a more sustainable work environment for all involved. / Syftet med studien är att undersöka utmaningar och möjligheter i kommunikationen mellan mjukvaruutvecklare och stakeholders, samt den påverkan som produktägare har på kommunikationen. Detta gjordes genom en fallstudie och data är i huvudsak insamlad genom observationer och intervjuer med produktägare och utvecklare på företaget Kry. Resultatet visar att utmaningar i kommunikationen är mjukvaruutvecklarnas tekniska språk, svårigheter för stakeholders att förstå mjukvaruutvecklingsprocessen och för utvecklarna att förstå de bakomliggande anledningarna för en kravändring. Möjligheter i kommunikationen är att utvecklarna bättre kan förstå de här anledningarna och därför bli mer engagerade i produkten och känna sig mer nöjda med företaget; bra kommunikation kan minska utvecklingskostnader och tid. Produktägare visar sig vara nästan oersättliga på grund av den stora påverkan de har. De blir översättare mellan utvecklare och stakeholders, och hjälper dem att kommunicera bättre. De blir också den huvudsakliga kontaktpersonen för stakeholders, vilket ger utvecklarna mer möjligheter att fokusera på deras utvecklingsarbete. Dock kan det resultera i att utvecklarna ibland blir inblandade för sent i processen, vilket gör potentiella behov av förändringar dyra när de upptäcker något som är fel. Sammanfattningsvis, när kommunikationen mellan stakeholder och utvecklare är faciliterad av produktägare så ökar möjligheterna för att bygga bra mjukvaraoch det leder till en mer hållbar arbetsmiljö för alla inblandade.

Nowadays, the business world is characterized by complexity since market and customer requirements are changing rapidly. Based on this assumption, providers are facing the challenge of delivering software products in shorter terms while these products remain innovative. Agile software development has a huge impact on how software is developed worldwide and promises business value in short iterations. At the same time, requirements are the base of all software products, and consequently, Requirements Engineering (RE) plays one of the most important roles in system development. Traditional techniques referring to intended data do not cover the constantly increasing demands of RE and unintended data from digital sources has amplified the need for Data-Driven Requirements Engineering (DDRE). This study contributes to Computer and System Science by providing a process to combine DDRE and traditional RE approaches in Agile software development methodologies. In this study, the researcher is trying to provide a concrete solution to the lack of an effective process to address data-driven requirements in a Scrum environment organized by regular Sprints and the purpose of it is to suggest a new method for requirements elicitation based on digital data and combine them with traditional stakeholder-driven RE in a Scrum agile environment. The method intends to assist Agile professionals to elicit requirements from digital sources in combination with intended data derived from the stakeholders without impacting the main Agile practices. The approach to conduct this study is Design Science Research (DSR) and contains five steps: Explicate Problem, Define Requirements, Design and develop Artefact, Demonstrate Artefact, and Evaluate Artefact. Literature review has been conducted to explicate the research problem and define the requirements of the artefact. Then, a process and a collaboration board have been created based on the requirements to bring DDRE and traditional RE into the Scrum environment. The researcher performed a demonstration of two illustrative cases of the usage of the proposed artefact to three Scrum professionals and three semi-structured interviews were conducted to evaluate the artefact. After the evaluation, the researcher refined and presented the final artefact that will help the public and private organizations to reduce the costs and time plan on eliciting requirements, and to increase the customers’ satisfaction. The artefact has not been applied in a real Agile environment, but Requirement Engineers and Agile team members can build on the proposed method and bring the elicitation approach of DDRE closer to the software development process.