Have the Factors Affecting Software New Product Development (S-NPD) Changed in the Age of Mobile Apps and Agile Methods?

It has been long recognized that Time-to-Market, Cost-of-Delay, and Uncertainty are the three major factors that can impact New Product Development (NPD) process. Software New Product Development (S-NPD) process is even more notorious with delay and cost overrun. The goal of this position paper is to examine the three factors: Time-to-Market, Cost-of-Delay and Uncertainty through “observation” vis-à-vis software Apps development process and the use of Agile methods in order to see if something has changed over the years. In addition, a controlled group interview is conducted to support the observation method. The questions this paper seeks to answer are: Are we getting to market on time? Are we delivering software product on budget? Do we have reduced uncertainty when it comes to Apps development and the use of Agile method? The results obtained show that the use of Agile approach in developing Apps can take the product to the market quicker compared to using the rigid linear process, in our case the waterfall V-model. Also, the “product introduction delay” as part of product performance was measured on the assumption that there is no budget or cost overrun. In this case, the Agile method performs better than the linear approach. Lastly, in terms of technological uncertainty, the Agile development approach does not necessarily bring the expected commercial success, and in fact, for the situation where the development of Apps is involved, rapid development could result in failure if proper plan is not in place for the evolution of the product.