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Business value is a key concept in agile software development approaches. This paper presents results of a systematic review of literature on how business value is created by agile projects. We found that with very few exceptions, most published studies take the concept of business value for granted and do not state what it means in general as well as in the specific study context. We could find no study which clearly indicates how exactly individual agile practices or groups of those create value and keep accumulating it over time. The key implication for research is that we have an incentive to pursue the study of value creation in agile project by deploying empirical research methods.

Continuous customer-centric requirements reprioritization is essential in successfully performing agile software development. Yet, in the agile RE literature, very little is known about how agile reprioritization happens in practice. Generic conceptual models about this process are missing, which in turn, makes it difficult for both practitioners and researchers to reason about requirements decision-making at inter-iteration time. This paper presents a Grounded Theory study on agile requirements prioritization methods to yield a conceptual model for understanding the inter-iteration prioritization process in terms of inputs and outcomes. The latter is derived by using qualitative empirical data, published earlier by other authors. Such a conceptual model makes explicit the concepts that are used tacitly in different agile requirements prioritization methods and can be used for structuring future empirical investigations about this topic.

Agile requirements engineering is the approach of choice for many software producers whose realities include highly uncertain requirements, use of new development technology, and clients willing to explore the ways in which an evolving product can help their business goals. From customer's perspective, the activity of continuous requirements reprioritization forms the very core of today's agile approaches. However, the freedom for clients to do so does not come for free. This paper presents results of a literature review on agile requirements prioritization methods, derives a conceptual model for understanding the inter-iteration prioritization process in terms of inputs and outcomes, and identifies issues and solutions pertinent to agile prioritization The latter are derived from the authors' experiences and by using empirical data, published earlier by other authors.

Business value is a key concept in agile software development. This paper presents results of a case study on how business value and its creation is perceived in the context of agile projects. Our overall conclusion is that the project participants almost never use an explicit and structured approach to guide the value creation throughout the project. Still, the application of agile methods in the studied cases leads to satisfied clients. An interesting result of the study represents the fact that the agile process of many projects differs significantly from what is described in the agile practitioners' books as best practices. The key implication for research and practice is that we have an incentive to pursue the study of value creation in agile projects and to complement it by providing guidelines for better client's involvement, as well as by developing structured methods that will enhance the value-creation in a project.

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This position paper applies real-option-theory perspective to agile software development. We complement real-option thinking with the use of measurements to support midcourse decision-making from the viewpoint of the client. Our position is motivated by using empirical data gathered from secondary sources.