The theme of the workshop is “AI-enabled Agile Product Innovation.” This is the first workshop instance on this theme, as the relevance and importance of the topic became evident in the past decade with the new technological shift: substantial developments in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and generative AI and their widespread commercial applications. In startups, product innovation can mean coming up with new product ideas but can also be reinventing and improving existing products in big companies to stay ahead of trends, meet customer needs, and ensure business success. Agile methods provide a flexible and customer-focused framework for product innovation. Integrating AI into Agile practices can enhance product innovation efficiency, creativity, and responsiveness by automating routine tasks, making data-driven decisions, and ultimately delivering higher quality products. However, AI-enabled Agile Product Innovation also brings challenges, and agile teams must agree on new methods and techniques. What things can we learn from researchers and practitioners in this context? How do you integrate AI into existing software systems and processes in startups? How can AI specialists and the rest of the Agile team communicate effectively? How can Agile teams manage data effectively, addressing issues like data privacy, security, and integrity to support the integration of AI?

Organizers

• Henry Edison, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Nirnaya Tripathi, University of Oulu, Finland

Important Dates

• Submissions Due: April 5th, 2024
• Notifications to authors: April 30th, 2024
• Workshop: June 4th, 2024
• Camera Ready Copy: (to be decided)

Submission Guidelines & Topics

The following are the submission categories:

• Full papers (8-page full paper): We encourage contributions describing different stages of research, from position papers and work-in-progress reports to complete research papers, as well as industry experience reports. We welcome both research and industry papers.
• Journal-first paper (1 page): We invite authors of journal-first papers to present their work at the workshop. The paper has not been presented at and is not under consideration for journal-first programs of other conferences. The papers should be published in one of the following journals: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Information and Software Technology, Journal of Systems and Software, Empirical Software Engineering, IEEE Software, Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, e-informatica Software Engineering.
• Industry talks: We welcome industry experiences, challenges, solutions, and ideas for topics that would benefit from rigorous research. Presentation suggestions can be submitted in the format of a 2-page paper or max 5 slides describing the main idea, the presenters, and their experience in the topic.

IWSS seeks submissions describing novel research, experience reports, and emerging ideas. We are interested in studies describing original and unpublished results that explore new and promising ideas, including work-in-progress reports to ignite discussion. The industrial presentations aim to bring the industry viewpoint on current challenges, solutions, and new ideas related to these topics.

The topics of interest include but are not restricted to the following:

• Adaptation, issues, and challenges of adopting AI technologies, tools, and practices for new products or business models in standalone and internal startups.
• Development of novel AI tools to support creative and innovative works in startups.
• Communication and collaboration of AI specialists and Agile teams effectively.
• Management of data, addressing issues like data privacy, security, and integrity to support the integration of AI by startup teams.
• Experience in exploring and exploiting AI for existing and new ways of software product innovation in standalone and internal startups.
• Analysis of failure and success factors of start-ups
• Impact of new technological trends on software start-ups
• Case studies regarding startups in various domains, e.g., hardware, health-tech, cleantech, etc.
• Underlying theories/principles for startups.
• Agile approaches for software development in startups.
• Continuous experimentation, Lean startup, or Design Thinking.
• Analyses, challenges, and opportunities in startup ecosystems or funding startups.
• Curriculum development or teaching for AI in new product development or software startup.
• Software Startup in developing countries.

Submission Page

Research Workshops