A process reference model for managing living labs for ICT innovation: A proposal based on ISO/IEC 15504

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2013.07.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • ISO/IEC 15504 philosophy helps to formalize effective practices to manage living labs.

  • The PRM covers the absence of a formalized approach to guide living lab management.

  • The reference model contributes to facilitating benchmarking among living labs.

  • The maturity levels provide a feasible path to create and evolve a living lab.

Abstract

Living Labs are innovation infrastructures where software companies and research organizations collaborate with lead users to design and develop new products and services. There is not any reference model related to the processes or practices to manage a living lab. This article presents a reference model to manage effectively the synergies of software companies with the other stakeholders participating in a living lab.

The article describes the approach used to create the reference model through the analysis of a multiple case study considering six living labs and discusses the lessons learned during the creation of the process reference model.

Introduction

Nowadays, most successful software products were developed by “lead users” collaborating with technology and software providers in the development of innovative products. The active involvement of end-users in the innovation lifecycle is an important asset for competitiveness in software companies [1]. These practices would support the development of products of high quality which must evolve if they are to adapt to new demands and scenarios [2] as they seek to make these companies become more competitive.

The living lab concept originates from Prof. William Mitchell, MediaLab and School of Architecture and City Planning of MIT [3]. Originally, Prof. William Mitchell used living labs to analyze how people use IT buildings. The information of these experiments was used to design more comfortable and useful buildings. Later, this living lab concept was used to define real life environments for involving end-users in the validation and co-design of new technological products promoted by IT companies and research organizations [4].

Living labs are open innovation infrastructures shared by several stakeholders. The stakeholders involved in a living lab include companies of the software industry, communities of end-users, computer science research organizations and public administrations supporting innovation policies.

The resources that a living lab provides are physical facilities for co-design, test-beds, collaboration tools supporting the interaction among the stakeholders of an innovation initiative, knowledge management platforms and human resources supporting the living lab services.

Examples of the services provided by the living lab to their stakeholders are: the incubation of ideas of new ICT products and services to improve the socio-economic conditions of end-user communities, validation of technological solutions by different targets of end-users, support to wide-scale roll-out of innovative ICT products, etc.

Living labs are complex innovation organizations, requiring not just physical facilities but also careful development of key relationships and networks. There is currently no model for developing or managing living labs.

Companies considering developing a living lab will find little guidance, and no concurrence on best practices, for managing it or integrating it with existing innovation programs. A reference model is required to provide living lab managers and practitioners the tools to create and evolve a living lab following a continuous improvement and evolution approach [5], [6].

To address this gap, this article presents a process reference model that includes processes and practices to manage the living labs and facilitate the collaboration of software companies with users and other stakeholders for the creation of new software products or services.

The Living Lab Process Reference Model was defined through the implementation of a multiple case study approach that was carried out considering six living labs: Cudillero (Spain) [7], Åboland (Finland) [8], Frascati (Italy) [9], Homokhátság (Hungary) [10], Wireless-info (Czech Republic) [11] and Sekhukhune (South Africa) [12]. Section 3 describes the strategy to develop the process reference model.

To formalize the living lab process reference model, the authors decided to adapt the philosophy and structure proposed by ISO/IEC 15504 [13], [14], [15] because: 1) The structured approach to define and catalog effective practices helps the living lab stakeholders to adopt effective practices following a process improvement approach; 2) ISO/IEC 15504 provides a framework for benchmarking among different living labs; 3) It is feasible to integrate open and user driven innovation practices in software process improvement programs already started in software development and service provision organizations; 4) it is possible to integrate open innovation initiatives with other process improvement projects taking advantage of harmonization of multiple standards [16]. Section 4 presents a living lab process model including effective practices to manage a living lab for ICT innovation.

Finally, the paper discusses the results obtained during the definition of the process model proposed in this paper. This discussion includes a description of the difficulties on the implementation of the effective practices presented in the model and their appropriateness to guide the living lab stakeholders in the implementation of this approach. Section 5 discusses the lessons learned during the creation of the process reference model.

Section snippets

Current approaches in implementing living labs

Living labs, in which users' experiences lead the future directions of the products, are increasingly being used and successful service innovation development depends on understanding both existing and user needs [17]. In analyzing the literature available on living labs, two categories can be identified [18]:

  • 1)

    Living labs as open innovation platforms. The living lab is created as a network of stakeholders for creating new software products and services through the active involvement of end-users

Method to define the living lab process reference model

In order to apply an ISO/IEC 15504 based approach to create a process reference model of effective practices to create and manage living labs, a multiple case study approach was implemented according to Yin in [23].

This multiple case study was carried out in several living labs dealing with the problems of introducing innovations based on ICT collaborative services in rural areas to improve current business process, productivity that aims to increase economic growth, and the quality of life.

Living lab process reference model

The reference model describes a set of processes in terms of goals and practices required to achieve each specific goal. They are called “generic” because the same practice applies to multiple process areas. The generic practices included in the process reference model are related to get the stakeholders' commitment to implement the proposed practices and the provision of training, resources, techniques and tools to implement practices. These generic practices came from the analysis of the

Discussion

This section presents the lessons learned during the process of creating the living lab. These lessons learned were obtained from the quarterly reports obtained during the multiple case study complemented with participants' observation and interviews.

  • A)

    Usefulness of the practices to support the living lab organizational and operational dimensions

    The discussion of the usefulness of the practices is organized in the two dimensions to be considered in the management of a living lab: organizational

Conclusions

The living lab approach is still emerging, but the software industry is demanding models that include effective practices to guide this kind of shared innovation infrastructure.

The process reference model presented in this article covers the absence of a formalized approach to carry out a holistic view to facilitate the effective participation of software companies in living labs. The model proposed demonstrated its adaptability to different living labs considering the specific characteristics

Javier García-Guzmán holds a BSc in engineering and a PhD in computer science from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He has 14 years' experience as a researcher and consultant in public and private companies. He has participated in numerous research projects related to open and user-driven innovation approaches for software services, collaborative working environments, and e-learning technologies. He has published several books and international scientific papers related to living labs,

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    Javier García-Guzmán holds a BSc in engineering and a PhD in computer science from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He has 14 years' experience as a researcher and consultant in public and private companies. He has participated in numerous research projects related to open and user-driven innovation approaches for software services, collaborative working environments, and e-learning technologies. He has published several books and international scientific papers related to living labs, software engineering, and collaborative working environments. [email protected].

    Alvaro Fernández del Carpio is a PhD candidate at the Software Engineering Lab at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He holds an MSc in computer science and technology from the Universidad Carlos III. His current interests include software process improvement, collaborative work environments, assessments models, and living labs. [email protected].

    Antonio de Amescua is a full professor in the Computer Science Department at the Carlos III University of Madrid. He has been working as software engineer in a public company (Iberia Airlines) and in a private company (Novotec Consultores) as a software engineering consultant. He founded Progresion, a spin-off company, in order to offer advanced Software Process Improvement services. He received his PhD in computer science from the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid. His research interests include Software Process Improvement, Software Reuse, and Software Project Management.

    Manuel Velasco de Diego holds an engineering degree and a PhD in computer science from the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid. He has been a lecturer in software testing at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid since 2001. His main research areas are software testing and reusability; he has published several papers in international journals and congresses on these subjects and has participated in numerous research projects financed by the European Union and the Spanish government. Currently, his main research focuses on relating software testing and reusability topics to the design of spatiotemporal databases. [email protected].

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