  Numerous software companies are adopting value-based decision making.
However, what does value mean for key stakeholders making decisions? How do
different stakeholder groups understand value? Without an explicit
understanding of what value means, decisions are subject to ambiguity and
vagueness, which are likely to bias them. This case study provides an in-depth
analysis of key stakeholders' value propositions when selecting features for a
large telecommunications company's software-intensive product. Stakeholders'
value propositions were elicited via interviews, which were analyzed using
Grounded Theory coding techniques (open and selective coding). Thirty-six value
propositions were identified and classified into six dimensions: customer
value, market competitiveness, economic value/profitability, cost efficiency,
technology & architecture, and company strategy. Our results show that although
propositions in the customer value dimension were those mentioned the most, the
concept of value for feature selection encompasses a wide range of value
propositions. Moreover, stakeholder groups focused on different and
complementary value dimensions, calling to the importance of involving all key
stakeholders in the decision making process. Although our results are
particularly relevant to companies similar to the one described herein, they
aim to generate a learning process on value-based feature selection for
practitioners and researchers in general.

Software Engineering