Agile Customer Engagement: a Longitudinal Qualitative Case Study

In this longitudinal case study we have followed a small softwareproduct company that has turned from a waterfall-like process toevolutionary project management (Evo). The most prominentfeature of the new process is the close engagement of customers.We have interviewed both internals and customers to investigatethe practicalities, costs, gains and prerequisites of such a transition.We have gathered data from a period of two years covering fourconsecutive release projects using the new process and analyzedthe material in detail. Our findings implicate that close customerengagement does give certain benefits but that it comes with a costand needs careful attention to management.