The Impact of Customer Collaboration on Agile Product Development Success in Technology Startups Within the Pacific Northwest

While agile software development is being adopted in more organizations recently, many products using the methodology are still failing in the market due to inadequate customer collaboration despite the purported benefits. Within start-ups, where speed and early market penetration can be the death or success of a company, understanding if using agile software development including adequate customer collaboration makes a significant difference is important. A study which investigates the impact of including customer collaboration in the agile product development process could uncover whether or not a product is successful within technology focused start-up’s in the Pacific Northwest. This research could allow technology focused start-ups to learn how to emulate success and avoid pitfalls using agile software development to create better, more transformative products for the world. The research question is: how does the inclusion of customer collaboration in the agile product development process by product owners impact the overall success of the product within Pacific Northwest technology start-up companies? This concept paper includes information on the nature of the study, the significance, relationship to cognate, a literature review beginning, and a significant amount of research related to the hypothesis.