POOYAN MOBTAHEJ - Bachelor of Science Thesis in Software Engineering and Management, Department of Computer Science and Engineering ,Gothenburg University and Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden

this research has been conducted in order to investigate challenges during innovation assessment in software development projects. Successful products based on innovation are a driving force for growth of SW start-ups. Innovation assessment process is an essential step for increasing the chance of developing successful products from innovative ideas. The focus of this paper is on start-up companies’ innovation assessment to highlight challenges on their processes. Such processes apply on ideas prior developing them as new products into the market. The research is qualitative and conducted using in-depth interviews with four owners and co-founders in four different IT start-ups. Analysis of the data has been conducted by using of the thematic analysis. The result showed list of the current challenges in five different themes. These highlighted themes could clear a road map for improvement of assessment processes for software innovation and would be an area of interest for developing a customized framework for IT start-ups.

Software Engineering; Software Entrepenureship ;IT Start-ups; Innovation Assessment; Software Development; Software Innovation, Assessment Challenges, IT Innovation