Innovation through Agile Project Management

The traditional, waterfall, project management processes were at a certain moment the latest versions creating a competitive advantage for the business using them. But, the development of technology within business, finds the waterfall methodology confining the implementation of innovation through its requirements. Conversely, the earlier used in agile methods satisfactorily proofed to re-energize project management in huge organizations that do not develop the application. The researcher focused on finding the ways innovations are possible under agile project management through the following research question. First, how agile project management methodology enable to big organizations to succeed in their life settings by quickening modifications? Secondly, how does the big organization positioning benefit from unending modern opportunities brought by the changes in agile project management? Thirdly, does the big organization embrace a rigorous innovation procedure associated with the agile project management? Finally, how can the big businesses consider sufficiently agile to succeed and survive the modern life changes? The conclusion that will be derived from this research will be used to make inferences that will enable seamless agile project management in big organization and companies. This will accelerate the productivity of these organizations. If the modern trends and analysis can be obtained, then the big organizations can benefit by learning of the opportunities that will be brought about by the agile project management

Implement, measure, and improve agile : a framework for agile adoption

As the world becomes increasingly connected and societies become more globalised, organisations seek to keep up with this pace through constant transformation. In order to maintain their level of competitiveness, companies need to be at the forefront of innovation, digital transformation, and continuous improvement. The evolution of the Agile methodology allows companies to adapt to new realities and be able to keep up with the complexity and demands of the markets and their stakeholders. Agile now sets a pace that transcends applicability to software development and organisations are increasingly transferring Agile values and principles to their teams so that they deliver more value, with less risk and more quickly. The literature is extensive regarding the benefits of Agile but restricts the methodology to projects and mainly to the software development context. In the context of this thesis, and together with companies of different sizes and industries, we try to understand what drove them to adopt Agile, what are the benefits and challenges of its implementation, what is the present and future of the methodology, and what is the impact on the management of the organisation as a whole. We sought to answer the research question "How can a company adopt Agile?" and, as a result, we developed a framework comprising seven phases that all companies should go through, for a more complete Agile adoption and immersion.Com o mundo cada vez mais conectado e as sociedades cada vez mais globalizadas, as organizações procuram acompanhar este ritmo através da sua transformação constante. Por forma a manter o seu nível de competitividade, as empresas necessitam de estar na linha da frente da inovação, da transformação digital, e da melhoria contínua. A evolução da metodologia Agile vem permitir que empresas se adaptem a novas realidades e sejam capazes de acompanhar a complexidade e exigência dos mercados e dos seus stakeholders. O Agile traça agora um ritmo que transcende a aplicabilidade ao desenvolvimento de software e as organizações começam cada vez mais a transferir os valores e os princípios Agile às suas equipas, para que estas entreguem mais valor, com menos risco e de forma mais célere. A literatura revela-se extensa relativamente aos benefícios do Agile, mas restringe a metodologia aos projetos e principalmente ao contexto de desenvolvimento de software. No contexto desta tese, e em conjunto com empresas de diferentes dimensões e indústrias, tentamos perceber o que as impulsionou a adotar Agile, quais os benefícios e desafios da sua implementação, qual o presente e futuro da metodologia, e qual o impacto na gestão da organização como um todo. Procuramos responder à questão de investigação “Como é que uma empresa pode adotar Agile?” e, como resultado, desenvolvemos um framework que compreende sete fases que todas as empresas devem percorrer para uma adoção e imersão ao contexto Agile

Examining Organizational Implications of Innovations in Software Development: Agile and Simulation

Software development is a complex process involving stakeholders with divergent perspectives, skills, and responsibilities who must work together to create a software product of high quality. Problems such as miscommunications and misunderstandings among project stakeholders, especially between the IS and business functions, exist in software development. To help address these issues, innovative methods are being increasingly adopted such as the Agile software development methodology and software simulation. These two methods share the same goal of bringing stakeholders together to establish a common understanding so that the system can be built quicker and better than with traditional approaches. This dissertation, which consists of two essays, focuses on these two innovative methods of software development – Agile methodology and software simulation – and examines how they can be best applied and under what conditions they lead to positive outcomes. The first essay studies the introduction of the Agile methodology in a company steeped in the traditional Waterfall software development method. The essay reports on how the Agile methodology was integrated with the traditional software development process including an in-depth analysis of the organizational and project controller-controlee relationships before and after the Agile methodology implementation. We find that outcome control, which was the predominant control mechanism, used in the company’s Waterfall development process, gave way to a hybrid control mechanism that possesses attributes of emergent control while maintaining vestiges of some Waterfall-like outcome control mechanisms. In addition, we find that the IS function must relinquish some influence over software development resources with the introduction of the Agile method. Lessons learned from this case study point to the complexity of designing organizational and project control mechanisms during the transition from the Waterfall to an Agile approach.As much as innovations in software development methods improve the software creation process, the risk of failing to create a quality software product are heightened when requirements are misinterpreted. Recent innovations in requirements simulations provide stakeholders with an opportunity to see realistic simulations of the system before it is built to quickly reach a common understanding of the requirements. Hence, the second essay empirically examines how the use of software simulations with various degrees of realism can help mitigate project requirements risk including project novelty, data interdependence, system interdependence, requirements instability, and requirements diversity, leading to higher software product quality. Results suggest that simulation realism partially mediates the relationship between project requirement risk and software product quality indicating the importance of investing in highly realistic simulations in software project requirement risk mitigation.Overall, this dissertation sheds light on how software development managers can employ innovative methods such as an Agile method and software simulation to bring greater stakeholders unity and produce higher quality software products

BEYOND MODES: A NEW TYPOLOGY OF ISD CONTROL

This study focuses on the role of information systems development (ISD) control as a means to better understand the underlying elements of ISD methodologies. Based on Ackoff’s general systems theory, we propose a new typology of ISD control that moves beyond the de facto standard in ISD research: control modes. Through twenty-six interviews at four organizations, we find that our typology aids in distinguishing between control dimensions within structured and flexible development to a greater extent than control modes would allow. Our paper also discusses possible reasons why the benefits of agile development may become diluted in organizations where both flexible and structured methods are employed. This work contributes to the advancement of ISD control theory and provides useful insights for practitioners responsible for the governance of ISD projects

Adopting DevOps Principles, Practices and Tools : Case: Identity & Access Management

Adopting DevOps has been of interest for many organizations and practitioners for a while now due to its various benefits for business. However, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding on what is meant by DevOps when it comes to the key concepts, practices, tools, and the benefits and challenges of DevOps adoption. Organizations and teams are missing guidance on how to adopt DevOps in their specific context. This design science research is conducted to understand how to adopt DevOps principles, practices and tools in the Identity and Access Management of a large multinational corporation. The result of this study are the proposed models for adopting DevOps, including the formation of the teams and the processes covering build, test and deployment of identity management system (SailPoint IIQ) and onboarding new applications to the system. Three design artifacts are built and evaluated against identified problem areas in DevOps adoption, providing insights to the research community and industry practitioners

An agile approach for IS/IT benefits management

Doutoramento em GestãoInvestments in Information Systems and Information Technology (IS/IT) by organizations around the world have been increasing, as the competition grows fierce. Despite this increase, many organizations feel that their investments do not get the return they expected in terms of real benefits to the business. There have been several attempts to create methods to improve the success of the investments of organizations in the implementation of IS/IT and methodologies have been devised for this purpose, although with modest improvements. One of the main methodologies is the Benefits Management methodology created in the University of Cranfield, widely recognized as a great methodology with proven results, although its adoption is not as high as it would be expected and desirable. This research project looks at the published literature to find the reasons for this problem and then, resorting to Design Science Research methodology, creates artefacts aiming to help solving some of the known problems in the adoption of the Benefits Management methodology. The created artefacts, as defined by the Design Science Research methodology, were then evaluated with a case study that took place in a large Portuguese bank. The results of the evaluation indicate that the artefacts created during this research project were useful and helpful for the adoption of the Benefits Management methodology created in the University of Cranfield.Os investimentos em Sistemas de Informação e em Tecnologia da Informação (IS/IT) por parte das organizações em todo o mundo têm aumentado, à medida que a concorrência cresce ferozmente. Apesar desse aumento, muitas organizações sentem que seus investimentos não lhes trazem o retorno esperado em termos de reais benefícios para o negócio. Têm havido diversas tentativas para criar métodos para melhorar o sucesso dos investimentos das organizações na implementação de IS/IT e foram concebidas metodologias para esse fim, embora com modestas melhorias. Uma das principais metodologias é a metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios criada na Universidade de Cranfield, amplamente reconhecida como uma excelente metodologia, com resultados comprovados, muito embora a sua taxa de adoção não seja tão alta quanto seria expectável e desejável. Este projeto de investigação examina a literatura publicada, procurando encontrar os motivos desse problema e, em seguida, recorrendo à metodologia Design Science Research, cria artefactos com o objetivo de ajudar a resolver alguns dos problemas conhecidos na adoção da metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios. Os artefactos criados, conforme definido pela metodologia Design Science Research, foram depois avaliados num Estudo de Caso que decorreu num grande banco português. Os resultados da avaliação indicam que os artefactos criados durante este projeto de investigação são úteis e ajudam à adoção da metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios criada na Universidade de Cranfield.N/

An agile approach for IS/IT benefits management

Doutoramento em GestãoInvestments in Information Systems and Information Technology (IS/IT) by organizations around the world have been increasing, as the competition grows fierce. Despite this increase, many organizations feel that their investments do not get the return they expected in terms of real benefits to the business. There have been several attempts to create methods to improve the success of the investments of organizations in the implementation of IS/IT and methodologies have been devised for this purpose, although with modest improvements. One of the main methodologies is the Benefits Management methodology created in the University of Cranfield, widely recognized as a great methodology with proven results, although its adoption is not as high as it would be expected and desirable. This research project looks at the published literature to find the reasons for this problem and then, resorting to Design Science Research methodology, creates artefacts aiming to help solving some of the known problems in the adoption of the Benefits Management methodology. The created artefacts, as defined by the Design Science Research methodology, were then evaluated with a case study that took place in a large Portuguese bank. The results of the evaluation indicate that the artefacts created during this research project were useful and helpful for the adoption of the Benefits Management methodology created in the University of Cranfield.Os investimentos em Sistemas de Informação e em Tecnologia da Informação (IS/IT) por parte das organizações em todo o mundo têm aumentado, à medida que a concorrência cresce ferozmente. Apesar desse aumento, muitas organizações sentem que seus investimentos não lhes trazem o retorno esperado em termos de reais benefícios para o negócio. Têm havido diversas tentativas para criar métodos para melhorar o sucesso dos investimentos das organizações na implementação de IS/IT e foram concebidas metodologias para esse fim, embora com modestas melhorias. Uma das principais metodologias é a metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios criada na Universidade de Cranfield, amplamente reconhecida como uma excelente metodologia, com resultados comprovados, muito embora a sua taxa de adoção não seja tão alta quanto seria expectável e desejável. Este projeto de investigação examina a literatura publicada, procurando encontrar os motivos desse problema e, em seguida, recorrendo à metodologia Design Science Research, cria artefactos com o objetivo de ajudar a resolver alguns dos problemas conhecidos na adoção da metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios. Os artefactos criados, conforme definido pela metodologia Design Science Research, foram depois avaliados num Estudo de Caso que decorreu num grande banco português. Os resultados da avaliação indicam que os artefactos criados durante este projeto de investigação são úteis e ajudam à adoção da metodologia de Gestão de Benefícios criada na Universidade de Cranfield.N/

Five Paths to Prosperity: Transforming Business Processes

This book is a roadmap for modern industrial enterprises, offering five distinct paths to success: business process automation, ERP systems, e-procurement, controlling systems and consulting services. Each path combines conceptual insights, real-world application, and in-depth research, creating a multifaceted approach to business enhancement. Throughout the book, real-world case studies provide insights into the challenges and advantages of these paths. Join us on this journey to gain scientific-practical knowledge for transforming industrial enterprises based on economic insights and research

An analysis on key factors of Agile Project Management

Agile software development is a new method for developing and implementing software. It depends more on ad hoc approaches to planning and control in favor of the more organic processes of teamwork and mutual education. After reviewing several case studies of business initiatives, this chapter defines and describes agile project management. It discusses the historical context of the shift from conventional management's emphasis on top-down supervision and process standardization to agile's emphasis on self-managing teams, with all of the advantages and complications it entails. In this section, you will study the four cornerstones of agile project management: minimal critical specification, self-organizing teams, redundancy, and feedback and learning