Estimating, planning and managing Agile Web development projects under a value-based perspective

Context: The processes of estimating, planning and managing are crucial for software development projects, since the results must be related to several business strategies. The broad expansion of the Internet and the global and interconnected economy make Web development projects be often characterized by expressions like delivering as soon as possible, reducing time to market and adapting to undefined requirements. In this kind of environment, traditional methodologies based on predictive techniques sometimes do not offer very satisfactory results. The rise of Agile methodologies and practices has provided some useful tools that, combined with Web Engineering techniques, can help to establish a framework to estimate, manage and plan Web development projects. Objective: This paper presents a proposal for estimating, planning and managing Web projects, by combining some existing Agile techniques with Web Engineering principles, presenting them as an unified framework which uses the business value to guide the delivery of features. Method: The proposal is analyzed by means of a case study, including a real-life project, in order to obtain relevant conclusions. Results: The results achieved after using the framework in a development project are presented, including interesting results on project planning and estimation, as well as on team productivity throughout the project. Conclusion: It is concluded that the framework can be useful in order to better manage Web-based projects, through a continuous value-based estimation and management process.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-

Beyond product architecture: Division of labour and competence accumulation in complex product development

This paper considers the trade-off between leveraging external sources of innovation by outsourcing design and engineering activities and the ability to develop internal product development competences. The trade-off arises because the division of labor within and across firms' boundaries has a crucial role in shaping competence development processes, especially because the division of labor also influences opportunities for learning by doing. In new product development projects, learning by doing appears to be both a key determinant of competence development and a difficult-to-substitute form of learning. While the division of development tasks is often considered as guided by product architecture, we show that by decoupling the decisions concerning the product architecture and the allocation of development tasks, firms can realize the benefits of outsourcing such tasks while developing new internal competences. Drawing on a longitudinal case study in the automotive industry, we also identify a new organizational lever for shaping competence development paths and for designing firm boundaries. This lever consists in alternating different task allocation schemes over time for different types of development projects. We show why this is a novel solution, what its underlying logic is, and how it enables alleviating the trade-off between the benefits of leveraging external sources of innovation and the opportunities for competence development provided by in-house design and engineering. We discuss implications for theories of organizational boundary design and innovation management.innovation management; organizational boundaries; outsourcing; product architecture; modularity; new product development; template process; automotive industry; Fiat

Measuring the Affordances of Studying in a Virtual World

There has been much interest at the University of Hertfordshire in the teaching and learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The School of Computer Science has established a virtual campus within this system where a broad range of learning and teaching activities take place. These include presenting textual, audio and video learning and teaching materials, delivering virtual lectures, providing simulations and group working areas. Recently there has been a great deal of controversy over such initiatives, for example at my own university lecturers are divided as to the efficacy of such an approach. Some see the initiative as an interesting addition to the range of teaching and learning strategies available, likely to motivate learners. Others see it as a trivial attempt to jump on the latest band wagon, with little pedagogical benefit or justification. My own past research in this area, over several years has related to an estimation of the cognitive load imposed by desktop virtual environments and how this affected learning. Several important variables have been identified in several years of research and their effects measured. In the study presented here, a group of 80 final year computer science students used the Second Life virtual environment in order to support their practical project work. Groups of four learners used the university virtual campus especially modified for this purpose to hold meetings and to manage their software development projects. This study reports on how the group areas were established and used by the learners, the types of activities that took place and the effectiveness of the approach in this context. Quantitative and qualitative research was undertaken and it was found that there were benefits to be had by the use of such virtual environments. Recommendations are made as to the affordances of the Second Life virtual environment for teaching and learning in this context and also discussed are the potential problems inherent in this initiative related to individual differences and the cognitive burden imposed on learners.Peer reviewe

Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

Information standards to support application and enterprise interoperability for the smart grid

Copyright @ 2012 IEEE.Current changes in the European electricity industry are driven by regulatory directives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as replacing aged infrastructure and maintaining energy security. There is a wide acceptance of the requirement for smarter grids to support such changes and accommodate variable injections from renewable energy sources. However the design templates are still emerging to manage the level of information required to meet challenges such as balancing, planning and market dynamics under this new paradigm. While secure and scalable cloud computing architectures may contribute to supporting the informatics challenges of the smart grid, this paper focuses on the essential need for business alignment with standardised information models such as the IEC Common Information Model (CIM), to leverage data value and control system interoperability. In this paper we present details of use cases being considered by National Grid, the GB transmission system operator for information interoperability in pan-network system management and planning.This study is financially supported by the National Grid, UK