Supporting agile innovation and knowledge by managing human resource flexibility

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the implications of managing human resource (HR) flexibility and absorptive capacity (AC) of knowledge for the implementation of agile innovation methods in the new product development (NPD) process of manufacturing firms. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this, the authors have carried out a meta-analysis by defining first a research question that determines the design of bibliometric data and compilation. The study question is: How firms can support agile initiatives in innovation considering their HR flexibility and AC? The Web of Science Collection has been consulted in three steps with several search strings. The analysis of 161 references without duplicities in the period 1997–2021 provides the foundations for exploring the research question. Findings: The authors propose research hypotheses to analyze the interrelationship between HR flexibility, AC and agile innovation according to the literature-based discussion. The authors have identified and develop metrics to pilot the transition to agile that have been also adapted to specific innovation departures points before the transition. The authors also propose and discuss some organizational changes and practical guidelines to pilot transitions to agile that should be useful to the firm’s strategic decision of implementing the most adequate type of agile innovation. Originality/value: Even though flexibility and innovation are very important needs for many firms, agile schemes are still under-studied topics in the NPD of manufacturing firms. There are no specific studies in the literature that analyze the interrelationship between HR flexibility, AC and agile innovation, identifying common aspects and different approaches. Thus, this study is of original nature and the developed managerial tools, composed of metrics and organizational changes, will be useful to managers and permitted the authors to achieve the proposed goal. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

A Case Study on Enterprise Content Management using Agile Methodology

Every organization has the need to create, classify, manage and archive information so that it is accessible when they need it. The amount of data or information needed for an organization to build their business and for them to be more positive in today’s business world is increasing exponentially, which also includes unstructured data or unstructured content. It is not appropriate only to “manage” content, but whether the correct version of the data or document or record can be accessed. Enterprise Content Management is an efficient collection and planning of information that is to be used by a very particular type of audience for pure business objectives. It is neither a single type of technology nor a process, it is a combination of strategies, methods and tools used to preserve, store and deliver information supporting key enterprise processes through its entire lifecycle. This research is classified into a case study research because it takes a particular focus on a certain area, i.e., the ECM implementation in XYZ organization where I completed my summer internship this year. Besides research, this study also helped me understand the in-depth implementation of ECM in an enterprise which directly depicts the working environment and methodologies in XYZ

Software Process Improvement Using Agile Methods in Financial Institutions. LHV Bank Case

Töökorraldus suurtes finantsinstitutsioonides ja finantstehnoloogia ettevõtetes on rajatud erinevatele alustele. Selgemalt kui kusagil mujal on see näha nende ettevõtete tootearenduses, kus tuleb välja oluline erinevus uue toote turule toomise kiiruses ja tarkvara arendusprotsessis tervikuna. Paljud finantsinstitutsioonid püüavad lahendada probleemi, mis on seotud tootearenduse ja tarkvara arendusprotsesside kiirendamisega, et vastata ärikeskkonnast tulenevatele muutustele.Ajalooliselt on suured finantsinstitutsioonid tuginenud oma tarkvara arendusprotsessides kose-meetoditele, mis tõid varem häid tulemusi, kuid mis ei vasta enam muutunud ärikeskkonnast tulevatele vajadustele. Suurem üleminek kose-meetodil toimivalt tarkvara arendusprotsessilt välk-meetodil toimivale tarkvara arendusprotsessile on nendes organisatsioonides toimunud alles viimase viie aasta jooksul. Uue põlvkonna finantstehnoloogia iduettevõtted on aga rajanud kogu oma tegevuse välk-meetodil põhinevale tarkvara arendusprotsessile.Magistritöö eesmärgiks on leida vastus küsimusele, kuidas skaleerida väledaid tarkvara arendusprotsessi meetodeid finantsinstitutsioonides. Selleks viiakse läbi LHV Panga tarkvara arendusprotsessil põhinev juhtumiuuring. Magistritöös kirjeldatakse LHV Panga olemasolevat tarkvara arendusprotsessi, analüüsitakse läbi teoreetiline kirjandus ja viiakse läbi praktilised intervjuud. Võttes arvesse analüüsi tulemusel kogutud tähelepanekuid, pakutakse LHV Panga näitel välja ettepanekud, kuidas kiirendada tarkvara arendusprotsessi finantsinstitutsioonis.Magistritöös tuuakse välja kaheksa ettepanekut protsessi kiirendamiseks LHV Pangas. Kogu organisatsiooni tasemel tuleb väledad meetodid ja juhtimiskultuur tervikuna kasutusele võtta laiemalt nii juhtimises kui ka äri-, toote- ja IT-arenduses. Selleks tuleb korraldada vajalikud koolitused. Meeskondade tasemel tuleb arenduse kiiruse tõstmiseks moodustada konkreetsed tootemeeskonnad, seada ühised eesmärgid kõikidele meeskonnaliikmetele ja anda meeskondadele suurem otsustusvabadus. Protsesside tasemel tuleb üle vaadata hetkel kehtiv tarkvara arendusportsess ning täiendada seda viimaste praktikate ja organisatsiooni enda poolt viimase viie aasta jooksul kogutud kogemustega. Tehnilisel tasemel tuleb automatiseerida tarkvara kasutuselevõtmisprotsess ja kasutada rohkem väiksematest osadest koosnevat infosüsteemi ülesehitust.Large financial institutions and fintech companies have fundamentally different ways of working. More clearly than anywhere else, this is seen in their product development cycles. There is significant difference in time to market for new products and in speed of software development. The problem where many financial institutions find themselves now is the need to respond faster to the changes in the business environment and have faster product and software development processes.Large financial institutions have historically relied on waterfall-inspired methods for software development. These methods have delivered great value for a long time, but are not corresponding to the current changing needs in the business environment. A larger shift from waterfall towards agile software development in these organizations has taken place just in the last five years due to the changes in the competition, where the new generation fintech companies have relied purely on agile development.In light of this context, this thesis addresses the research question of how agile software development process can be scaled up within the context of financial institutions. This is achieved by means of a case study carried out on LHV Bank software development process. The current processes at LHV Bank are mapped, suggestions for changes are derived through review of existing research on agile methods and from in-depth interviews. Based on the analysis, the findings that are the most important for benefiting from agile development are identified and suggested for improving the software development process at LHV Bank.There are eight key recommendations for improving the process at LHV Bank. On the organizational level, the agile methods and management culture should be introduced in larger scale, including the management, business, product and software development, with relevant trainings to be organized. On the teams level, to increase the efficiency of the development, concrete product teams should be assembled, common objectives set for team members and more autonomy given to the teams. On the process level, the agile development method used with its components should be reviewed by learning from the latest best practices and experience the organization has collected during the last five years when implementing agile practices. On the technical level, the release process should be automated and modular system architecture and microservices should be used more

Agile development model in multi-project environment

Abstract. Agile software development has slowly but steadily become a part of modern software industry. Older development models, such as waterfall, are seen obsolete and less flexible in today’s software development environment. But how do current agile methods fare in place where there are multiple ongoing projects and sprint goals can suddenly change? This thesis observes current agile models in multi-project software development environment and tries to improve current model the evaluated team has. The target team is a small, remote branch of medium sized organization consisting of nine members. The team utilized Scrumban — Scrum with Kanban — but it faced some problems. Rather than having one or two big projects, the branch did many smaller scale projects, and current model did not fit in such environment as good as it was thought. The team had some difficulties on communication between different projects, there was a noticeable amount of “ad hoc work” (issues that were not logged anywhere and were done independently) and metering the progress of the project was hard sometimes. A better model for the team was in need. First, the evaluation team is briefly introduced and some more info on Scrumban, the Sprint cycle and what kind of projects the team usually has is given. Data gathering plans — surveys and interviews — is also described. After examining the survey and interview results, quality measurement, work cycle, resource allocation and learning were the topics that were widely discussed. Four goals were made: streamlining the work cycle, a way to measure progress, making learning easier during the work cycle and way to monitor the ad hoc tasks. After some analysis, the decision was to take values and principles from Kanban, such as workflow visualization and limiting Work In Progress (WIP). The evaluation period lasted through two Sprints. The evaluation period was during COVID-19 pandemic but fortunately that did not affect that much to it. After the evaluation, feedback session and discussion about the new model was had. The overall impressions on better Jira board visualisation (personal swimlanes) were overwhelmingly positive and team decided to keep them after the evaluation ended. On other features, the team felt that they were good idea but needed some more time on execution. Overall, the team felt like the new model improved their ability to work agile but there was still some field on improvement, particularly on the learning field. To sum up the thesis, the four principles that might help the team to choose and agile method are introduced: find what team is good at and what is lacking, do not be afraid of experimenting, think what parts you could automate and reflect on your changes.Ketterän kehittämisen malli moniprojektiympäristössä. Tiivistelmä. Ketterä ohjelmistokehitys on hiljalleen mutta tasaisisesti tullut osaksi nykyistä ohjelmistoteollisuutta. Vanhemmat kehitysmallit, kuten vesiputous, nähdään vanhentuneina ja vähemmän joustavina nykypäivän ohjelmistokehitysympäristössä. Mutta miten nykyiset agile-menetelmät pärjäävät paikassa, missä on useampi projekti meneillänsä ja sprintin tavoitteet voivat muuttua yhtäkkiä? Tämä tutkielma havainnoi nykyisiä agile-malleja moniprojektisessa ohjelmistokehitysympäristössä ja yrittää parantaa arvioidun tiimin nykyistä mallia. Kohdetiimi on pieni yhdeksän ihmisen etäinen haara keskisuuressa yrityksessä. Tiimi käytti Scrumbania (Scrum Kanbanilla), mutta heillä on ollut ongelmia. Yhden tai kahden suuren projektin sijaan haaralla on paljon pieniä projekteja, ja nykyinen malli ei toiminut kyseisessä ympäristössä niin hyvin, kuin ajateltiin. Tiimillä on ollut vaikeuksia tiedonvälityksen kanssa projektien välillä, huomattava osa työstä tehtiin ”ad hoc työnä” (työ, jota ei kirjattu minnekään ja tehty itsenäisesti) ja projektin kehityksen mittaaminen on vaikeaa välillä. On aika paremmalle mallille. Ensiksi kohdetiimi on esitelty lyhyesti ja enemmän tietoa Scrumbanista, Sprint-jaksosta ja minkälaisia projekteja tiimillä yleensä on annettu. Tiedon keruu menetelmät (kyselyt ja haastattelut) on myös kuvattu. Kyselyn ja haastattelun tulosten tutkimisen jälkeen kävi ilmi, että laadunmittaus, työjakso, resurssien allokoiminen ja oppiminen olivat eniten keskustelua herättäviä aiheita. Tehtiin neljä tavoitetta: työjakson virtaviivaistus, tapa mitata kehitystä, oppiminen työjaksolla helpommaksi ja ad hoc tekemisen valvonta. Pienen analyysin jälkeen päätös on ottaa arvoja ja periaatteita Kanbanista, kuten esimerkiksi työnkulun visualisointi ja keskeneräisen työn (Work in Progress, WIP) rajoitteet. Arvioinnin ajanjakso kesti kahden Sprintin verran. Arvioiminen oli COVID-19 pandemian aikaan, mutta se ei onneksi vaikuttanut juuri paljoakaan siihen. Arvioinnin jälkeen oli palautesessio sekä keskustelua uudesta mallista. Vaikutelmat Jira-taulun visualisointiin (henkilökohtaiset työjakaumat) olivat yleisesti ylivoimaisen positiivisia ja tiimi päätti pitää ne arvioinnin loppumisen jälkeen. Tiimin mielestä muut toiminnot olivat hyvä lisä, mutta tarvitsivat lisää aikaa toteutukseen. Yleisesti tiimistä tuntui, että uusi malli paransi heidän kykyänsä tehdä ketterästi, mutta olisi vielä muutamassa kohtaa parantamista, etenkin oppimisen kannalta. Lopputyön summaamiseksi, neljä periaatetta, jotka saattavat auttaa tiimiä valitsemaan ketterän menetelmän esitellään: löydä se, missä tiimisi on hyvä ja mitä puuttuu; älä pelkää kokeilla; mieti, mitä kohtia voit automatisoida; ja pohdiskele muutoksiasi

Dynamic Capabilities as Change Capabilities: Seeking Concreteness From a Different Point of View

No business is free of change and in the modern times changing business environment and -technology are more of a rule than an exception. To survive and thrive in changing environments organizations need to be able to change and maintain competitiveness under such conditions. Problem is how to determine the organization’s capability to do these. The dynamic capabilities model was developed as response to the question about creating and maintaining competitive advantage under conditions of change, but the model is still lacking with many disagreements in the literature. As maintaining competitive advantage in a changing environment is inherently tied to change in the organization, this thesis sought to utilize and test the usability of the dynamic capabilities as a tool to evaluate organization’s change capabilities contributing to both dynamic capabilities literature and change literature. In the process a model of concrete elements of the dynamic capabilities needed to be assembled based on available literature. This thesis was conducted as a single case study of a single large Finnish cooperative financial group that was engaging in large change initiatives both before and during the study, especially two large and distinctly different kinds of change driven by two separate executive directors. Five employees from one of the firms inside the group were interviewed in addition to the group’s public quarterly and annual reporting between 2013 and 2019. Much of the material was analysed using GIOIA method to ensure sufficient rigor in the analysis. In the end the study could draw a clear connection between some elements of dynamic capabilities, changing environment and organizational changes. Both of the two major groupwide change processes for example were preceded by significant sensing activities both externally and internally. With several other elements the connection could not be demonstrated quite as strongly. They were not a visible key point in a major change effort. There were however many lighter or indirect indications of their value. The ongoing organizational change towards more decentralized power and autonomy, attributes supported by dynamic capabilities literature, has not yet proven itself as key factor of other changes but in interview it was described as speeding development work among other positive expressions. There were similarly suggestions of lacking in a proposed dynamic capability element being a “braking factor” when discussing maintaining of technological competences. These findings support the proposal of using dynamic capabilities as identified here as change capabilities, but further research of more organizations and different change situations would be required to consider this proposition proven

Building lean thinking in a telecom software development organization: strengths and challenges.

The potential shown by Lean in different domains has aroused interest in the software industry. However, it remains unclear how Lean can be effectively applied in a domain such as software development that is fundamentally different from manufacturing. This study explores how Lean principles are implemented in software development companies and the challenges that arise when applying Lean Software Development. For that, a case study was conducted at Ericsson R&D Finland, which successfully adopted Scrum in 2009 and subsequently started a comprehensible transition to Lean in 2010. Focus groups were conducted with company representatives to help devise a questionnaire supporting the creation of a Lean mindset in the company (Team Amplifier). Afterwards, the questionnaire was used in 16 teams based in Finland, Hungary and China to evaluate the status of the transformation. By using Lean thinking, Ericsson R&D Finland has made important improvements to the quality of its products, customer satisfaction and transparency within the organization. Moreover, build times have been reduced over ten times and the number of commits per day has increased roughly five times.The study makes two main contributions to research. First, the main factors that have enabled Ericsson R&D?s achievements are analysed. Elements such as ?network of product owners?, ?continuous integration?, ?work in progress limits? and ?communities of practice? have been identified as being of fundamental importance. Second, three categories of challenges in using Lean Software Development were identified: ?achieving flow?, ?transparency? and ?creating a learning culture

Exploring Virtual Reality as an Integrated Development Environment for Cyber-Physical Systems

Peer reviewe

Introducing the Game Design Matrix: A Step-by-Step Process for Creating Serious Games

The Game Design Matrix makes effective game design accessible to novice game designers. Serious Games are a powerful tool for educators seeking to boost the level of student engagement and application in academic environments, but the can be difficult to incorporate into existing courses due to availability and the cost of quality game design. The Game Design Matrix was used by two educators, novice game designers, to create a serious game. The games were assessed in an academic setting and observed to be effective in engagement, interaction, and achieving higher levels of learning

A modern approach for Threat Modelling in agile environments: redesigning the process in a SaaS company

Dealing with security aspects has become one of the priorities for companies operating in every sector. In the software industry building security requires being proactive and preventive by incorporating requirements right from the ideation and design of the product. Threat modelling has been consistently proven as one of the most effective and rewarding security activities in doing that, being able to uncover threats and vulnerabilities before they are even introduced into the codebase. Numerous approaches to conduct such exercise have been proposed over time, however, most of them can not be adopted in intricate corporate environments with multiple development teams. This is clear by analysing the case of Company Z, which introduced a well-documented process in 2019 but scalability, governance and knowledge issues blocked a widespread adoption. The main goal of the Thesis was to overcome these problems by designing a novel threat modelling approach, able to fit the company’s Agile environment and capable of closing the current gaps. As a result, a complete description of the redefined workflow and a structured set of suggestions was proposed. The solution is flexible enough to be adopted in multiple different contexts while meeting the requirements of Company Z. Achieving this result was possible only by analysing the industry’s best practices and solutions, understanding the current process, identifying the pain points, and gathering feedback from stakeholders. The solution proposed includes, alongside the new threat modelling process, a comprehensive method for evaluating and verifying the effectiveness of the proposed solution