Developing quality heathcare software using quality function deployment: A case study based on Sultan Qaboos University Hospital

Development of software is one of the most expensive projects undertaken in practice. Traditionally, the rate of failure in software development projects is higher compared to other kinds of projects. This is partly due to the failure in determining software users’ requirements. By using Quality Function Deployment (QFD), this research focuses on identification and prioritization of users’ requirements in the context of developing quality health-care software system for Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman. A total of 95 staff working at eight departments of SQUH were contacted and they were requested to provide their requirements in using hospital information systems. Analytic Hierarchy Process has been integrated with QFD for prioritizing those user requirements. Then, in consultation with a number of software engineers, a list consisting of 30 technical requirements was generated. These requirements are divided into seven categories and all of them are purported to satisfy the user needs. At the end of QFD exercise, continuous mirror backup from backup category, multi-level access from the security and confidentiality category, linkage to databases from application category emerge as technical requirements having higher weights. These technical requirements should receive considerable attention when designing the health-care software system for SQUH.Software quality; Quality function deployment; Healthcare software; Analytic Hierarchy Process

Managing Requirements Engineering Risks: an Analysis and Synthesis of the Literature

Requirements engineering is recognized as a key discipline in developing business software. Practitioners are, however, facing a steady stream of new techniques and an increasingly differentiated portfolio of requirements engineering risks. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that links the available repertoire of techniques to the situations in which practitioners find themselves. To this end, the paper reviews the software development and requirements engineering literature to understand the risks that characterize requirement engineering situations, to classify available techniques to resolve these risks, and to identify key principles by which tactics can be applied to resolve requirements risks. The paper synthesizes the findings from the analysis into a contingency model for managing requirements engineering risks. The model sets the scene for future research and practitioners can use it to navigate the requirements engineering landscape

A Contigency Model for Requirements Development

Drawing upon the requirements and software development literature, the present study proposes an integrative contingency model for requirements development. Based on 116 quality journal articles, we analyze requirements development risks, requirements development techniques, and heuristics for how they are effectively related. Subsequently, we synthesize the insights from the identified literature into a model for requirements development that relates patterns of risk resolution to archetypical risk profiles. The model integrates the literature on requirements and software development; sets the scene for future research; and, finally, proposes how practitioners can manage risks in requirements development projects

Developing quality heathcare software using quality function deployment: A case study based on Sultan Qaboos University Hospital

Development of software is one of the most expensive projects undertaken in practice. Traditionally, the rate of failure in software development projects is higher compared to other kinds of projects. This is partly due to the failure in determining software users’ requirements. By using Quality Function Deployment (QFD), this research focuses on identification and prioritization of users’ requirements in the context of developing quality health-care software system for Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman. A total of 95 staff working at eight departments of SQUH were contacted and they were requested to provide their requirements in using hospital information systems. Analytic Hierarchy Process has been integrated with QFD for prioritizing those user requirements. Then, in consultation with a number of software engineers, a list consisting of 30 technical requirements was generated. These requirements are divided into seven categories and all of them are purported to satisfy the user needs. At the end of QFD exercise, continuous mirror backup from backup category, multi-level access from the security and confidentiality category, linkage to databases from application category emerge as technical requirements having higher weights. These technical requirements should receive considerable attention when designing the health-care software system for SQUH

Developing quality heathcare software using quality function deployment: A case study based on Sultan Qaboos University Hospital

Development of software is one of the most expensive projects undertaken in practice. Traditionally, the rate of failure in software development projects is higher compared to other kinds of projects. This is partly due to the failure in determining software users’ requirements. By using Quality Function Deployment (QFD), this research focuses on identification and prioritization of users’ requirements in the context of developing quality health-care software system for Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Oman. A total of 95 staff working at eight departments of SQUH were contacted and they were requested to provide their requirements in using hospital information systems. Analytic Hierarchy Process has been integrated with QFD for prioritizing those user requirements. Then, in consultation with a number of software engineers, a list consisting of 30 technical requirements was generated. These requirements are divided into seven categories and all of them are purported to satisfy the user needs. At the end of QFD exercise, continuous mirror backup from backup category, multi-level access from the security and confidentiality category, linkage to databases from application category emerge as technical requirements having higher weights. These technical requirements should receive considerable attention when designing the health-care software system for SQUH

Proposta de aplicação do software Quality Function Deployment em ambiente computacional

A qualidade de um software precisa estar alinhada com o grau de satisfação do cliente. Para que isto ocorra, é fundamental que os requisitos do cliente sejam devidamente identificados e atendidos a fim de suprir suas reais necessidades. O QFD (quality function deployment) também conhecido como a casa da qualidade foi originalmente criado para melhorar a qualidade de produtos a partir do atendimento da voz do cliente. O QFD tem sido utilizado por pesquisadores tanto para desenvolver quanto para melhorar a qualidade de softwares. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo propor a utilização do QFD como ferramenta de melhoria do ambiente computacional (Ideiaware) desenvolvido no projeto de pesquisa “Ambiente Computacional para Desenvolver a Criatividade e Inovação nas Organizações”. Para isto, realizou-se uma revisão da literatura a fim de identificar de que forma o QFD tem sido aplicado em softwares. Por fim, uma porposta da aplicação do QFD para melhorias do ambiente computacional é apresentada ao final deste trabalho

Improving project management planning and control in service operations environment.

Projects have evidently become the core activity in most companies and organisations where they are investing significant amount of resources in different types of projects as building new services, process improvement, etc. This research has focused on service sector in attempt to improve project management planning and control activities. The research is concerned with improving the planning and control of software development projects. Existing software development models are analysed and their best practices identified and these have been used to build the proposed model in this research. The research extended the existing planning and control approaches by considering uncertainty in customer requirements, resource flexibility and risks level variability. In considering these issues, the research has adopted lean principles for planning and control software development projects. A novel approach introduced within this research through the integration of simulation modelling techniques with Taguchi analysis to investigate ‗what if‘ project scenarios. Such scenarios reflect the different combinations of the factors affecting project completion time and deliverables. In addition, the research has adopted the concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop an automated Operations Project Management Deployment (OPMD) model. The model acts as an iterative manner uses ‗what if‘ scenario performance outputs to identify constraints that may affect the completion of a certain task or phase. Any changes made during the project phases will then automatically update the performance metrics for each software development phases. In addition, optimisation routines have been developed that can be used to provide management response and to react to the different levels of uncertainty. Therefore, this research has looked at providing a comprehensive and visual overview of important project tasks i.e. progress, scheduled work, different resources, deliverables and completion that will make it easier for project members to communicate with each other to reach consensus on goals, status and required changes. Risk is important aspect that has been included in the model as well to avoid failure. The research emphasised on customer involvement, top management involvement as well as team members to be among the operational factors that escalate variability levels 3 and effect project completion time and deliverables. Therefore, commitment from everyone can improve chances of success. Although the role of different project management techniques to implement projects successfully has been widely established in areas such as the planning and control of time, cost and quality; still, the distinction between the project and project management is less than precise and a little was done in investigating different levels of uncertainty and risk levels that may occur during different project phase.United Arab Emirates Governmen

A DMAIC Framework for Improving Software Quality in Organizations: Case Study at RK Company

Managing quality is a vital aspect in software development world, especially in the current business competition for fast delivery of feature rich products with high quality. For an organization to meet its intended level of excellence in order to ensure its success, a culture of quality should be built where every individual is responsible of quality and not just the software testing team. However, delivering software products with very few bugs is a challenging constraint that is usually sacrificed in order for a company to meet other management constraints such as cost, scope and scheduling. The purpose of this thesis is to apply six sigma DMAIC framework on 'RK’ company (name anonymized) in order to help software organizations focus on improving the quality of their software products. Different phases of DMAIC methodology are applied to one of the largest software applications for ‘RK’ company where critical to quality aspects were identified, production bugs were classified and measured, the causes of the large number of production bugs were specified leading to different improvement suggestions. Several metrics were proposed to help ‘RK’ company control its software development process to ensure the success of the project under study

KNOWLEDGE-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT (KBDSS-QFD) TOOL FOR ASSESSMENT OF BUILDING ENVELOPE MATERIALS AND DESIGNS IN THE EARLY DESIGN STAGE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH