Unlocking Agility: Building Learning Capabilities Within A Consumer Healthcare Organization

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly infusing the concept of agility to strive for continuous improvement. Significant exploration and research have focused on more technical-driven departments, like Information Technology and Research and Development. However, there has been little research with the focus on more process-driven functions, like Learning and Organizational Development. This action research study presents a case study of the implementation of a new training solution within a consumer healthcare organization from the lens of the project leader. Building upon the case study, this capstone includes a review of existing research and literature of agility with a focus on the healthcare sector, change management, adult learning, and organizational learning. The overall goal of this study is to explore the value of agility in building learning capacities within the pharmaceutical industry. Looking forward, the aim is to provide insights on how agility can be developed to facilitate an organization’s transformation to become a learning organization

Challenges In Transitioning From Waterfall To Scrum

In today\u27s fast-paced, fiercely competitive world; speed and flexibility are essential. Companies are increasingly realizing that the sequential approach to developing new product simply will not get the job done. The goal of this thesis is to investigate critical issues and challenges that occur during the transition from a traditional software development methodology such as Waterfall to Scrum. During the last decade, Scrum has gained a vast success in software development due to its lightweight character and efficient way of handling the challenges of increased market speed, change and product complexity. This thesis is based on a sequential exploratory mixed methods research model, which uses both qualitative as well as quantitative research methods to investigate the problem. The rationale for this is that neither method is sufficient by itself to capture the trends and details of situations. When used in combination, both quantitative and qualitative methods complement each other and provide a more complete picture of the research problem. There are six main results from this thesis. First the main challenges are identified. Second, they are ranked based on their frequency of occurrence and thirdly, based on their importance. Fourth, the correlation between the frequency of occurrence of challenge and their importance is measured. This thesis also examines the varied perspectives of Scrum Coaches and Scrum Practitioners regarding the frequency of challenges as the fifth result and regarding the importance of challenges as the sixth result

Agile Adoption in Information Technology Departments at Research Universities

This dissertation analyzes Agile methods and how they are adopted by Information Technology (IT) departments in research universities. Existing literature has focused on Agile adoption in private and public sectors. This study fills a knowledge gap in the research literature on Agile adoption in university contexts. Three research questions guide this study: What are the uses of Agile methods in research universities? What are the specific factors that affect adoption of agile methods in research universities? Why do research universities adopt (or not adopt) Agile methods? By answering these questions, the present study contributes to the growing literature on the opportunities and challenges of adopting Agile methods. Methodologically, the study is based on a survey of the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of 418 research universities (response rate of 41.4%) and elite interviews. The survey included questions about Agile adoption in terms of purpose, methods, challenges, and organizational environment. The elite interviews explored the factors affecting Agile adoption and were supplemented with secondary documents about the organizational characteristics of the IT departments. The survey results show that many IT departments (nearly 60%) in these universities have adopted Agile. Agile is used to accelerate software development, manage projects, and increase productivity. The challenges of adopting Agile include pervasiveness of traditional waterfall methods, funding limitations, lack of skills, inconsistent process and practices, and organizational resistance to change. With respect to organizational factors, the level of research university is a determinant for adopting Agile. R1 Doctoral Universities (i.e., very high research activity) have more adoption of Agile methods compared to R2 Doctoral Universities (i.e., high research activity) or R3 Doctoral/ Professional Universities (i.e., D/PU). CIOs’ experience with Agile is a critical factor for adopting Agile. Elite interviews with the CIOs show the significance of the organizational context to adopt Agile. IT departments support university research and teaching; hence, these departments have a constant need to address the university departments’ needs. Leadership of these departments influences Agile adoption. Agile fosters frequent and effective communication among the team members. Overall, IT departments adopt Agile to increase their organizational efficiency in delivering their services efficiently within the universities

Towards Agile Workforce – Case Study Research in Three Companies

Many companies today face a highly turbulent and volatile environment caused by intense foreign competition, rapid technological change, shorter product life-cycles, and customers demand- ing more customized products. Several strategies have been developed to deal with unpredictability in the environment. Agility and agile methods have been widely accepted as a new competitive concept in many countries, including Finland. However, the understanding of how to build agile organizations remains weak. The thesis provides initial empirical evidence to better understand essential elements of agile workforce and their relationship with organizational agility. More specifically, the research aims to understand and describe the concept of workforce agility in the selected case companies. The second goal is to discover the management practices, methods and tools that the case companies have adopted in order to enable and support the actions of an agile workforce. The thesis employs qualitative research methods with empirical approach doing semi- structured interviews in case study companies and conceptual approach using previous academic research. The case study companies are OP, DNA and Alma Media. The phenomenon of developing an agile workforce is rather new in large previously traditional organizations in Finland. Consequently, the study is exploratory by nature and aims to increase familiarity of the phenomenon in the Finnish context. The different cases were studied through interviews with managers that have been in a superior decision-making position and responsible for the change process, and managers or employees that have participated the implementation of the change process. Also, a HR specialist from Vincit was interviewed for her expertise on enterprise agility. According to the findings employees’ agile capabilities and attitudes towards agility are important factors when transforming towards enterprise agility. Findings show that companies that aim to make their organization more agile face two kinds of challenges. Firstly, companies must be able to arouse excitement and interest towards agility among employees. The second challenge concerns enabling agile work and managing the frustrations that arise. To deal with these challenges case companies employed similar practices, tools and methods that enable change management, change attitudes and culture, increase internal communication, knowledge sharing and cooperation; support empowerment and work organization, and promote new work methods and training

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

Software systems engineering: a journey to contemporary agile and beyond, do people matter?

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Software systems engineering: a journey to contemporary agile and beyond, do people matter?

It is fascinating to view the evolution of software systems engineering over the decades. At the first glance, it could be perceived that the various approaches and processes are different. Are they indeed different? This paper will briefly discuss such a journey relating to findings from an empirical study in some organisations in the UK. Some of the issues described in the literature and by practitioners are common across different software system engineering approaches over the time. It can be argued that human-element of software development plays an integral part in the success of software systems development endeavour. After all, software engineering is a human-centric craft. In order to understand such issues, we crossed the discipline to other disciplines in order to adapt theories and principles that will help to better understand and tackle such matter. Other disciplines have well established human related theories and principles that can be useful. From Japanese management philosophies, we have adapted Lean and knowledge management theories. From psychology, we have adapted Emotional Intelligence (EI). With such an interdisciplinary view, some of the issues can be addressed adequately. Which bring the question: is it really the process or the people? The second author will reflect on his experience attending the first SQM conference 25 years ago. The reflection will discuss the evolution of software systems engineering, and what was changed since then, if at all changed

The ability of project managers to implement industry 4.0-related projects

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