Software Reuse in Agile Development Organizations - A Conceptual Management Tool

The reuse of knowledge is considered a major factor for increasing productivity and quality. In the software industry knowledge is embodied in software assets such as code components, functional designs and test cases. This kind of knowledge reuse is also referred to as software reuse. Although the benefits can be substantial, software reuse has never reached its full potential. Organizations are not aware of the different levels of reuse or do not know how to address reuse issues. This paper proposes a conceptual management tool for supporting software reuse. Furthermore the paper presents the findings of the application of the management tool in an agile development organization

A collection of tools for factory eco-efficiency

co-efficiency is generally defined as doing more with less, aiming to decouple environmental impact from economic and social value creation. This paper presents three tools to guide the implementation of eco-efficiency in factories: (1) definition and patterns of good practices for sustainable manufacturing, (2) a self-assessment tool and maturity grid, and (3) a factory modelling framework

Towards Maturity Models as Methods to Manage IT for Business Value – A Resource-based View Foundation

For more than three decades business value of IT attracts attention in Information Systems Research (ISR) and practice. Despite the fact, that corporate management considers enterprise IT increasingly as a strategic factor, the question on how to manage IT effectively for business value remains widely unsolved. With the goal to support this management task we suggest maturity models (MMs) as a new method. We found MMs in the resource-based view in order to provide maturity models with a theoretical basis in general and to lay out the feasibility of MMs as methods to manage IT resources for business value in particular. To accomplish these goals, we conduct an in-depth analysis using an argumentative-deductive research approach. We contribute to the knowledge base by adopting a well-proven approach, transferring it to a new application domain, and grounding it in theory. Taking an example from corporate management research we illustrate our findings schematically

A Process Asset Library to support Software Process Improvement in Small Settings

A main factor to the success of any organization process improvement effort is the Process Asset Library implementation that provides a central database accessible by anyone at the organization. This repository includes any process support materials to help process deployment. Those materials are composed of organization's standard software process, software process related documentation, descriptions of the software life cycles, guidelines, examples, templates, and any artefacts that the organization considers useful to help the process improvement. This paper describe the structure and contents of the Web-based Process Asset Library for Small businesses and small groups within large organizations. This library is structured using CMMI as reference model in order to implement those Process Areas described by this model

The Role of IT and Organizational Capabilities on Digital Business Value

The opportunities and threats that digital technologies like SMACIT (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Internet of Things) bring to organizations are increasingly being explored by the academia and industry. Organizations face the challenge not only to use new technologies but to gain competitive advantage from such embracement in order to stay relevant in the market. This study aims to provide practical insights on how Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can prepare to embrace Digital Technologies. For this, it proposes that a combination of both IT and Organizational capabilities can be the foundation for achieving Business Value with Digital Technologies or “Digital Business Value”. IT capabilities are evaluated by the IT capability maturity framework (IT-CMF) and Organizational Intelligence Quotient (Mendelson and Pillai, 1999) is used to evaluate organizational capabilities. Digital Business Value is defined as the achievement of business objectives using Digital Technologies (Riera & Iijima, 2017). The target population was one hundred Japanese SMEs which were awarded by The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry due to their effective utilization of IT supporting business performance in the list of “Competitive IT Strategy SME Selection 100” over the years 2015, 2016 and 2017. Data collection was done with questionnaires sent to all the awarded organizations and collected 34 responses. A quantitative approach was used and the data analysis was done with correlation and regression analysis. Empirical evidence demonstrated that IT and Organizational capabilities are linked to Digital Business Value. A subset of IT capabilities like Risk Management, Business Planning among others was indeed related to Digital Business Value. In addition, Internal Knowledge Dissemination and Continuous Innovation dimensions from Organizational IQ showed relationship with Digital Business Value. This study unveiled that the combination of IT and Organizational capabilities leverage the value from Digital technologies. The outcomes from this study may be of reference to SMEs that look to embrace Digital Technologies as it shows which particular capabilities may be of interest for developing. This study extends the Digital Transformation literature in particular how dynamic capabilities work together in order to enable Digital Business Value. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol11/iss2/4

Developments in Practice XVI: A Framework for Enhancing IT Capabilities

Given evidence that IT capabilities are linked to business performance, well-defined procedures would be expected to exist for engineering these capabilities to high standards. Surprisingly, this does not appear to be the case. In fact, IT executives freely admit that they may not use standard, verifiable, and repeatable capabilities. To address this situation, the authors formed a group of senior IT managers from leading edge companies to share experiences and insights into how best to identify and implement effective IT capabilities. The result is a 5-step framework for enhancing IT capabilities

Using the Asian Knowledge Model “APO” as a Determinant for Performance Excellence in Universities- Empirical Study at Al -Azhar University- Gaza

This study aims to use the Asian knowledge model “APO” as a determinant for performance excellence in universities and identifying the most effecting factors on it. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip. The result of the study showed that (APO) model is valid as a measure and there are four dimensions in the model affecting significantly more than the others (university processes, KM leadership, personnel, KM outputs). Furthermore, performance excellence produced though modernizing the means of education, curriculum development, technology and flexibility in the organizational structure. The study recommends expanding the usage of (APO) model, enhancing the role of knowledge leadership, technology, organizational flexibility, sharing culture and incentive systems that encouraging innovation

Outsourcing and acquisition models comparison related to IT supplier selection decision analysis

This paper presents a comparison of acquisition models related to decision analysis of IT supplier selection. The main standards are: Capability Maturity Model Integration for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), ISO / IEC 12207 Information Technology / Software Life Cycle Processes, IEEE 1062 Recommended Practice for Software Acquisition, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide. The objective of this paper is to compare the previous models to find the advantages and disadvantages of them for the future development of a decision model for IT supplier selection