Project Management Practice: Redefining Theoretical Challenges in the 21st Century

From the incessant project failures, project delay and cost overrun to extreme difficulty in agreeing on what constitute project success and project management success, project management practice is more challenging in the 21st century than previously propounded. Therefore, the theoretical challenges facing project management practice were examined and the research findings indicate several ways in which the use of project management methods and standards can help in delivering successful output. This work has significant implications in the way project managers actually manage projects in practice. For example, we proposed that project management theory and practice are interdependent only when project management theories are beneficial and can be applied. This proposition has implications on project management practice because if project management theories are not particularly applied to manage current projects then it would be difficult to assess project management validity. In conclusion, the research limitations are highlighted and recommendations for future research were made. Key words: project management practice, project failures, project and complexity, project evaluation and performance.

Creative Thinking in eXtreme Programming

Agile methods such as eXtreme Programming have achieved an explosive interest in the software development community. They can be seen as a reaction to the more traditional and control-oriented methods, agile methods handle changes in design and requirements and they open up for creativity during the whole project lifecycle. The knowledge management in agile methods is also agile, it means that knowledge creation and sharing processes are simplified in comparison with other more comprehensive development methodologies. This paper is developed under the idea that agile software development can be enhanced by a better understanding of knowledge management and creativity. eXtreme Programming is analyzed from the perspective of the creativity, we believe that concepts related to creative teams (roles, structure, performance and purposes) are important insights about the use of agile methods in general and eXtreme Programming in particular.Keywords/Index Terms: Knowledge Management; Creativity; Software Engineering; Agile Methods; User-centered innovation

Modelling of Extreme Hydrological Events on a Tisza River Basin Pilot Area, Hungary

Climate change takes more and more challenges to the water management. Future predictions show that the possibility of extreme floods and drought events are increasing, thus an additional task of the water management can be the fulfilment of the increasing water demands. These new extreme hydrological situations need to be properly handled in water management. The paper presents the first modelling results of the JOINTISZA project carried out on a selected sub-basin of the Tisza River, which is endangered by hydrological extremes. Our aim was to demonstrate the applicability of a one-dimensional hydrodynamic model to study the effects of the climate change. Future hydrological trends were introduced in the river basin and it was assessed how the results of climate models can be used for further hydrodynamic modelling. To address challenges of climate change and supply the stakeholders with an adequate amount of water, proper operation of the reservoir and the irrigation canals are needed. The use of hydrological modelling can be helpful to adequately distribute water resources

Develop a generic Rules Engine to quality control a CV database

This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet.This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet

Develop a generic Rules Engine to quality control a CV database

This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet.This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet

Women and water management in times of climate change: participatory and inclusive processes

This paper focuses on community engagement, and particularly the inclusion of women, in water management as a response to climate change. Addressing water-related problems is central to climate change adaptation, and civil society, marginalized populations and women, in particular, must be involved. This is for both moral and pragmatic reasons: not only are the marginalized the first and worst affected by extreme weather events, but they also possess local ecological, social and political knowledge which can inform and contribute significantly to climate change adaptation strategies. Because of their social roles and position worldwide, women are greatly affected by water scarcity and flooding, and tend to be gravely impacted by poor water management, yet they face great difficulties in participating effectively in governance bodies. Sustainable long-term management of water resources in the face of climate change requires the participation of women, who possess knowledge of effective social tech- nologies for coping with and adapting to climate change. Community-based environmental education is therefore required in order to expand the equitable involvement of women in water-related climate change adaptation activities and policy development. Environmental non-governmental organizations worldwide, working on shoestring budgets at the local level, are developing a range of methods to organize, raise consciousness and confidence, and help local activists create successful climate defense programs. This paper discusses SoutheNorth initiatives and models for community-based environmental and climate change education which are using the democratic opening provided by watershed-based governance structures to broaden grassroots participation, especially of women, in political processes. We outline the activities and results of two international projects: the Sister Watersheds project, with Brazilian and Canadian partners (2002e2008); and a Climate Change Adaptation in Africa project with partners in Canada, Kenya, Mozambique, and South Africa (2010e2012).This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

Predicting Account Receivables Outcomes with Machine-Learning

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceThe Account Receivables (AR) of a company are considered an important determinant of a company’s Cash Flow – the backbone of a company’s financial performance or health. It has been proved that by efficiently managing the money owed by customers for goods and services (AR), a company can avoid financial difficulties and even stabilize results in moments of extreme volatility. The aim of this project is to use machine-learning and data visualization techniques to predict invoice outcomes and provide useful information and a solution using analytics to the collection management team. Specifically, this project demonstrates how supervised learning models can classify with high accuracy whether a newly created invoice will be paid earlier, on-time or later than the contracted due date. It is also studied how to predict the magnitude of the delayed payments by classifying them into interesting, delayed categories for the business: up to 1 month late, from 1 to 3 months late and delayed for more than 3 months. The developed models use real-life data from a multinational company in the manufacturing and automation industries and can predict payments with higher accuracy than the baseline achieved by the business

Evaluation of land management impacts on low flows in northern England

Low flows are becoming an increasing issue in the UK. The effect of an increasing population on water supply demand is bringing awareness of the issue of extreme low flows risk to the attention of water and environmental managers across the country. Summer droughts in the Lake District in 2010 which followed winter flooding have raised the question of whether land management can be applied to reduce low flows risk in the area. This is the issue considered in this project. This master’s thesis, funded by the Adaptive Land-use for Flood Alleviation (ALFA) project of the EU set out to discover whether land management, vegetation change or changes in farming practices, could help reduce the risk of extreme low flows in Cumbria, England. The hydrological model CRUM3 was applied to simulate the river discharge of the Dacre Beck under different land management change scenarios. Sensitivity analysis and a rigorous Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation experiment proved the model’s efficiency at predicting low flows discharges as well as flood peaks. Results of vegetation change scenarios demonstrated that a cover of natural grassland provided the best water supply to the river during low flows. Increases in cover of the land by each 1% of the catchment area in natural grassland resulted in a 1% increase in stream discharge during extreme low flows periods. The location of the land assigned to vegetation change was shown to be insignificant. Scenarios of improved agricultural practice were modelled to simulate the reduction of compaction in the catchment by soil aeration. This revealed more impressive increases in river discharge during extreme low flows than the vegetation change. Though the compaction scenarios were theoretical, feasible increases in low flows discharge could reach 100%. Since flooding has also been a proven issue in this region, the scenarios were also assessed for their impacts on high flows. The most beneficial vegetation type at reducing high flows was deciduous woodland, though this had been seen to have a negative effect on low flows. Natural grassland had negligible effect on catchment high flows. Compaction reduction was however discovered to be a potential simultaneous management solution to both high and low flows, as whilst potentially increasing low flows by up to 100%, it could also decrease high flows by up to 8%. Further research would be required to make accurate estimates of the potential improvements to high and low flows, but this project has demonstrated that reducing compaction is definitely beneficial to the catchment hydrology

Runoff at the micro-plot and slope scale following wildfire, central Portugal

Through their effects on soil properties and vegetation/litter cover, wildfires can strongly enhance overland flow generation and accelerate soil erosion [1] and, thereby, negatively affect land-use sustainability as well as downstream aquatic and flood zones. Wildfires are a common phenomenon in present-day Portugal, devastating in an average year some 100.000 ha of forest and woodlands and in an exceptional year like 2003 over 400.000 ha. There therefore exists a clear need in Portugal for a tool that can provide guidance to post-fire land management by predicting soil erosion risk, on the one hand, and, on the other, the mitigation effectiveness of soil conservation measures. Such a tool has recently been developed for the Western U.S.A. [3: ERMiT] but its suitability for Portuguese forests will need to be corroborated by field observations. Testing the suitability of existing erosion models in recently burned forest areas in Portugal is, in a nutshell, the aim of the EROSFIRE projects. In the first EROSFIRE project the emphasis was on the prediction of erosion at the scale of individual hill slopes. In the ongoing EROSFIRE-II project the spatial scope is extended to include the catchment scale, so that also the connectivity between hill slopes as well as channel and road processes are being addressed. Besides ERMiT, the principal models under evaluation for slope-scale erosion prediction are: (i) the variant of USLE [4] applied by the Portuguese Water Institute after the wildfires of 2003; (ii) the Morgan–Morgan–Finney model (MMF) [5]; (iii) MEFIDIS [6]. From these models, MEFIDIS and perhaps MMF will, after successful calibration at the slope scale, also be applied for predicting catchment-scale sediment yields of extreme events