Enhancing Information Quality as Part of the Disease Surveillance System in Malawi, Africa: Reflections on a mHealth Intervention

Public health surveillance and response to disease outbreaks is still a hurdle in many developing countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Pivotal in disease surveillance and response is the reliance on valid information, hence, the need for information which has high Information Quality (IQ) characteristics. A key issue with disease surveillance systems, stem from the diverse range of data sources with various levels of information quality that may affect the trustworthiness of the information. However, with the increasing diffusion of mobile phone technologies, there are opportunities to improve IQ. The aim of this study was to assess the information quality in data collected through a smartphone application. Based on qualitative data from interviews, workshop and system specifications, it was found that information quality improves with the use of smartphone applications but aspects such as user competence and trustworthiness, must be addressed to maximize the benefits of using mobile technologies for disease surveillance

Understanding the Role of Requirements Artifacts in Kanban

User stories are a well-established way to record requirements in agile projects. They can be used as such to guide the daily work of developers or be split further into tasks, which usually represent more technical requirements. User stories and tasks guide communication and collaboration in software projects. However, there are several challenges with writing and using user stories in practice that are not well documented yet. Learning about these challenges could raise awareness for potential problems. Understanding how requirements artifacts are used for daily work could lead to better guidelines on writing stories that support daily work tasks. Moreover, user stories may not be appropriate to capture all kinds of requirements that are relevant for a project. We explore how to utilize requirements artifacts effectively, what their benefits and challenges are, and how their scope granularity affects their utility. For this, we studied a software project carried out in the Software Factory at the Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki. We investigated the requirements artifacts and then interviewed the developers and the customer about their experiences. Story and task cards have helped the participants throughout the project. However, despite having a Kanban board and rich communication within the team, some requirements were still too implicit, which also led to misunderstandings. This and other challenges revealed by the study can guide future in-depth research.Peer reviewe

Problematizing agile in the large: alternative assumptions for large-scale agile development

In this paper we critically examine the underlying assumptions in existing studies of large-scale agile software development. We use Alvesson and Sandberg’s problematization methodology and find that existing studies of large-scale agile share a number of underlying assumptions relevant to small rather than large-scale projects. Empirically, we draw on a case study of a large-scale agile project lasting nearly four years and involving more than 120 participants. Interestingly, the findings of the study contradict many of the assumptions in the literature review. For example, work across boundaries becomes at least as important as work within teams. We contribute by developing an alternative set of assumptions better suited to the characteristics of large-scale agile software development. Based on this, we re-conceptualize agile in the large, emphasizing both the complex knowledge boundaries within the project itself, as well as the interactive complexity and tight coupling with technologies and processes outside the project

SAFe metodologian vaikutus kommunikaatioon ja yhteistyöhön

Nowadays, with the influence of global economy large corporations use global software development to utilise advantages of geographically decentralised organisations and global outsourced software development. Through distributed organisations the work can be done around the clock. Global software development is impacted by three distance dimensions: time distance, geographical distance, and socio-cultural distance, which all bring some challenges. At the same time agile way of working has become more and more popular method in software development. As agile practises are created for co-located teams there is a demand for having working online solutions for communication and collaboration in distributed teams. Corporations use scaled agile way of working to support software develop-ment of large initiatives and projects. Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is the most popular among the scaled agile methods. This thesis was conducted as a case study in a multinational corporation. Objective of the case study was to research effectiveness of scaled agile methodology SAFe on communication and collaboration in teams and agile release trains. The case study included two parts: a web-survey and interviews. The results of the analyses of the case study support findings from the literature in the field. The results indicate the importance of communication and collaboration in agile practices and the significance of the online tools that support it