Execution: the Critical “What’s Next?” in Strategic Human Resource Management

The Human Resource Planning Society’s 1999 State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study was conducted by a virtual team of researchers who interviewed and surveyed 232 human resource and line executives, consultants, and academics worldwide. Looking three to five years ahead, the study probed four basic topics: (1) major emerging trends in external environments, (2) essential organizational capabilities, (3) critical people issues, and (4) the evolving role of the human resource function. This article briefly reports some of the study’s major findings, along with an implied action agenda – the “gotta do’s for the leading edge. Cutting through the complexity, the general tone is one of urgency emanating from the intersection of several underlying themes: the increasing fierceness of competition, the rapid and unrelenting pace of change, the imperatives of marketplace and thus organizational agility, and the corresponding need to buck prevailing trends by attracting and, especially, retaining and capturing the commitment of world-class talent. While it all adds up to a golden opportunity for human resource functions, there is a clear need to get to get on with it – to get better, faster, and smarter – or run the risk of being left in the proverbial dust. Execute or be executed

Crafting A Human Resource Strategy To Foster Organizational Agility: A Case Study

A decade ago, the CEO of Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (AEHN), anticipating a tumultuous and largely unpredictable period in its industry, undertook to convert this organization from one that was basically stable and complacent to one that was agile, “nimble, and change-hardy”. This case study briefly addresses AEHN’s approaches to business strategy and organization design, but focuses primarily on the human resource strategy that emerged over time to foster the successful attainment of organizational agility. Although exploratory, the study suggests a number of lessons for those who are, or will be, studying or trying to create and sustain this promising new organizational paradigm

An Industrial Case Study on Test Cases as Requirements

It is a conundrum that agile projects can succeed 'without requirements' when weak requirements engineering is a known cause for project failures. While Agile development projects often manage well without extensive requirements documentation, test cases are commonly used as requirements. We have investigated this agile practice at three companies in order to understand how test cases can fill the role of requirements. We performed a case study based on twelve interviews performed in a previous study. The findings include a range of benefits and challenges in using test cases for eliciting, validating, verifying, tracing and managing requirements. In addition, we identified three scenarios for applying the practice, namely as a mature practice, as a de facto practice and as part of an agile transition. The findings provide insights into how the role of requirements may be met in agile development including challenges to consider.Comment: Proceedings of XP 2015: 27-3

Dynamic Organizations: Achieving Marketplace and Organizational Agility with People

Driven by dynamic competitive conditions, an increasing number of firms are experimenting with new, and what they hope will be, more dynamic organizational forms. This development has opened up exciting theoretical and empirical venues for students of leadership, business strategy, organizational theory, and the like. One domain that has yet to catch the wave, however, is strategic human resource management (SHRM). In an effort to catch up, we here draw on the dynamic organization (DO) and human resource strategy (HRS) literatures to delineate both a process for uncovering and the key features of a carefully crafted HRS for DOs. The logic is as follows. DOs compete through marketplace agility. Marketplace agility requires that employees at all levels engage in proactive, adaptive, and generative behaviors, bolstered by a supportive mindset. Under the right conditions, the essential mindset and behaviors, although highly dynamic, are fostered by a HRS centered on a relatively small number of dialectical, yet paradoxically stable, guiding principles and anchored in a supportive organizational infrastructure. This line of reasoning, however, rests on a rather modest empirical base and, thus, is offered less as a definitive statement than as a spur for much needed additional research

Business Roundtable Insights on the Current Challenges Facing the Project Profession

The purpose of this paper was to capture an industry perspective on the current project and project management challenges. Based on four Business Roundtable meetings held in Melbourne over a year, concluding mid-2019, the paper attempts to distill the erudite insights of participants into contemporary business challenges and solutions. The predominant theme of the meetings was dealing with business change and its rate of the rollout. There has been a distinct industry shift in expectation replacing major business transformations with a new continuous delivery paradigm. There was an agreement regarding many of the adaptation measures needed to meet this new challenge. &nbsp

MODELLING OF EROSION OF THE AGILE LEADERSHIP PROJECT MANAGER COMPETENCES

The structure and functions of mechanisms of development and erosion of competencies in innovative projects of implementation of information and communication technologies are considered. The factors of development and erosion of competencies aredetermined and a model of competence and competency assessment for the successful implementation of information and communication technologies is identified, for example, for master’s degree in project and program management. The proposed model of competence development of the project team for the creation and implementation project is based on the balance of factors of development of competencies of the innovation project and their erosion in the process of implementation. Investigation of factors of development and erosion of competencies in the management of innovative projects can adequately respond to changing the profile of competencies of innovation projects. At the same time, the analysis allows the project manager to form effective programs for acquiring certain competencies for team members and other interested parties. The proposed model of the factors of development and erosion of the system of competencies is tested on the examples which confirmed its adequacy and effectiveness

Qualitative software engineering research -- reflections and guidelines

Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of human aspects in software development and since qualitative methods are used to, in-depth, explore human behavior, we believe that studies using such techniques will become more common. Existing qualitative software engineering guidelines do not cover the full breadth of qualitative methods and knowledge on using them found in the social sciences. The aim of this study was thus to extend the software engineering research community's current body of knowledge regarding available qualitative methods and provide recommendations and guidelines for their use. With the support of an epistemological argument and a literature review, we suggest that future research would benefit from (1) utilizing a broader set of research methods, (2) more strongly emphasizing reflexivity, and (3) employing qualitative guidelines and quality criteria. We present an overview of three qualitative methods commonly used in social sciences but rarely seen in software engineering research, namely interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, we discuss the meaning of reflexivity in relation to the software engineering context and suggest means of fostering it. Our paper will help software engineering researchers better select and then guide the application of a broader set of qualitative research methods.Comment: 30 page

Building agile product design competences in student projects

The increasing complexity of technical solutions caused by constantly changing requirements and competitive situations, has led to the introduction of agile development processes in various domains in order to be able to react faster and more efficient to changes. This paper explores the integration of agile aspects into engineering education to prepare students for the corporate world. Two approaches, a single-stage and a two-stage approach, were implemented and evaluated in student projects at Technische Hochschule Ulm and Technische Universität Ilmenau. The findings reveal that both approaches effectively enhance students' competencies in agile product development. The observations highlight the value of iterative sprints, design thinking, peer learning, focused work, stakeholder involvement and the application of digital tools. Students exhibited increased confidence, independence, and creativity in their development projects. The integration of agile approaches in teaching methodologies proves beneficial in addressing the challenges posed by complex technical solutions and evolving requirements