149,953 research outputs found
Creation and Evaluation of Software Teams - A Social Approach
This work discusses an important issue in the area of human resource
management by proposing a novel model for creation and evaluation of software
teams. The model consists of several assessments, including a technical test, a
quality of life test and a psychological-sociological test. Since the technical
test requires particular organizational specifications and cannot be examined
without reference to a specific company, only the sociological test and the
quality of life tests are extensively discussed in this work. Two strategies
are discussed for assigning roles in a project. Initially, six software
projects were selected, and after extensive analysis of the projects, two
projects were chosen and correctives actions were applied. An empirical
evaluation was also conducted to assess the model effectiveness. The
experimental results demonstrate that the application of the model improved the
productivity of project teams
Boundary Objects and their Use in Agile Systems Engineering
Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the
attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The
adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders, but
also makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like
requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models.
Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation, but face a lack of
guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed.
This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the
continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a
theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53
practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design-science
study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data
analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction
between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary
objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We
propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices
to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry
SMEs: ERP or virtual collaboration teams
Small firms are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role to promote economic development. SMEs in the beginning of implementing new technologies always face capital shortage and need technological assistance. Available ERP systems do not fulfil the specific requirements of Small firms. SMEs has scarce resources and manpower therefore many SMEs don?t have the possessions to buy and operate an ERP System. On the other hand competition and competitiveness of SMEs have to be strengthened. This paper briefly reviews the existing perspectives on virtual teams and their effect on SMEs management. It also discusses the main characteristics of virtual teams and clarifies the differences aspects of virtual team application in SMEs. After outlining some of the main advantages and pitfall of such teams, it concentrates on comparing of ERP and virtual collaborative teams in SMEs. Finally, it provides evidence for the need of ?Software as a Service (SaaS)? where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the web for SMEs as an alternative of ERP. It has been widely argued that ERP disadvantage in SMEs such as administrative expenditure and cost, isolated structure, severe lack of software flexibility, insufficient support of SMEs business and high operating cost, lead SMEs to use virtual collaborative team which is net work base solution
Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives
This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with
respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to
the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design
cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of
perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress
specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task
interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in
order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design
Agile values and their implementation in practice
Today agile approaches are often used for the
development of digital products. Since their development in
the 90s, Agile Methodologies, such as Scrum and Extreme
Programming, have evolved. Team collaboration is strongly
influenced by the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. The
values and principles described in the Agile Manifesto support
the optimization of the development process. In this article, the
current operation is analyzed in Agile Product Development
Processes. Both, the cooperation in the project team and the
understanding of the roles and tasks will be analyzed. The results
are set in relation to the best practices of Agile Methodologies. A
quantitative questionnaire related to best practices in Agile Product
Development was developed. The study was carried out with
175 interdisciplinary participants from the IT industry. For the
evaluation of the results, 93 participants were included who have
expertise in the subject area Agile Methodologies. On one hand,
it is shown that the collaborative development of product-related
ideas brings benefits. On the other hand, it is investigated which
effect a good understanding of the product has on decisions made
during the implementation. Furthermore, the skillset of product
managers, the use of pair programming, and the advantages of
cross-functional teams are analyzed.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2013-46928-C3-3-
Aligning a Service Provisioning Model of a Service-Oriented System with the ITIL v.3 Life Cycle
Bringing together the ICT and the business layer of a service-oriented system
(SoS) remains a great challenge. Few papers tackle the management of SoS from
the business and organizational point of view. One solution is to use the
well-known ITIL v.3 framework. The latter enables to transform the organization
into a service-oriented organizational which focuses on the value provided to
the service customers. In this paper, we align the steps of the service
provisioning model with the ITIL v.3 processes. The alignment proposed should
help organizations and IT teams to integrate their ICT layer, represented by
the SoS, and their business layer, represented by ITIL v.3. One main advantage
of this combined use of ITIL and a SoS is the full service orientation of the
company.Comment: This document is the technical work of a conference paper submitted
to the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 (IESS 2015
Diffusion of Worth Mapping: The worth of resource functions
This workshop paper uses a resource function vocabulary from the Working to Choose framework to analyse diffusion of the Worth Maps approach across several application domains. It explores how a resource function vocabulary can indicate aspects of design approaches and their use that favour successful diffusion
Bridging the Gap Between Traditional Metadata and the Requirements of an Academic SDI for Interdisciplinary Research
Metadata has long been understood as a fundamental component of any Spatial Data Infrastructure, providing information relating to discovery, evaluation and use of
datasets and describing their quality. Having good metadata about a dataset is fundamental to using it correctly and to understanding the implications of issues such as missing data or incorrect attribution on the results obtained for any analysis carried out.
Traditionally, spatial data was created by expert users (e.g. national mapping agencies), who created metadata for the data. Increasingly, however, data used in spatial analysis comes from multiple sources and could be captured or used by nonexpert users – for example academic researchers ‐ many of whom are from non‐GIS disciplinary backgrounds, not familiar with metadata and perhaps working in geographically dispersed teams. This paper examines the applicability of metadata in this academic context, using a multi‐national coastal/environmental project as a case study. The work to date highlights a number of suggestions for good practice, issues and research questions relevant to Academic SDI, particularly given the increased levels of research data sharing and reuse required by UK and EU funders
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