Elicitation and management of user requirements in market-driven software development

Market-driven software development companies experience challenges in requirements management that many traditional requirements engineering methods and techniques do not acknowledge. Large markets, limited contact with end users, and strong competition forces the market-driven software development company to constantly invent new, selling requirements, frequently release new versions with an accompanying pressure of short time-to-market, and take both the technical and financial risks of development. This thesis presents empirical results from case studies in requirements elicitation and management at a software development company. The results include techniques to explore, understand, and handle bottlenecks in the requirements process where requirements continuously arrive at a high rate from many different stakeholders. Through simulation of the requirements process, potential bottlenecks are identified at an early stage, and fruitless improvement attempts may be avoided. Several techniques are evaluated and recommended to support the market-driven organisation in order to increase software quality and avoid process overload situations. It is shown that a quick and uncomplicated in-house usability evaluation technique, an improved heuristic evaluation, may be adequate to get closer to customer satisfaction. Since needs and opportunities differ between markets, a distributed prioritisation technique is suggested that will help the organisation to pick the most cost-beneficial and customer satisfying requirements for development. Finally, a technique based on automated natural language analysis is investigated with the aim to help resolve congestion in the requirements engineering process, yet retaining ideas that may bring a competitive advantage

DIL - A CONVERSATIONAL AGENT FOR HEART FAILURE PATIENTS

There is an exceptionally high rate of readmissions and rehospitalizations for patients suffering from chronic diseases especially Heart Failure. Best efforts to address this alarming problem from the Care giver community have fallen short due to a number of factors most notably resource constraints like shortage of trained clinical staff, and money. Using a Design Science Research framework, this work designed and evaluated DIL , a Conversational Agent that complements the work of clinicians in achieving the desired behavioral and clinical outcomes. The aim is to provide the hospital with an information system that could bridge the current gap in care that occurs when the patient transitions from the hospital environment to the home environment. The expected contribution is to produce a novel artifact and demonstrate the efficacy and utility of the tool to assist patients with heart failure in improving their self-care. The study conclusions were extremely positive. DIL scored high on User engagement and satisfaction. Every patient felt significantly more positive after their interaction with DIL during the trial period, and had a positive outlook on their quality of life going forward. The patients in the trial found DIL to be helpful in keeping them motivated to follow a healthy lifestyle by controlling their diet, and adhering to clinical guidelines of regular exercise, and taking medications on a timely manner. Given the extremely positive experience of the patients, there is definitely room for such an IT artifact in supporting patients as they make the transition from hospital to the home setting

Justifications for the Implementation of Shadow IT Solutions by Functional Departments in an Organisation

Background: The implementation of information technology (IT) solutions by end-users, while bypassing organisational laid-down IT acquisition and implementation processes and controls, poses a significant challenge for most organisations. This phenomenon, which is known as Shadow IT (SIT), has major financial, legal and security implications for the organisation. Studies indicate that even when organisations implement IT policy to minimise the implementation of SIT, end-users may still find innovative ways to bypass the IT department when implementing unsanctioned software. Purpose of the research: The objective of this study was to investigate how end-users (functional departments) who implement SIT in organisations justify their actions. The term Justification refers to the techniques employed by a social actor to indicate that their deviant behaviour is actually reasonable. Understanding justifications for SIT is essential for IT managers since they can understand them as justification and not confuse them with other phenomena and at the same time they can devise appropriate strategies to counter them. IT Managers who are not aware of the justifications for SIT may implement measures which may not be effective in curbing the phenomena. Design/Methodology/approach: The study adopted an interpretivist approach. The study was guided by the 'Neutralisation Theory’ from the social deviance discipline. The study examined whether an organisation had an IT policy which prevents end-users from implementing SIT, and also assessed the 'Neutralisation’ techniques employed by end-users to justify SIT. The study adopted a case study approach based on a South African office of a multinational organisation. The study collected data through (i) semi-structured interviews with end-users from different functional departments who were involved with implementation of SIT and (ii) documentation (IT policy and email correspondences). The study adopted the purposeful sampling (snowball) technique to target the employees who were involved with the implementation of SIT. A total of 13 respondents were interviewed. The data was analysed using thematic analysis approach. Findings: The organisation did not have an IT policy which prevented functional departments from implementing SIT. Instead, it had a policy which allowed functional departments to implement their own IT solutions as long as they inform the IT department to assess the software application for potential risks and compatibility with the existing landscape. Most respondents did not use Neutralisation techniques to justify the implementation of SIT due to the policy which allowed them to implement their own IT solutions. Nevertheless, the respondents who employed Neutralisation techniques mainly used Denial of responsibility, Denial of injury and Appeal to higher loyalties to justify SIT. Originality/contribution: The study contributed to the justifications of SIT literature when it explored the concept of SIT in a corporate company setting - as opposed to earlier studies that used quantitative methods and experiments when exploring the concept of SIT. The study also makes a further contribution to literature by investigating SIT in an environment where functional departments are allowed to implement their own IT solutions - this was not explored by previous studies on Justification of SIT. The study also contributes to the practice where there is a need by IT management to minimise SIT by providing awareness of Neutralisation techniques which may be employed by functional departments to justify SIT. Through the understanding of the Neutralisation techniques, IT managers could make sound decisions when implementing measures to minimise SI

Application of parameter estimation to aircraft stability and control: The output-error approach

The practical application of parameter estimation methodology to the problem of estimating aircraft stability and control derivatives from flight test data is examined. The primary purpose of the document is to present a comprehensive and unified picture of the entire parameter estimation process and its integration into a flight test program. The document concentrates on the output-error method to provide a focus for detailed examination and to allow us to give specific examples of situations that have arisen. The document first derives the aircraft equations of motion in a form suitable for application to estimation of stability and control derivatives. It then discusses the issues that arise in adapting the equations to the limitations of analysis programs, using a specific program for an example. The roles and issues relating to mass distribution data, preflight predictions, maneuver design, flight scheduling, instrumentation sensors, data acquisition systems, and data processing are then addressed. Finally, the document discusses evaluation and the use of the analysis results