On the nature, origins and outcomes of Over Featuring in the new product development process

Developing new products and services beyond what is required by the needs of users, market demand and the resources of companies ranks among the top 10 risks leading to new product development (NPD) failures. This study defines and refers to this multifaceted phenomenon as ‘Over Featuring’ (OVF) to group different forms of excessive product development, from scope creep to overspecification and feature creep. The classification and theoretical development of the various forms of OVF is proposed, also origins and adverse outcomes, such as feature fatigue, are explored. Stage-Gate and Agile approaches are discussed in the light of the OVF phenomenon

OVER-REQUIREMENT IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE \u27IKEA\u27 EFFECT

One of the major risks in software development projects is the phenomenon of Over-Requirement, also known as over-specification and gold-plating, where a product or a service is specified beyond the actual requirements of the customer or the market. We argue that Over-Requirement is partially due to the emotional involvement of developers with specified features, an involvement associated with the IKEA or the I-designed-it-myself effect, which implies that people come to overvalue their creations when successfully designed or constructed by them. To investigate this argument, we conducted an experiment in the context of software development in which over 200 undergraduate students participated. The experiment required participants to complete a specification task and measured the change in perceived valuation of a specified nice-to-have feature, by measuring it before and after its specification was completed. The experiment results confirmed the existence of the IKEA effect and its influence on Over-Requirement. The results also imply that the IKEA effect in software development is multifaceted where the level of specification difficulty, whether objective difficulty (in terms of constrained specification duration or unconstrained specification freedom) or subjective difficulty (as reported by participants), affects the magnitude of the IKEA effect

The Planning Fallacy as an Explanation for Over-Requirement in Software Development

Over-Requirement occurs in software development projects when a software product is specified beyond the actual needs. This study shows empirically that Over-Requirement happens partially due to the Planning Fallacy, i.e., the tendency of people to underestimate the time needed to complete a task. Underestimating the time needed to develop a software feature during project planning, we argue, may lead to including within the project scope more required and unrequired features than can be completed by the project deadline. To investigate this argument, we conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to estimate the time it would take to develop various software features in a software development project and then, given the project\u27s duration, to recommend which of the features to include within scope. The results confirmed that the Planning Fallacy occurs in the context of software development and influences the Over-Requirement phenomenon

Detection of early warning signals for overruns in IS projects: linguistic analysis of business case language

Many Information Systems (IS) projects fail to be completed within budget and on schedule. A contributing factor is the so-called planning fallacy in which people tend to underestimate the resources required to complete a project. In this paper, we propose that signals of the planning fallacy can be detected in a project’s business case. We investigated whether language usage in business cases can serve as an early warning signal for overruns in IS projects. Drawing on two theoretical perspectives–t

Strategic Energy Management within Hospitals: Barriers to Energy Efficiency and the Impact of Design Margins

The original focus of the thesis looked at the barriers to effective energy management within the context of UK NHS Hospitals. As the research progressed, the overdesign of hospital building service systems emerged as a potential barrier that was considered in more detail, ultimately becoming a key focus of the research. The research revealed multiple barriers to energy efficiency; some direct, such as financial constraints, organisational limitations and poor data, and some indirect barriers, such as those leading to building services overdesign. Oversizing of building service systems, such as heating cooling and ventilation systems has a direct impact on building energy performance and operational efficiency as oversized systems are incapable of working at their optimal efficiency point. The resultant excessive consumption affects Government’s commitment of a ‘net zero’ Carbon position by 2040. Oversizing also leads to increased capital and ongoing maintenance and repair costs and redirects funds from patient care. This thesis addresses several research gaps on multiple levels. Whilst literature relating to energy management and its barriers is well documented in regard to private sector organisations, this is not the case for NHS hospitals. Literature relating to building services oversizing is also very limited, as is literature on design margins and oversizing within the healthcare context. The tensions between the need for resilience in hospitals and energy efficiency is also not identified in the literature. This thesis therefore aims to answer a number of research questions – what are the barriers to energy efficiency in hospitals? What is the evidence of oversizing? What are the causes of building services overdesign? And, how can oversizing in building services be mitigated? A multifaceted mixed methods approach has been adopted for the research of this thesis, whereby, a combination of detailed hospital case studies, supplementary interviews, research verification workshops, system modelling and elements of action research have been undertaken. The thesis is built on three in-depth case studies relating to general hospital energy management, boiler and chiller upgrades. The research has identified a number of key findings. A significant factor to the oversizing issue is the excessive and uncoordinated design margins, that are applied during the various specification, design and installation stages of building service projects for a variety of reasons. The thesis categorises and describes the various types of margins that are applied during a building services design and the potential rational for their inclusion. It argues that care must be taken when applying margins; ensuring cumulative effects do not undermine the ability of systems to be energy efficient. Other contributing factors to the oversizing issue include a lack of communication and transparency across the various project stakeholder groups, whereby design choices and assumptions made during an early phase of a project design are not then necessarily passed on to stakeholders during later project phases. Specific project stakeholder requirements and relationships are explored and analysed in detail to determine the various influences upon the design options chosen and the decision-making process that led to the over-dimensioned plant and equipment. A major cause of inappropriate sizing is the lack of requirements information such as energy demand profiles and the use of vague and unreliable data for initial project requirements. The impact of these factors on system performance and cost, and how these can impede on a hospital building's ability to meet energy efficiency and carbon reduction targets are analysed and discussed in detail. The thesis emphasises the need to develop robust processes that capture the scope and rationale for the margins applied, to communicate project assumptions and stakeholder requirements in a clear and unambiguous format and to develop systems for improved data capture and analysis. The development of flexible and alternative design solutions that apply diversity principles, such as different backup systems to provide resilience rather than the traditional ‘like-for-like’ redundancy solutions, are also explored and discussed in detail. The thesis highlights a clear lack of systemic thinking during the specification, design and installation phases of building service systems whereby better processes, procedures and communications are necessary throughout the entire design process