Estimating, planning and managing Agile Web development projects under a value-based perspective

Context: The processes of estimating, planning and managing are crucial for software development projects, since the results must be related to several business strategies. The broad expansion of the Internet and the global and interconnected economy make Web development projects be often characterized by expressions like delivering as soon as possible, reducing time to market and adapting to undefined requirements. In this kind of environment, traditional methodologies based on predictive techniques sometimes do not offer very satisfactory results. The rise of Agile methodologies and practices has provided some useful tools that, combined with Web Engineering techniques, can help to establish a framework to estimate, manage and plan Web development projects. Objective: This paper presents a proposal for estimating, planning and managing Web projects, by combining some existing Agile techniques with Web Engineering principles, presenting them as an unified framework which uses the business value to guide the delivery of features. Method: The proposal is analyzed by means of a case study, including a real-life project, in order to obtain relevant conclusions. Results: The results achieved after using the framework in a development project are presented, including interesting results on project planning and estimation, as well as on team productivity throughout the project. Conclusion: It is concluded that the framework can be useful in order to better manage Web-based projects, through a continuous value-based estimation and management process.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-

Developing Business Architecture for SMEs: A Strategic Tool for Capability Orchestration and Managing Dynamisms

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly faced with competitive pressure due to swift and constant change to the dynamic and highly interconnected environment in which they operate. Competing in this dynamic ecosystem, SMEs need a strategic tool for managing co-evolution with the dynamic environment in order to create sustained value. Drawing from the specific SME characteristics operating in a collaborative network ecosystem of firms, this paper elicits the specific strategic management requirements that need to be satisfied by a Business Architecture. Extensive exploratory literature review and semi-structured interviews are used to explicate the underlying drivers of SME’s requirements for business architecture that need to be addressed by the requisite BA practice. The paper finds that, the BA practice must possess the capabilities to guide and assist the SMEs to adapt with the dynamic collaborative ecosystem of firms and sense, leverage and orchestrate the network of resources and ICT capabilities to create sustained value. This paper concludes with some guidelines for developing the business architecture-enabled journey toward creating sustained value within the said dynamic ecosystem

Intensive big room process for co-creating value in legacy construction projects

In construction projects the changes and refinements of client requirements are often seen just as a disturbance causing additional costs. However, today clients' business needs evolve constantly and therefore changes in the project requirements are inevitable. Simultaneously, the increasing competition forces companies to minimise unproductive capital costs. Therefore there is an economical pressure to shorten the construction time and the design and construction will be even more concurrent than today. There is clearly potential value to be created for customer by terms of collaborative design process. Fira is an innovative Finnish company which has developed its interactive and customer centric Verstas process since 2009. Fira is using service logic as a guiding principle in the development of collaborative design processes, such as Intensive Big Room (IBR), which is a combination of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and further development of Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE ) and Big Room methodologies. The traditional project management methods are not efficient in managing late changes in customer's requirements. This article presents a new method combining collaborative design process, requirements management and IBR in a small sub-process - locking and ironmongery - in legacy construction project models. The sub-process was selected for the development of the method because it is a perfect example of the traditional fragmented process where efficient coordination between different participants and management of requirements are very difficult. However, the same principles can be applied to many other sub-processes too. The method combines service logic, value co-creation and use of IBR concept in a standard contract environment in a unique way which can give significant benefits to the companies able to adopt the presented concept in their business models. Using these methods Fira can now change its business model, differentiate with more attractive value proposal for customer, create more value than its competitors and capture value for securing its competitiveness in future

Institutionalising Information Technology for Engineering Asset Management-Impeding Issues

Information technologies implementation in asset managing organisations does not follow a linear path. It is primarily driven by cost concerns, rather than an approach that takes into account the existing technological infrastructure, business requirements, available skill base, social and cultural environment, and operational and strategic value of technology investment. This paper presents a case of information technologies implementation in asset managing organisations. It concludes that technology for asset management needs to be physically adopted, and socially and organisationally institutionalised, to create consensus on what the technology is supposed to accomplish and how it is to be utilized in the organisation

Toward IT Value Mapping - An Approach to Value-Based IT Management

Recent research has shown that companies face considerable difficulties in implementing a value-based management of their IT portfolios. This paper therefore presents an approach for measuring and managing the business value of IT investments. To ensure practicability, our approach is derived from a set of practice-based requirements extending previous empirical work. In our conceptual model we distinguish between capital budgeting and ongoing value management. For capital budgeting we propose to assess IT investments according to their expected business value by using net present value analysis and a scoring model. For ongoing value management we recommend to keep track of a set of project specific key performance indicators to ensure that the desired benefits are realized. In order to link these two fundamental processes, value drivers and measurable performance indicators have to be identified. Thus we combine established evaluation for an integrated IT Portfolio assessment considering financial, non-financial and risk effects as well

Managing the Changing Climate of Business Collections

Librarians that support business programs are weathering competing priorities in business collection management. When making decisions to cut and add new databases, we must assess the value of a given resource by considering a variety of quantitative metrics such as usage, cost per use, cost per citation, and pricing history. In addition, qualitative criteria are increasingly important when making decisions. These criteria include, but are not limited to, content coverage, accessibility, and whether a resource can be provided in a way that supports the principles of critical librarianship. This Lively Lunch discussion provided three brief presentations, which discussed (1) how value is determined for existing resources using metrics that are useful for holistic collection analysis and individual resource analysis (Macy), (2) critical librarianship and the selection of new business resources (Howard), and (3) managing accessibility requirements with business resources (Vaaler). Following the presentations, the librarians and vendors engaged in conversation in regard to evaluating business resources and making collection decisions

An approach for Supply Chain managing of small and big size business

Abstract— In every business there are requirements of the assets and resources. So, the supply chain managing links properly these areas to each other to make the efficiency. These resources can be financial, intangible and physical resources. If the resources are not available for the organization at the time when it require then it might be the reason for degrade of that business. The study of the relevant resources is very necessary, that take a role in the literature of business management. The intellectual capital is the aspect of impalpable assets, and its relational capacity promote the efficiency and profitability of the business. The intellectual capital known as the effort or work that a member put into the organization as intangible resources.  These resources include knowledge resources like copyright, patents, trademarks and other human’s ideas and experiments. So we can say that intellectual capital is the collection of all resources like relational capital, supply chain managing, structural and human, these are the resources that set the organizational competitive value.

Design Model of an Ecosystem for Resilient and Sustainable Value Creation of SMEs in Single and Small Batch Production

Today's markets are increasingly dynamic, not only due to shorter product development times and fast changing customer requirements but also unforeseen events. Contemporary crises and wars disrupt entire supply chains and can have existential consequences for manufacturing companies. In these times of uncertainty, it is essential for SMEs to have a resilient business orientation while at the same time fulfil the sustainability aspects demanded by their stakeholders. This paper provides a design model for an ecosystem for a resilient and sustainable value creation of SMEs in single and small batch production to increase competitiveness and to gain a better response to market dynamics. The developed model comprises the elements of ecosystem strategy, configuration and coordination. An adequate partner matching and the underlying business model complement the approach. The model is intended to assist practitioners as a reference framework in developing and managing ecosystems for value creation

E-mail Recordkeeping Methods and Behaviours of New Zealand Central Government Employees

Government agencies are becoming increasingly dependent on e-mail systems as communication and information transfer tools. Many e-mail messages contain information vital to the business of government, and therefore organisations need to manage the messages in accordance with managerial, legal, and democratic requirements. On a daily basis, government employees send and receive numerous e-mails and, on behalf of their organisations, make decisions about how to manage them. Although the New Zealand Public Records Act (2005) provides guidelines for records management to New Zealand government agencies, the question is what methods and behaviours are individual employees using to manage business e-mails. So far, however, there is no empirical knowledge available on how individual employees in New Zealand central government agencies manage business e-mail messages. This paper presents the findings of a recently conducted online survey examining how individual employees of New Zealand central government departments identify and manage e-mails of significant value to the business of government. The results show that employees tend to recognise e-mail as a critical tool in the workplace; however, they also tend to make decisions on identifying and managing the messages on an individual basis, rather than in compliance with organisational requirements

Data-Warehouse as a Dynamic Capability: Utility/Cost Foundations and Implications for Economically-Driven Design

IS design today is driven primarily by technical and functional requirements, and the economic implications for design are not yet well understood. This study argues that system design and architecture must reflect assessments of economic trade-offs besides satisfying technical/functional requirements. Modeling the economic performance structure behind IS design can highlight these trade-offs and help economically assess design alternatives. This study examines economics-driven design in the context of the Data Warehouse (DW). The DW environment is treated as a dynamic capability, providing the capacity for managing data resources and turning them into useful information products. These products contribute value when used for exploitative and/or explorative business processes. Recognizing possible uncertainties in usage, DW capacities are evaluated as real-option investments toward the development of a framework for modeling cost-utility effects of DW design decisions. This framework is used to evaluate important design scenarios along the layers of a DW stack architecture and optimize design outcomes accordingly