Case Study: A Mobile ERP to Handle Multiple Sand Mining Sites (Welithota App)

Construction industry has been growing rapidly from 2002 due to massive constructions done for rehabilitation. Further post-tsunami construction also contributed to the exponential growth of the industry from 2004. Recent mega projects including Sothern, Central and Airport highways, lotus-tower, condominium housing projects, and tourist hotels are few examples which contributed directly to the growth in the economy. However, the construction industry directly depends on supply sand and other raw materials. Hence the mining industry governs productivity in the construction industry. The main concern when it comes to the mining industry is the environmental concerns due to excessive consumption of earthy resources. The natural resources are non-renewable and require thousands of years to recreate the extracted minerals. The sustainability within the mining industry attracts major concerns as ill-management in extraction jeopardizes the nature, industry and also the economy. The Sri Lankan government has imposed Laws and By-laws by act number 33 of 1992 and established Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) to ensure that construction raw material extraction industry functions with sustainability without compromising nature. This case study has been conducted to acknowledge how the Information Communication Technology had incorporated within the industry stakeholder; raw material mining contractors for sustainable sand mining. Miners with valid licenses were integrated with mobile based technologies to manage the day-today operations and the systematic adherence to imposed Laws. Furthermore, the paper discusses how technology has improved governance and management in technologically unattained industry. This case study resulted in the mobile based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) mobile application ''Welithota'', titled to be the first mobile only ERP system in Sri Lanka which works standalone without an internet access or other technological infrastructure

Minimum Viable Product in Information Systems Development Context: Systematic Mapping Study

Minimum Viable Product (MVP), initially introduced for startups, permits organizations to test the market demand for a product without investing a substantial amount of resources. Due to this nature of minimizing the risks and costs in the product development, not only startups in the information system development (ISD) context but also established organizations have started to adapt MVP in product development processes. Therefore, it is critical to understand how the notions of MVP can be employed in the ISD context. This study aims to identify common characteristics of MVP in the ISD context to support ISD organizations to define a better MVP for their product development processes. A systematic mapping study was performed by defining research questions, conducting a literature search, and defining selection criteria. Finally, the study presents the most used MVP characteristics in the ISD context and suggests a better combination of characteristics together with MVP\u27s original definition

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

Adoption of AI in the Auditing Practice: A Case study of a Big Four Accounting Firm

This paper explores and explains key factors affecting the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the auditing practice by a Big Four accounting firm, through the lens of the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework. Using the case study method, we conducted semi-structured interviews with decision-makers of the firm, complemented by secondary data. The data analysis identified significant anomalies to existing theories, revealing the specificity of adopting AI in audits. The findings showed that the firm’s adoption process was influenced by technology affordance, technology barriers, communication process, linking agents, firm scope and readiness, regulatory environment, predicted industrial changes and client’s acceptance. This study will contribute to the literature by providing a better understanding of AI adoption at the firm level, thus filling the gaps in the literature. It may strengthen the theories that underpin our understanding of the technology adoption by firms, revising, extending, and elaborating the TOE framework with more empirical evidence

Artificial Intelligence Regulation, Minimum Viable Products, and Partitive Innovation

This Essay identifies entrepreneurs’ experimentation with minimum viable products (“MVPs”) as a means for proposed AI-specific regulation to constrain innovation in other markets. To that end, the Essay coins the term “partitive innovation” to describe a business’s perspective when it uses a domain-agnostic, highly generalizable technology to introduce a product to a particular market, thereby eliciting overbroad domain-specific regulations that impair alternative innovative uses of the underlying technology. This process is unfolding with AI, as broadly constructed proposed regulation can restrict innovation in adjacent fields by shifting software MVPs’ mainly ex post regulatory regime to one with recurring duties or ex ante obligations. Consequently, the upfront cost of developing and altering those MVPs increases, thus effectively creating a barrier to entry in a market other than the one targeted by AI regulation. The Essay then considers real-world examples of proposed AI policy, California’s Assembly Bill 331 and the latest markup of the European Union’s AI Act, to illustrate the kinds of provisions that leverage AI products’ generality to expand policy influence into other domains. The Essay then reviews a sampling of potential options to mitigate the regulatory spillover, including clear textual authority limits, grace periods based on enterprise scale, and monitoring the Food & Drug Administration’s opposite trend of using Predetermined Change Control Plans to reduce the number of ex ante reviews needed for medical AI devices

Does maturity level influence the use of agile UX methods by digital startups? Evaluating design thinking, lean startup, and lean user experience

Context: Agile UX methods such as Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Lean User Experience have been employed to deliver customer value and improve organizational performance. However, there is a lack of studies that assess how these tools are used at different stages of maturity of digital startups. Objective: The present study aims to compare the knowledge of graduated, incubated, and pre-incubated digital startups at university incubators concerning the use of Agile UX methods so that weaknesses and opportunities can be identified to provide co founders and scholars with new strategic insights. Method: Six reduced focus groups were conducted with 14 members of the six selected startups via multiple case studies. Answers were registered by researchers and then analyzed using an inductive process and codification. Results: The results indicated that digital startups had contact with consumers through market research, viability analysis, and product discontinuity. However, except for one startup, deficiencies in co-founders’ participation throughout developing products and services projects were identified. As far as the multiple case studies are concerned, Design Thinking and Lean Startup were employed by four of the startups, while two of them used the Lean User Experience method due to its higher maturity level. Conclusion: Although all Agile UX methods were employed, all six digital startups reported having made adaptations to the methods or to have used them only partially. Finally, it was concluded that the maturity level influences the Agile UX methods of each digital startup according to its nature and its stage of development in the market.Campus Lima Centr

are software startups applying agile practices the state of the practice from a large survey

Software startups operate under various uncertainties and the demand on their ability to deal with change is high. Agile methods are considered a suitable and viable development approach for them. However, the competing needs for speed and quality may render certain agile practices less suitable than others in the startup context. The adoption of agile practices can be further complicated in software startups that adopt the Lean Startup approach. To make the best of agile practices, it is necessary to first understand whether and how they are used in software startups. This study targets at a better understanding of the use of agile practices in software startups, with a particular focus on lean startups. Based on a large survey of 1526 software startups, we examined the use of five agile practices, including quality related (regular refactoring and test first), speed related (frequent release and agile planning) and communication practice (daily standup meeting). The findings show that speed related agile practices are used to a greater extent in comparison to quality practices. Daily standup meeting is least used. Software startups who adopt the Lean Startup approach do not sacrifice quality for speed more than other startups do