Negotiating Response-ability and Repeat-ability in Requirements Engineering

Requirements engineering (RE) practices are critical to success during the development of business software. As managers assess RE practices, they apply specific perspectives that determine problems identified and recommendations for improvement. Two perspectives have recently dominated managerial thinking within the software industry, one rooted in software process improvement and the other rooted in agile software development. Underpinning these perspectives are two theories about what constitutes good software practice. In this paper, we explicate these theories in relation to RE and show how they differ in basic assumptions about the nature of requirements, requirements capture, requirements usage, change management, and approach to improvement. The repeat-ability theory holds that good requirements practices are plan-driven and follow generic best practices to arrive at an agreed-upon baseline of software requirements. Response-ability holds that good requirements practices are adaptive and involve close interaction between customers and developers to arrive at satisfactory software solutions. We use case study data from a software firm, TelSoft, to show how the theories lead to different interpretations about why current practices are problematic and how problems are resolved. Relating to the improvement strategy adopted at TelSoft, we demonstrate the superiority, for managers, of negotiating response-ability and repeat-ability concerns when improving RE practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice

KEMNAD: A Knowledge Engineering Methodology for Negotiating Agent Development

Automated negotiation is widely applied in various domains. However, the development of such systems is a complex knowledge and software engineering task. So, a methodology there will be helpful. Unfortunately, none of existing methodologies can offer sufficient, detailed support for such system development. To remove this limitation, this paper develops a new methodology made up of: (1) a generic framework (architectural pattern) for the main task, and (2) a library of modular and reusable design pattern (templates) of subtasks. Thus, it is much easier to build a negotiating agent by assembling these standardised components rather than reinventing the wheel each time. Moreover, since these patterns are identified from a wide variety of existing negotiating agents(especially high impact ones), they can also improve the quality of the final systems developed. In addition, our methodology reveals what types of domain knowledge need to be input into the negotiating agents. This in turn provides a basis for developing techniques to acquire the domain knowledge from human users. This is important because negotiation agents act faithfully on the behalf of their human users and thus the relevant domain knowledge must be acquired from the human users. Finally, our methodology is validated with one high impact system

Project alliancing at National Museum of Australia: Collaborative process

Project alliancing is a new alternative to traditional project delivery systems, especially in the commercial building sector. The Collaborative Process is a theoretical model of people and systems characteristics that are required to reduce the adversarial nature of most construction projects. Although developed separately, both are responses to the same pressures. Project alliancing was just used successfully to complete the National Museum of Australia. This project was analyzed as a case study to determine the extent to which it could be classified as a “collaborative project”. Five key elements of The Collaborative Process were reviewed and numerous examples from the management of this project were cited that support the theoretical recommendations of this model. In the case of this project, significant added value was delivered to the client and many innovations resulted from the collective work of the parties to the contract. It was concluded that project alliances for commercial buildings offer many advantages over traditional project delivery systems, which are related to increasing the levels of collaboration among a project management team

Improving Practices in a Small Software Firm: An Ambidextrous Perspective

Despite documented best practices and specialized tools, software organizations struggle to deliver quality software that is on time, within budget, and meets customer requirements. Managers seeking improved software project outcomes face two dominant software paradigms which differ in their emphasis on upfront planning, customer collaboration, and product documentation: plan-driven and agile. Rather than promoting one approach over the other, this research advocates improving software management practices by developing the organization’s ambidextrous capability. Ambidextrous organizations have the ability to simultaneously succeed at two seemingly contradictory capabilities (e.g. discipline and agility) which leads to enhanced organizational performance. Overall, this study asks the question: How can an ambidextrous perspective facilitate improvement in software practices? Driven by this question, and based on a two year action research study at a small software firm, TelSoft, the objectives of this research are to: 1. Identify dualities involved in improving software practices 2. Design interventions based on these dualities to improve software practices 3. Explore the process of becoming an ambidextrous software organization The resulting dissertation consists of a summary and four papers that each identify and address particular dualities encountered during software process improvement. The first paper asserts that both process-driven and perception-driven inquiry should be used during assessment of software practices, presents a model that shows how this combination can occur, and demonstrates the use of this model at TelSoft. The second paper explicates two theories for understanding and resolving issues in requirements engineering practice – repeat-ability and response-ability – and argues for the need to negotiate between the two. The third paper identifies a tension between managing legacy and current processes and proposes a model for software process reengineering, a systematic process for leveraging legacy processes created during prior SPI efforts. Finally, the fourth paper applies the theoretical lens of ambidexterity to understand the overall change initiative in terms of the tension between alignment and adaptability. The study used a variety of data sources to diagnose software practices, including semi-structured interviews, software process documents, meeting interactions, and workshop discussions. Subsequently, we established, facilitated, and tracked focused improvement teams in the areas of customer relations, requirements management, quality assurance, project portfolio management, and process management. Furthermore, we created and trained two management teams with responsibility for ongoing management of SPI and project portfolio management respectively. We argue that these activities improved software practices at TelSoft and provided a stronger foundation for continuous improvement. Keywords: Ambidexterity, software process improvement (SPI), action research, requirements engineering assessment, action planning, software process reengineering, software management

Law Firm Selection and the Value of Transactional Lawyering

Following the contraction in demand for law firms’ services during the Great Recession, “Big Law” was widely diagnosed as suffering from several maladies that would spell its ultimate demise, including excessive fees, excessive size, increased competition from in-house counsel, the commoditization of legal work, and the decline in demand for “relationship firms.” While each of these market pressures is only too real for certain segments of the law-firm population, their threat to the most elite U.S. law firms has been largely misunderstood. Even as many firms reduce their fees and contract in size, we should expect certain firms to continue to charge more and grow bigger. The current prescriptions for fixing Big Law fail to recognize that the top-tier firms within the group serve a unique market function. Focusing on a particular type of legal work – major corporate transactions – this Article proposes a novel theory of the value created by elite law firms: their private information about “market” deal terms, acquired through repeated exposure to the same types of transactions, provides clients with a significant bargaining advantage in deal negotiations. By aggregating expertise in the ever-changing and ever-increasing set of deal terms for certain transactions, law firms help their clients price such terms more accurately and thereby maximize their surplus from the deal. This pricing function – traditionally thought to be limited to investment banks – is one that cannot be replicated or subsumed by in-house counsel, other service providers, or commoditized contracts

Procurement push and marketing pull in supply chain management: the conceptual contribution of relationship marketing as a driver in project financial performance

? The agenda for supply management practices on construction projects originated from clients. It is largely procurement driven, the dominant strategy of contractors being to emulate the client approach, and hence push the procurement model along the chain.? This procurement push along the supply chain translates the intrinsic client interest in value into a contractor interest in repeat business from the same client or through referral markets, the consequence being: (i) loss of interest in adding further value along the chain, (ii) continuous improvement prematurely reaches the law of diminishing returns through a primary cost reduction focus, (iii) supply chains may be rationalised in terms of the number of suppliers for each link in the chain, yet the procurement push increases chain length in order to squeeze the lowest costs possible, hence those doing the work at the bottom of the chain will not have the resources to add value nor necessarily be aware of the strategic principles at the top of the chain. ? Marketing is the other side of the same ?procurement coin?; relationship marketing (RM) soliciting a pull in the supply chain, potentially adding value for continuous improvement. ? Finally, the RM approach will be related to the theoretical and actual decoupling point for construction, with the potential to move the point towards the start of the chain, hence increasing the potential for agile manufacturing

Global rules, patent power and our food future: controlling the food system in the 21st century

The rules affecting our food future have been rewritten since the early 1990s, often in remote international bodies. This paper briefly outlines the nature of today's food system, discusses some of these rules and focuses on the dynamics of rule making in the World Trade Organisation, in particular around patent, plant variety protection, trademark, copyright and other forms of 'intellectual property' and their impact on our food future. It draws on work with negotiators dealing with the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) in WTO and its role in globalisation.Intellectual property rights regimes, WTO, patents, biotechnology

Time Sharing at Leisure Facility Centres: Analysis of Sales Performance Indicators

The changing cultural paradigms in Latin America have influenced variety of leisure activities and significant implications for development of leisure services. Leisure spending behaviour prompts sequential relationship among customers intending to perform family celebrations in a different environment and gaining higher satisfaction through the customized services, recreational attractions and brand value. This study focuses qualitative dimensions associated with the sales people and managerial efforts made to augment the outcome performance in sales in reference to the time sharing proposals at leisure facility centres in Mexico. The leisure facility centres are used by individual and institutional customers for organizing leisure events, parties and family gatherings. The study reveals that the leisure facility centre developer firms function with team sales strategy and the performance of sale teams is linked with their contributions to the profit of the firm.Team sales, customer satisfaction, sales performance, leisure property, brand image, returns on assets

Maintaining Client Relationships with Municipal Governments

In the competitive industry of civil engineering, consultants must continually market their services to the private sector as well as to the public sector. Various engineering management reference materials state that the Pareto Principle applies to the declaration that 80% of the work comes from repeat clients. Accordingly, there should be a considerable amount of marketing effort performed by consulting firms to assure repeat clients remain long-term customers. In the public sector, such as municipal governments, maintaining long-term relationships with municipal officials can be challenging since most publicly elected members are in office only a few years. A consultant firm has to create long-term relationships with municipal government using creative strategies that exceed those that are effective when marketing to the private sector. Marketing groups focus on various topics within the subject of client relationships, such as value, service, client knowledge and negotiations. Determining the proper mix of topics, and the roles and responsibilities of each party, necessary to create a win-win relationship is the purpose of this field project

Sovereign Debt: Now What?

The sovereign debt restructuring regime looks like it is coming apart. Changing patterns of capital flows, old creditors’ weakening commitment to past practices, and other stakeholders’ inability to take over, or coalesce behind a viable alternative, have challenged the regime from the moment it took shape in the mid-1990s. By 2016, its survival cannot be taken for granted. Crises in Argentina, Greece, and Ukraine since 2010 exposed the regime’s perennial failures and new shortcomings. Until an alternative emerges, there may be messier, more protracted restructurings, more demands on public resources, and more pressure on national courts to intervene in disputes that they are ill-suited to resolve. Initiatives emanating from wildly different actors — the United Nations General Assembly, the International Monetary Fund, the International Capital Market Association and the Jubilee coalition, among others — reflect broad-based demand for reform. Now is the time to reconsider the institutional architecture of sovereign debt restructuring, along with the norms and alliances that underpin it. In this symposium essay, I suggest broad criteria for evaluating a successor regime, and offer a package of incremental measures to advance sustainability, fairness, and accountability