Open-source Software: Adoption and Challenges

© ASEE 2015Adopting open-source software (OSS) can help reduce the cost of personal computers for individuals as well as the cost of information technology infrastructure for companies. Many studies corroborated the superiority of Linux (open-source operating system) when compared to Windows. Linux, or any other open-source software, offers robustness, flexibility on top of a homogeneous solution and a support from a huge community. The purpose of this paper is to study the adoption open source software, mainly Linux. The discussion will encompass the growth of the open source community, the horizons, and the obstacles. The study also aims to cover the feasibility of the adoption of the open-source software at a Research and Development environment, where reducing the cost of the information technology infrastructure opens doors for more scalability and increase in performance

The Impact of Group Cohesiveness on Decision-Making Outcomes under Conditions of Challenging and Hindrance Time Pressure

Group decision making is increasingly important for the successful completion of software development projects. Group oriented development approaches such as agile methods, which emphasize a sense-and-respond approach are becoming an integral part of software development. These methods are being used by an increasing number of organizations as a means of improving the agility and quality of the development process, and within these processes groups are increasingly involved in critical decision making. Groups are required to make regular group decisions and group members work closely with each other to develop software in time-boxed iterations. However, the literature lacks a clear understanding about how varying degrees of time pressure affects the decision outcomes of the development groups. As group cohesion is viewed as the most fundamental issue facing group decision-making processes, in this research-in-progress paper we develop a research instrument to measure the impact of time pressure and group cohesion on decision-making outcomes

Decisions-making in Agile Information Systems Development: The Role of Empowerment and Authority

Agile information systems development (ISD) teams are claimed to work via self-organized and autonomous methods. Yet little research exists on how these teams make decisions. Therefore, this research-in-progress paper conceptualizes a multilevel model that examines decision-making–team empowerment and project managers’ decision-making authority–in agile ISD teams and its effect on team members’ work engagement and performance. Preliminary results show satisfactory psychometric criteria for the measurement instrument. Within the main study, multilevel analyses using hierarchical linear modeling and hierarchical linear regression will be used to examine cross-level effects. We expect our research to contribute to deeper understanding of agile ISD teams’ decision-making and to the limited evidence on project managers’ role in agile ISD

Empowering Leadership, Transactive Memory Systems and Agility in Software Development Teams: A Theoretical Framework

Empowering leadership is crucial in modern software development. However, there is a lack of studies on how empowering leadership affects agility in software development. To fill this gap, we investigate the role of empowering leadership in agility in software development through the lens of transactive memory systems (TMS) theory. In this conceptual paper, we propose a theoretical framework in which TMS plays a mediating role between empowering leadership and agility. This framework advances our understanding of the value of empowering leadership practices in developing TMS, which in turn helps software development teams achieve agility. The proposed leadership practices and their categories also provide guidelines for effectively exercising empowering leadership

Towards Using Data to Inform Decisions in Agile Software Development: Views of Available Data

Software development comprises complex tasks which are performed by humans. It involves problem solving, domain understanding and communication skills as well as knowledge of a broad variety of technologies, architectures, and solution approaches. As such, software development projects include many situations where crucial decisions must be made. Making the appropriate organizational or technical choices for a given software team building a product can make the difference between project success or failure. Software development methods have introduced frameworks and sets of best practices for certain contexts, providing practitioners with established guidelines for these important choices. Current Agile methods employed in modern software development have highlighted the importance of the human factors in software development. These methods rely on short feedback loops and the self-organization of teams to enable collaborative decision making. While Agile methods stress the importance of empirical process control, i.e. relying on data to make decisions, they do not prescribe in detail how this goal should be achieved. In this paper, we describe the types and abstraction levels of data and decisions within modern software development teams and identify the benefits that usage of this data enables. We argue that the principles of data-driven decision making are highly applicable, yet underused, in modern Agile software development

Information flows at inter-team boundaries in agile information systems development

Agile software development methods are being used on larger projects thus the study of inter-team communication are becoming an important topic of interest for researchers. This research addresses inter-team communication by exploring the tools and three different boundaries, inter-team, team and customers, and geographically separated teams. In this research, we gathered data from semi-structured face-to-face interviews which were analyzed following the grounded theory approach. Our study reveals consensus from different teams on the importance of virtual Kanban boards. Also, some teams members tend to adapt to other teams’ preferred communication tool. We observed challenges around interdependent user stories among the different teams and highlighted the problems that rise at the different boundaries. Keywords: agile information system development • inter-team communication • agile team boundary • communication • agile methods • cooperating agile team

When and how to facilitate the introduction of new knowledge processes in organisations

© 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present two case studies hosted between 2012 and 2013 by Woolworths Limited with recommendations to address the question of why has implementing new processes into well-established organisations proved to be problematical. Design/methodology/approach - The research framework used is a novel synthesis of actor-network theory (ANT) with Miller's living systems theory (LST). Systems at each LST level are actors in an actor-network. Higher LST-level actors punctualise lower-level actor-networks, enabling the fine-grained study of dynamic associations within the LST structure. Qualitative measures assess the collaboration's progress. Findings - Gaps were found between teams' capabilities to implement new processes and that required to meet expectations. There were three contributors to the gap: first, knowledge flow was inhibited by social network structural holes; second, a reliance on tacit knowledge made identifying training needs difficult; and third, high utilisation of experts reduced their effectiveness. Research limitations/implications - The nature of logistics means that findings need careful validation before application to other business contexts. Larger studies will benefit from computer mediation for parsing and characterising associations, and computational modelling will be required for validating scenarios that cannot be performed or repeated with human actors. Practical implications - Recommendations for early identification of new ideas that require facilitation will help organisations enhance their adaptability and maintain their competitive advantage in a changing marketplace. Originality/value - The synthesis of ANT with LST provides collaboration researchers with an adaptable framework that combines a focus on dynamic associations within the context of complex social interactions