Community Development Evaluation Storymap and Legend

Community based organizations, funders, and intermediary organizations working in the community development field have a shared interest in building stronger organizations and stronger communities. Through evaluation these organizations can learn how their programs and activities contribute to the achievement of these goals, and how to improve their effectiveness and the well-being of their communities. Yet, evaluation is rarely seen as part of a non-judgemental organizational learning process. Instead, the term "evaluation" has often generated anxiety and confusion. The Community Development Storymap project is a response to those concerns.Illustrations found in this document were produced by Grove Consultants

El mejoramiento del proceso de software como un habilitador de la de auto-producción organizacional

Las compañías de software son un tema actual en la economía mundial. Dichas compañías están encargadas de la mayoría de los desarrollos en tecnologías de la información y para tener un desempeño adecuado deben mejorar su propia organización. El mejoramiento del proceso de software (SPI por sus siglas en inglés) es un factor clave que permite a las compañías de software crecer y mejorar. Este proceso ha sido analizado principalmente como un proceso técnico, dejando de lado el factor humano y organizacional. Además en la literatura se ha encontrado una carencia en la reflexión teórica sobre cómo puede ser analizado este proceso. Trabajos recientes indican que el SPI puede ser analizado como un cambio organizacional. Las organizaciones pueden ser vistas como organismos vivos que crecen y evolucionan basados en la teoría de la autopoiesis o los sistemas auto-productivos. Si una compañía de software es entendida como un sistema autopoiético, el SPI puede ser visto como un proceso que habilita la auto-producción organizacional. El objetivo de este trabajo es proveer una primera aproximación al entendimiento del SPI como un habilitador del proceso auto-productivo organizacional, es decir, describir este proceso a la luz de una nueva teoría con el fin de crear una base para entender el desarrollo de este y proveer de nuevas perspectivas a futuros trabajos en el área.Abstract. Software companies are a growing trend in world economy. They are in charge of most IT related developments and in order to deliver a proper product to their costumers they have to improve their own organization. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a key factor that allows software companies to grow and improve their organization. This process has been mainly treated as a technical process, leaving aside the human factor. Although, in the literature it has been found a lack of a theoretical reflection about how could be analyzed this process. Recent works indicate that SPI could be analyzed as an organizational change. Also organizations can be seen as living organisms that grow and evolve based on the idea of autopoiesis or self-producing systems. If a software company is understood as a self-producing system, the SPI can be seen as a self-producing process. The goal of this work is to provide a first approach in the understanding of SPI as enabler of the organization self-production process, that is to say, describe this process in the light of a new theory in order to create a basis for understanding its development and provide new perspectives for future research in this area.Maestrí

Organizational and national issues of an ERP implementation in a Portuguese company

This technical research report describes a case of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation in a Portuguese SME. We focused on the identification of organizational factors that affect the ERP implementation project. We also analyzed the ERP implementation project from a national cultural perspective using Geert Hofstede's dimensions. These dimensions were used to explain some of the attitudes and behaviours during the ERP implementation project. The findings suggest that some of the problems in ERP implementation projects are not of technological nature but may be attributed to organizational factors while some issues related to national culture.Postprint (published version

A market based approach for resolving resource constrained task allocation problems in a software development process

We consider software development as an economic activity, where goods and services can be modeled as a resource constrained task allocation problem. This paper introduces a market based mechanism to overcome task allocation issues in a software development process. It proposes a mechanism with a prescribed set of rules, where valuation is based on the behaviors of stakeholders such as biding for a task. A bid process ensures that a stakeholder, who values the resource most, will have it allocated for a limited number of times. To observe the bidders behaviors, we initiate an approach incorporated with a process simulation model. Our preliminary results support the idea that our model is useful for optimizing the value based task allocations, creating a market value for the project assets, and for achieving proper allocation of project resources specifically on large scale software projects

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Effects of innovation types on firm performance

Innovation is broadly seen as an essential component of competitiveness, embedded in the organizational structures, processes, products, and services within a firm. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of the organizational, process, product, and marketing innovations on the different aspects of firm performance, including innovative, production, market, and financial performances, based on an empirical study covering 184 manufacturing firms in Turkey. A theoretical framework is empirically tested identifying the relationships amid innovations and firm performance through an integrated innovation-performance analysis. The results reveal the positive effects of innovations on firm performance in manufacturing industries

Dynamic Leadership: Toolbox for the Values-Based Entrepreneur

Four entrepreneurship models are proposed which lend guidance in the development of a business, from birth to exit, each examining ways to maintain the business founder’s initial vision and to continue to infuse values and ethical decision-making at each stage of development

Is agile project management applicable to construction?

This paper briefly summarises the evolution of Agile Project Management (APM) and differentiates it from lean and agile production and ‘leagile’ construction. The significant benefits being realized through employment of APM within the information systems industry are stated. The characteristics of APM are explored, including: philosophy, organizational attitudes and practices, planning, execution and control and learning. Finally, APM is subjectively assessed as to its potential contribution to the pre-design, design and construction phases. In conclusion, it is assessed that APM offers considerable potential for application in predesign and design but that there are significant hurdles to its adoption in the actual construction phase. Should these be overcome, APM offers benefits well beyond any individual project

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations