An approach to reconcile the agile and CMMI contexts in product line development

Software product line approaches produce reusable platforms and architectures for products set developed by specific companies. These approaches are strategic in nature requiring coordination, discipline, commonality and communication. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifies "what" we must have into account to achieve the disciplined processes (among others things). On the other hand, the agile context is playing an increasingly important role in current software engineering practices, specifying "how" the software practices must be addressed to obtain agile processes. In this paper, we carry out a preliminary analysis for reconciling agility and maturity models in software product line domain, taking advantage of both.Postprint (published version

Agile, Web Engineering and Capability Maturity ModelI ntegration : A systematic literature review

Context Agile approaches are an alternative for organizations developing software, particularly for those who develop Web applications. Besides, CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) models are well-established approaches focused on assessing the maturity of an organization that develops software. Web Engineering is the field of Software Engineering responsible for analyzing and studying the specific characteristics of the Web. The suitability of an Agile approach to help organizations reach a certain CMMI maturity level in Web environments will be very interesting, as they will be able to keep the ability to quickly react and adapt to changes as long as their development processes get mature. Objective This paper responds to whether it is feasible or not, for an organization developing Web systems, to achieve a certain maturity level of the CMMI-DEV model using Agile methods. Method The proposal is analyzed by means of a systematic literature review of the relevant approaches in the field, defining a characterization schema in order to compare them to introduce the current state-of-the-art. Results The results achieved after the systematic literature review are presented, analyzed and compared against the defined schema, extracting relevant conclusions for the different dimensions of the problem: compatibility, compliance, experience, maturity and Web. Conclusion It is concluded that although the definition of an Agile approach to meet the different CMMI maturity levels goals could be possible for an organization developing Web systems, there is still a lack of detailed studies and analysis on the field

Private Sector Participation in Health Care in Zimbabwe: What’s the Value Added and Institutional Challenges?

This paper analyses the private healthcare sector’s role in Zimbabwe’s health delivery system, especially after economic challenges reduced in real terms fiscal support for public health system funding. This paints a sharp contrast between practicalities of achieving affordable and accessible public healthcare on one hand, and the economic and social realities of underfunded and skills-constrained health systems. Using as empirical models and analytical lenses the country’s 2009–2013 National Health Strategy and the WHO’s health system building blocks, we examine the role played by private sector health delivery actors in the last 10 years and suggest that although the private sector added value, there is a bigger challenge of weak macro-level coordination and communication within the health sector which create problems for systemic design, strategy formulation and feedback mechanisms, important for institutional innovation and timely responses to changing dynamics. Macro-level coordination can be aided by documentation and standardization of procedures, processes and approaches by different health delivery actors to align with national health delivery goals, allowing more predictable and measurable impact from interventions by different actors

Spartan Daily, June 12, 1936

Volume 24, Issue 155https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2483/thumbnail.jp

Towards the development of a simple tool to assist in agile methodology adoption decisions: agile adoption matrix

This paper describes the development of a decision support tool, an adoption assessment matrix based on critical adoption factors, that addresses a need in industry; namely, to improve the overall understanding of the constituent parts of agile systems development methodologies. It highlights the importance of critical adoption factors to the adoption of an agile method and illustrates the usefulness of a decision support process to determine the viability of an agile method for a specific software project. The paper describes the results of a series of workshops (two carried out in commercial software developement companies, and one with personnel from the British Minsitry of Defence) where the adoption assessment matrix was used to assess the suitability of agile methods in software development projects. A major benefit of the tool is that it guides discussion, concentrating the debate on the critical factors, applied to the individual project. These discussions proved to be as valuable as the output of the tool itself. The results of these workshops show that an argument can be made for the use of and benefit of such a decision support process in industry, in supporting the decision to adopt an agile methodology

Reconciling agility and discipline in COTS selection processes

Currently, information systems are mainly built by integrating or customizing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components acquired or licensed from the marketplace. The processes necessary to steer a suitable acquisition are different from traditional software development processes. Among them, we are interested in the process of selection of COTS components. COTS selection requires discipline to coordinate the selection team and the set of new activities that are necessary to support a successful selection. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifiesPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

AHAA- Agile, Hybrid Assessment Method for Automotive, Safety Critical SMEs

The need for software is increasingly growing in the automotive industry. Software development projects are, however, often troubled by time and budget overruns, resulting in systems that do not fulfill customer requirements. Both research and industry lack strategies to combine reducing the long software development lifecycles (as required by time-to-market demands) with increasing the quality of the software developed. Software process improvement (SPI) provides the first step in the move towards software quality, and assessments are a vital part of this process. Unfortunately, software process assessments are often expensive and time consuming. Additionally, they often provide companies with a long list of issues without providing realistic suggestions. The goal of this paper is to describe a new low-overhead assessment method that has been designed specifically for small-to-medium-sized (SMEs) organisations wishing to be automotive software suppliers. This assessment method integrates the structured-ness of the plan-driven SPI models of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and Automotive SPICETM with the flexibleness of agile practices

Into the fray: a call for policy-engaged and actionable environmental humanities

As European countries strive to meet their targets in support of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by UN member states in 2015, the importance of integrating all knowledge communities in coordinated responses to sustainability challenges becomes an increasing priority. The creativity and depth of knowledge within philosophical, cultural, aesthetic and historical disciplines of the humanities has been underutilized in coordinated international assessment initiatives that aim to inform policy and facilitate solutions of sustainability governance. The Environmental Humanities (EH) is a field of growing significance internationally. While it can no longer be called an emerging field, EH still holds only the promise of bringing knowledge of social and cultural systems to coordinated international efforts to address the human dimensions of global environmental change. The significant knowledge and expertise on the human dimensions of environmental change available within the EH field should be regarded as an indispensable resource to policymakers and to those on the ground who work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This essay makes a case for actionable, policy-engaged environmental humanities, an ambition that should certainly extend to the domain of the humanities more generally.A medida que los países europeos se esfuerzan por cumplir sus objetivos para apoyar el Acuerdo de París sobre el Cambio Climático y los 17 Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible adoptados por los estados miembros de la ONU en 2015, la importancia de integrar a todas las comunidades de conocimiento en sus respuestas coordinadas a los desafíos de sostenibilidad se convierte en una prioridad cada vez mayor. La creatividad y la profundidad del conocimiento dentro de las disciplinas filosóficas, culturales, estéticas e históricas de las humanidades no se han aprovechado lo suficiente en las iniciativas coordinadas de evaluación internacional que tienen como objetivo informar las políticas y facilitar soluciones de sostenibilidad para los gobiernos del mundo. Las Humanidades Ambientales (HA) son un campo de creciente importancia a nivel internacional. Si bien, ya no se le puede llamar un campo emergente, todavía se presenta solamente como campo promisorio pero capaz de contribuir con su conocimiento de los sistemas sociales y culturales a los esfuerzos internacionales coordinados para abordar las dimensiones humanas del cambio medioambiental global. El conocimiento y pericia significativos dentro del campo de las HA sobre las dimensiones humanas del cambio ambiental deberían considerarse un recurso indispensable para los legisladores y para aquellos que trabajan en el terreno con miras a alcanzar los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Este ensayo presenta argumentos a favor de las humanidades medioambientales factibles y comprometidas con las políticas, una ambición que ciertamente debería extenderse al campo de las humanidades en general

Simulation study for investment decisions on the EcoBoost camshaft machining line

Design/redesign of manufacturing systems is a complex, risky, and expensive task. Ford Motor Company’s Valencia Engine Plant faces this challenge as it plans to upgrade its machining and assembly lines to introduce the new EcoBoost engines. The research project described in this paper aimed to support the transition process particularly at the camshaft machining line by using simulation modelling techniques. A series of experiments was carried out using the simulation model developed, and recommendations were proposed based on the results of these experiments to support the decision as to where to invest on the line. The outcomes from the research project indicated that investment is required in terms of increasing the capacity of two bottleneck operations through retooling and improving the conveyor routing logic in one key area. Keywords: simulation modelling, closed-loop network, automotive production system

Run-time risk management in adaptive ICT systems

We will present results of the SERSCIS project related to risk management and mitigation strategies in adaptive multi-stakeholder ICT systems. The SERSCIS approach involves using semantic threat models to support automated design-time threat identification and mitigation analysis. The focus of this paper is the use of these models at run-time for automated threat detection and diagnosis. This is based on a combination of semantic reasoning and Bayesian inference applied to run-time system monitoring data. The resulting dynamic risk management approach is compared to a conventional ISO 27000 type approach, and validation test results presented from an Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) scenario involving data exchange between multiple airport service providers