Collaborative networks: A pillar of digital transformation

UID/EEA/00066/2019 POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033926The notion of digital transformation encompasses the adoption and integration of a variety of new information and communication technologies for the development of more efficient, flexible, agile, and sustainable solutions for industrial systems. Besides technology, this process also involves new organizational forms and leads to new business models. As such, this work addresses the contribution of collaborative networks to such a transformation. An analysis of the collaborative aspects required in the various dimensions of the 4th industrial revolution is conducted based on a literature survey and experiences gained from several research projects. A mapping between the identified collaboration needs and research results that can be adopted from the collaborative networks area is presented. Furthermore, several new research challenges are identified and briefly characterized.publishe

Virtuality's Influence on the Process of Performing Information Systems Development: A case of a software organization

Organizations in all sectors have been utilizing virtual teams and virtual technologies for projects, making use of geographically dispersed human capital. Other forms of virtual working such as work-from-home, remote-work and telecommuting have also been implemented by organizations, often to a few employees usually over a small period of time and not applicable to the full organization. The transitioning from a collocated environment to a virtual context induced by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had an effect on the process of performing Information Systems Development (ISD). The objectives of the study are: RO1: Explain how virtuality influences the process of doing ISD projects inside the IS Industry. RO1a: Explain how virtuality influences the execution of ISD activities inside the IS Industry. RO1 b: Explain how virtuality influences the assessment of ISD projects inside the IS Industry. RO2: Identify how organizations can improve ISD when working in a virtual context. This study employed a single case study of a technology company that recently transitioned from a collocated context to a full remote context. Data was collected through seventeen semi-structured interviews and secondary documents. Thematic analysis was employed to explain virtuality's influence on performing ISD and assessing ISD outcomes. A modified Systems Development as Performing (sd-as-p) conceptual model was utilized as a guide for this study's data collection process. A literature-derived sd-as-p conceptual model was developed made up of the following processes of performing ISD, namely leading; communicating; collaborating; knowing; developing with agility; dealing with challenges; trusting; assessing achievements and the enactment of virtuality. The study explained how virtuality influences the processes of performing ISD. Subthemes of the processes of performing ISD were identified resulting in the modification of the initial literature-derived sd-as-p model. Components that enhance the performing of ISD in a virtual context were found to be people, tools, processes, and virtual culture

Enabling flexibility through strategic management of complex engineering systems

”Flexibility is a highly desired attribute of many systems operating in changing or uncertain conditions. It is a common theme in complex systems to identify where flexibility is generated within a system and how to model the processes needed to maintain and sustain flexibility. The key research question that is addressed is: how do we create a new definition of workforce flexibility within a human-technology-artificial intelligence environment? Workforce flexibility is the management of organizational labor capacities and capabilities in operational environments using a broad and diffuse set of tools and approaches to mitigate system imbalances caused by uncertainties or changes. We establish a baseline reference for managers to use in choosing flexibility methods for specific applications and we determine the scope and effectiveness of these traditional flexibility methods. The unique contributions of this research are: a) a new definition of workforce flexibility for a human-technology work environment versus traditional definitions; b) using a system of systems (SoS) approach to create and sustain that flexibility; and c) applying a coordinating strategy for optimal workforce flexibility within the human- technology framework. This dissertation research fills the gap of how we can model flexibility using SoS engineering to show where flexibility emerges and what strategies a manager can use to manage flexibility within this technology construct”--Abstract, page iii

Team to Market (T2M): Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age

1. Teams are the essential means of product or service delivery and the fundamental building blocks of modern organisations. An effective team can produce results far outperforming a collection of even the most talented individuals when team members coalesce and jell into a single, well-functioning, fully-aligned organism. This report advances the notion of “Team to Market” (T2M) to help business leaders and knowledge workers understand, create and lead high performance teams in the digital age

Coalition based approach for shop floor agility – a multiagent approach

Dissertation submitted for a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, speciality of Robotics and Integrated Manufacturing from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThis thesis addresses the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new processes and equipment. This thesis, therefore, proposes an architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture. This architecture postulates that manufacturing systems are no more than compositions of modularised manufacturing components whose interactions when aggregated are governed by contractual mechanisms that favour configuration over reprogramming. A multiagent based reference architecture called Coalition Based Approach for Shop floor Agility – CoBASA, was created to support fast adaptation and changes of shop floor control architectures with minimal effort. The coalitions are composed of agentified manufacturing components (modules), whose relationships within the coalitions are governed by contracts that are configured whenever a coalition is established. Creating and changing a coalition do not involve programming effort because it only requires changes to the contract that regulates it

The Emergence of Agile Sales Management

Objectives The main objectives of this study were to identify ways in which sales managers, operating in the B2B context, adapt to and drive changes, as well as to explore emerging sales manager roles, perceived by sales managers themselves. Summary The exploratory study interviewed six Finnish sales managers operating in the B2B context, principally engaging in professional selling. The study utilized semi-structured, in-depth interviews, which were audio-recorded and transcribed resulting in 106 pages of data. The data was analyzed using the Gioia methodology. Conclusions The study suggests the application of business agility to be able to broaden to include agile sales management, and suggests an agile mindset to be useful for sales managers. Sales managers build adaptiveness, resilience and speed to sales organizations by building a collaborative team-selling culture and by promoting autonomy and self-leadership. The role of a sales manager, at large, seems to have become increasingly people-centric. The study finds emergent roles for sales managers to be a direction-setter, an empowering coach, and a sales success enabler

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops

This open access book constitutes papers from the 5 research workshops, the poster presentations, as well as two panel discussions which were presented at XP 2021, the 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, which was held online during June 14-18, 2021. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a unique forum where agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends. XP conferences provide an informal environment to learn and trigger discussions and welcome both people new to agile and seasoned agile practitioners. The 18 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from overall 37 submissions. They stem from the following workshops: 3rd International Workshop on Agile Transformation 9th International Workshop on Large-Scale Agile Development 1st International Workshop on Agile Sustainability 4th International Workshop on Software-Intensive Business 2nd International Workshop on Agility with Microservices Programmin