Imperative ethical behaviours in making systems development and deployment compliant with health & safety and well-being

Literature on systems development has been progressively identifying the importance of social aspects in systems development, to the extent that this process has been considered a socio-technical system. More often than not there is a failure of participants in the recognition, and fulfilment, of ethical duties concerning the concepts of health and safety and wellbeing. The purpose of normative ethics is to scrutinise moral standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, the ultimate goal being the identification of the true human good. A rational appeal can be made to normative defensible ethical rules in order to arrive at a judicious, morally justifiable judgement. In this paper our first step is to report on the findings of a literature review, which presents the current health and safety issues concerning usage of computers in organisations and the workplace. Secondly, we identify and list some basic generic Deontological and Teleological moral principles and theories that can serve as normative guidelines for addressing the issues pinpointed in the initial step. Thirdly, we prescribe a set of moral rights and duties that must be exercised and fulfilled by protagonists in systems development and software engineering in order for them to exhibit moral behaviour. Each of these suggested actions are substantiated via an appeal to one, or a number of the normative guidelines, identified in the second step. By identifying, and recommending a set of defensible moral obligations that must be fulfilled in the development and deployment of systems, protagonists such as: project managers, software engineering teams, systems analysts, clients, etc. can fulfil their ethical duties, thus increasing the likelihood a deployed system that is compliant with principles of health and safety and wellbeing of its users. Ultimately systems development and deployment must be underpinned with ethical consideration

The proposal of adding a society value to the software process improvement manifesto

The use of computers has become ubiquitous and spread out to every part of our personal lives and businesses. Computer Ethics focuses on the questions of right and wrong that arise from the development and deployment of computers. Thus, it urges that the social impact of computers must be analysed. In software engineering, the Software Process Improvement (SPI) Manifesto was developed by groups of experts in the field and aimed to improve the software produced, by improving the process, the attitudes of software engineers, and the organisational culture and practices. The manifesto is centred on three basic values: people, business focus and organisational change, underpinning the philosophy of software process improvement; and ten corresponding principles, which serve as foundations for action. In this paper, we argue that SPI professionals, need to, in addition to fulfilling duties to the Organisation, the Business, the Employees who participate in SPI, and the People who will be most affected, broaden their obligations to include wider society. The impact of developed and deployed software systems is often beyond the organisation and affects the daily lives and activities of citizens in society. This paper argues for the inclusion, in the SPI Manifesto, of a fourth value titled Society, along with six corresponding principles. These half-dozen principles are based on traditional moral and ethical concepts, sourced from the field of Computer Ethics. This proposed revision to the SPI manifesto would explicitly espouse the notion of serving the public interest. It will likely help SPI professionals to remember that working in the public interest is also important in Software Process Improvement, thus, making the duty to society clear and obvious or evident

Towards a multidimensional self-assessment for software process improvement: a pilot tool

The SPI Manifesto provides a framework for guiding software development organisations in their improvement efforts. Based on the Values of People, Business and Change, which are supported and informed by one or more of the ten principles, the designer and developer can avoid pitfalls, minimise risks and make their business successful. It has been established, in theory and practice, that improving the process results in improvement of the products and services emanating from that process. Following a number of earlier multidimensional analyses of the SPI Manifesto, carried out by the authors, a series of tabular representations identifying the nature, importance and strength of relationships between the Manifesto’s Values and Principles in terms of eight dimensions encapsulated in the acronym STEEPLED (Sociocultural, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical and Demographic) were developed. In this paper, we present a conceptualisation of a pilot automated tool (based on the STEEPLED Analysis), which could, potentially, be implemented/realised and used for self-assessment by software developing organisations. Starting with a self-assessment, current issues and requirements could be identified and revealed. The self-assessment using the pilot automated tool would, additionally, reveal areas requiring improvement, and would serve as a guide for the participating organisation to put focus on prioritising candidate process areas that require improvement. Also, the field testing of the pilot tool could enable the design and improvement of the tool itself, which, in turn, will be used in future for expert external/independent process assessment

Using social media as a tool for business improvement and certification of knowledge workers

Summary Business improvement is a hot topic in all business areas. In the last years, the unstoppable emergence of the use of social media by organizations and individuals alike has opened this tool for knowledge networking purposes. In this paper the authors shed some light on how the traditional knowledge management approach has changed to a networked approach of knowledge sharing. Authors also explain how social media is used as a business tool, in particular in Information Technology industry environments. SIMS (ECQA Certified Social Media Networker) is a new qualification which is available from 2013 and is meant to train and certify experts in the use of social media as a business improvement enabler and as a means for knowledge networking in organizational settings

Imperative ethical behaviours in making systems development and deployment compliant with health & safety and well-being

Literature on systems development has been progressively identifying the importance of social aspects in systems development, to the extent that this process has been considered a socio-technical system. More often than not there is a failure of participants in the recognition, and fulfilment, of ethical duties concerning the concepts of health and safety and wellbeing. The purpose of normative ethics is to scrutinise moral standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, the ultimate goal being the identification of the true human good. A rational appeal can be made to normative defensible ethical rules in order to arrive at a judicious, morally justifiable judgement. In this paper our first step is to report on the findings of a literature review, which presents the current health and safety issues concerning usage of computers in organisations and the workplace. Secondly, we identify and list some basic generic Deontological and Teleological moral principles and theories that can serve as normative guidelines for addressing the issues pinpointed in the initial step. Thirdly, we prescribe a set of moral rights and duties that must be exercised and fulfilled by protagonists in systems development and software engineering in order for them to exhibit moral behaviour. Each of these suggested actions are substantiated via an appeal to one, or a number of the normative guidelines, identified in the second step. By identifying, and recommending a set of defensible moral obligations that must be fulfilled in the development and deployment of systems, protagonists such as: project managers, software engineering teams, systems analysts, clients, etc. can fulfil their ethical duties, thus increasing the likelihood a deployed system that is compliant with principles of health and safety and wellbeing of its users. Ultimately systems development and deployment must be underpinned with ethical consideration

Innovation Management System Assessment and Benchmarking

TIMS (Training in Innovation Management System for Sustainable SMEs) is an EU Erasmus+ project which analyzed the ISO (International Standardisation Organisation) 56000 innovation management system norm parts and configured in 2022 an ISO 56000-based innovation assessment portal. This system allows self-assessment, independent expert assessment, and benchmarking for innovation management. In 2023, a competence matrix and related training materials to support the implementation of ISO 56000 is developed. The ISO 56000-based assessment tool applied ISO 33020 for process capability assessment for ISO 56000 and this allows us to determine the capability of ISO 56000 processes. This paper gives an overview of which processes have been derived from ISO 56000 and how the PAM (Innovation Process Assessment Model) is structured. Since ISO 33020 provides a standard method to determine process attributes and capability level profiles of innovation management system processes, the method also allows a Europe (and worldwide) benchmarking of the capability of innovation management systems. The objective of TIMS is to establish an assessment system and training to roll out ISO 56000 to the European industry. The tools and training materials will be used by universities in lecturing programs and by innovation agents in the industry

The sociocultural dimension of the Software Process Improvement manifesto: pilot validation by experts

The SPI Manifesto is based on three basic values: people, business focus, and organizational change underpinning the philosophy of Software Process Improvement (SPI). In turn, these values bring up to date certain SPI principles serving as a foundation for action in software development. The authors of this paper carried out a pilot expert validation of the Sociocultural dimension of the STEEPLED (Sociocultural, Technical, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, Ethical and Demographic) analysis of the SPI Manifesto. Further, the authors report on the rationale and results of the pilot validation of both the survey instrument and the qualitative responses generated by the field experts, targeting to enlighten and reinforce the importance of the Sociocultural dimension of the SPI Manifesto in research and development. The related literature review findings and the pilot research study strengthen this target. The pilot study with experts in particular provided stronger indications that the Sociocultural dimension is considered of high importance by between 62% and 88% of the respondents, who were IT and Computing professionals and software practitioners from academia and industry