How Agile is Agile Enough? Towards A Theory of Agility in Software Development

One poorly investigated issue in organizational agility is the question how organizations change their speed while adopting and exploiting new IT capability. In this paper we outline a theory of software development agility that draws upon a model of IT innovations by Swanson and on March’s learning theory and in particular on his concepts of exploration and exploitation. We explore how both exploration and exploitation as organizational learning modes can software development agility. We propose a sequential model of organizational learning in which agility is driven by different factors during different stages – exploration vs. exploitation- of organizational learning. We show that software development agility is influenced by the external demands, the diffusion level and rate of the IT innovation, its radicalness, and the organizations’ needs to balance multiple conflicting process goals including speed, quality, cost, risk and innovative content. We illustrate the value of the model by exploring how seven software organizations controlled the demands for increased agility i.e. their development speed or over a period of five years (1999-2004), and how they balanced the need for the increased agility with other critical development criteria like cost, risk, quality and innovative content. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for future research on agility and related management practices

Learning in High Gear: Hyper-learning and Dynamic Capabilityin Seven Software Firms

Building on the literature of dynamic capability and organizational learning, we examine strategy execution in hyper-competition as a problem of how organizations can re-configure their learning capability to match with their radically different learning demands. Organizations in hyper-competitive environments face an increasing gap between their learning opportunities and needs, and actual learning performance. In order to survive they must improve their absorptive capacity so that they can learn simultaneously broad, deep and fast. We define such a learning contingency as hyper-learning. To do so, the organization must systematically interlace exploration—that seeks to maximize learning breadth— and exploitation—that seeks to maximize learning depth. Unlike in traditional learning cycles, exploration and exploitation during periods of hyper-learning are not insulated from each other through time or structure.We explore seven software firms engaged in Web system development during the hey-day on dot.com frenzy and investigate how these companies were able to hyper-learn. We distinguish two mechanisms to speed up exploration: distributed gate-keeping and extended grafting of external knowledge; and two mechanisms to speed up exploitation: simple design patterns and peer networks. These mechanisms were nearly uniformly recognized in all studied organizations. We also examine the systemic configuration and patterning of these activities, which enables organizations to learn in high gear. This organizational learning model is contrasted with the punctuated equilibrium model of learning articulated in mainstream strategy research. Finally some implications for future research and management practice are drawn

Robust two-dimensional subrecoil Raman cooling by adiabatic transfer in a tripod atomic system

We demonstrate two-dimensional robust Raman cooling in a four-level tripod system, in which velocity-selective population transfer is achieved by a STIRAP pulse. In contrast to basic 2D Raman cooling with square envelope pulses [Phys. Rev. A 83, 023407 (2011)], the technique presented here allows for a wide variation in the pulse duration and amplitude once the adiabaticity criterion is satisfied. An efficient population transfer together with attaining of a narrow spread of the resonant-velocity group leads to the narrowing of the velocity-distribution spread down to $0.1v_\mathrm{rec}$, corresponding to an effective temperature equal to $0.01 T_\mathrm{rec}$. This robust method opens new possibilities for cooling of neutral atoms.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

The Legacy of Power and Politics in Disciplinary Discourse: A Citation Analysis

Within Information Systems (IS), as with all other scientific communities, the publication of original research is the primary mode of communication. One characteristic of such communication is the use of references. Yet, scientific communities differ in the ways their members use citations to position their own contribution. In this paper, we examine the following questions: What can we learn about the discursive practices within IS by investigating ways in which the community has drawn upon one of its classics? How can such an analysis inform us as authors, reviewers, and active members of the discipline? To address these questions, we analyze over 300 citations extending over two decades to one of the most widely-cited works in the field – Markus’s “Power, Politics, and MIS Implementation”. We apply a wide range of citation analysis techniques to understand how IS researchers have used the article to support or to frame their contribution. Our analysis reveals the impact of social construction in shaping our discursive practices. This observation has several implications for improving IS research

Aggregation for potentially infinite populations without continuity or completeness

We present an abstract social aggregation theorem. Society, and each individual, has a preorder that may be interpreted as expressing values or beliefs. The preorders are allowed to violate both completeness and continuity, and the population is allowed to be infinite. The preorders are only assumed to be represented by functions with values in partially ordered vector spaces, and whose product has convex range. This includes all preorders that satisfy strong independence. Any Pareto indifferent social preorder is then shown to be represented by a linear transformation of the representations of the individual preorders. Further Pareto conditions on the social preorder correspond to positivity conditions on the transformation. When all the Pareto conditions hold and the population is finite, the social preorder is represented by a sum of individual preorder representations. We provide two applications. The first yields an extremely general version of Harsanyi's social aggregation theorem. The second generalizes a classic result about linear opinion pooling

Local ecological knowledge and folk medicine in historical Estonia, Livonia, Courland and Galicia in Northeastern Europe, 1805-1905

Background: Historical ethnobotanical data can provide valuable information about past human-nature relationships as well as serve as a basis for diachronic analysis. This data note aims to present a dataset which documented medicinal plant uses, mentioned in a selection of German-language sources from the 19 th century covering the historical regions of Estonia, Livonia, Courland, and Galicia. Methods: Data was mainly entered by systematic manual search in various ethnobotanical historical German-language works focused on the medicinal use of plants. Data about plant and non-plant constituents, their usage, the mode of administration, used plant parts, and their German and local names was extracted and collected into a database in the form of Use Reports