OF THE USER, BY THE USER, FOR THE USER: ENGAGING USERS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS PRODUCT EVOLUTION

Collectively users constitute a source of massive amounts of product innovation (Vonn Hippel, Ogawa and de Jong, 2012). When users are viewed merely as recipients of innovation, the firm does not have access to user knowledge and experience developed through product use (Sawhney, Verona and Prandelli, 2005). Additionally, it has been suggested that the product evolution should be innovative in the users’ frame of mind not the developers’ (Fellows and Hooks, 1998). New product features that do not resonate with the users create wasted development effort, delay in time-to-market, increased complexity and operational costs of the product. Keeping this context in view, this empirical study assesses existing promising methods for selecting new product features through involvement of users. The results of this study show that the Kano survey method demonstrated potential in not only identifying those product features that add value to the user but also those which do not

An Experiment For Estimating User Satisfaction

User satisfaction has been found to be an adequate proxy for contribution of Information Systems (IS) to organizational performance (Gelderman, 1998). However, although IS projects plan and estimate cost and schedule, quality, the third leg of the iron triangle, defined as the degree to which a system, component, or process meets specified requirements and customer/user needs and expectations (The IEEE Standard 610.12-1990) is seldom estimated. Assessing user satisfaction after the IS product is developed has limited value. Often the situation at this stage is non-remediable resulting in wasted efforts and loss of scarce resources. This paper investigates the feasibility of estimating user satisfaction even before the IS development has commenced. The method developed in the study was tested empirically and can be used in practice to estimate user satisfaction for a given requirement set and to obtain changes in estimates if requirement sub-sets are either included or excluded from it

Can we Take User Responses at Face Value? Exploring Users’ “Self-stated” and “Derived” Importance of Utilitarian versus Hedonic Software Features

Empirical studies in the product development literature have shown that the users’ self-reported importance of product attributes differs from the derived importance of product attributes obtained through the attributes’ correlation with an external criterion such as user satisfaction. However, no study has examined this phenomenon in the context of software products. This investigation is important because the present-day software requirement-prioritization techniques are based on capturing users’ self-reported importance of new software product features. As such, I develop a method in the study to capture the derived user importance of new features. The findings show that the implicitly derived importance of software attributes differs from the importance rankings assigned to them using requirement prioritization techniques. Further, I found that the implicitly derived user importance to identify the determinants of user satisfaction more accurately than the prioritization techniques based on self-stated user importance. I discuss the implications of this promising new approach for practice and future research in requirements prioritization

A USER CENTRIC TYPOLOGY OF IS REQUIREMENTS

With a boom in e-commerce, organizations have to contend with fulfilling IS (Information Systems) requirements of rapidlyrising numbers of external users in addition to internal users. However, currently there is a gap in IS literature. Virtually notypological scheme (TS) exists for IS user requirements. And a typology is widely acknowledged as the first step towardsunderstanding a phenomenon (Bailey, 1994). Using relevant research findings in the areas of job satisfaction, customersatisfaction and product quality this study explores the possibility of developing a TS of user requirements suitable to the IScontext. The aim is to provide researchers with a theoretical foundation for user-centric research in requirements engineering.The outcome of the study, iteratively reached, through literature review and experimentation, is encouraging. Therequirement types identified in the suggested TS are found to have both theoretical and empirical support with positiveimplications for research as well as practice

Modeling of cardiovascular system to simulate ventricular septal defect

The hemodynamics of the ventricular septa] defect is studied using a mathematical modeling technique. A twelve-compartment windkessel model of cardiovascular system is used to study the hemodynamics of the ventricular septal defect. The VSD is incorporated into the model via a parallel flow from the left to right ventricles (left-to-right shunt). The resistance to flow through the shunt is used to characterize the severity of the defect. Changes in the severity of the shunt flow produces changes in the ratio of pulmonary to systemic flow in the circulation. When the pulmonary to systemic flow ratio is more than 2:1, the defect is considered large based on current clinical guidelines. A safe-limit shunt hemodynamic resistance corresponding to a ratio of 2:1 was found to be 0.33 mmHg/ml/sec. This is high compared with the normal resistance of the pulmonary valve (0.0333 mmHg/ml/sec), mitral valve (0.0334 mmHg/ml/sec) and aortic valve (0.02 mmHg/ml/sec). The model also predicted that increasing pulmonary artery resistance reduces the work load on the heart. Despite the simplicity of the model, the results showed good agreement with available clinical and experimental data. This model provides a useful basis for analyzing the hemodynamics of ventricular septal defects

Do Reflexive Software Development Teams Perform Better?

Reflexivity, the extent to which teams reflect upon and modify their functioning, is widely recognized as a key factor influencing performance of work teams. The paper proposes that outcome interdependence, defined as the extent to which team members perceive that attainment of goals by their colleagues will facilitate their own goal achievement, will moderate the effect of team reflexivity on its performance. An empirical study with 332 team members of 34 software projects reveals that as predicted team reflexivity and outcome interdependence have both synergistic and antagonistic impacts on team performance. While high outcome interdependence magnified the positive impacts of team reflexivity on its effectiveness, an increase in team reflexivity at low outcome interdependence had a deleterious impact. However, an opposite effect was observed for team efficiency. Further, agile teams demonstrated higher outcome interdependence and team reflexivity, and thereby higher effectiveness, but lower efficiency, compared to teams adopting plan-drive methods of software development. Finally, in general, agile software development projects performed better than plan driven projects for innovative software development, while projects adopting plan-driven methods performed better than agile projects for routine software development

A Theory of Agile Software Development

The Agile Software Development Method (ASDM), in its present form, is guided by the Agile manifesto which consists of an Agile philosophy and a set of 12 principles. Despite the apparent effect of Agile philosophy and principles on the practice of software development around the world, neither its theoretical contribution nor its theoretical base has yet been articulated. In response to calls in literature, in this study we propose and articulate a theory of ASDM to describe and explain its effects. The theory is based on a synthesis of the key concepts underlying Agile principles and is expressed as a model of relationships. The article describes the theory formulation process and elaborates its key propositions. The limitations of the proposed theory and areas of future research are discussed

Teaching the Fundamental Attributes of IS Requirements

Requirements are the building blocks of IS products. “If you don’t get the requirements right, it doesn’t matter how well you do anything else” (Wiegers, 2004). However, generically, IS requirements are complex. They have multiple attributes. To extract business information relevant to building a product, classifying IS requirements into functional and non-functional categories is not enough. Requirement gatherers and analysts should be conversant with the multifaceted nature of IS requirements and their attributes. Yet, currently, the MIS and Computer Science programs do not impart this knowledge to their students. To fill the gap, this paper describes the concepts which would be useful to include as a module in a Requirements Engineering/ Management course. In addition, the article provides an illustrative example of how these concepts can be taught to give students a flavor of the real world

A Theory of Software Development Methodologies

In this study, it is proposed that software development methodologies (SDMs), when looked at from the perspective of job design, offers interesting and useful insights. The increasing popularity of agile methods over plan-driven methods in the 2000’s mirror the increasing popularity of non-Taylorist job designs over Taylorist job designs in the 1980’s, when jobs were redesigned by adopting self-managed teams and work groups, and creating employee programs like quality circles with salutary results. This study finds the widely accepted (JCM) Job Characteristic Model (Hackman and Qldham, 1976) for job design relevant in providing a theoretical foundation for the atheoretical domain of SDMs. JCM provides a structural framework for practice to understand what they are doing right and what needs to change by diagnosing the characteristics of the software development processes in need of improvement and making recommendations for tailoring SDMs for superior work outcomes