Software Development Process Change Management: Implementation of ASDM

Agile software development methodologies have been receiving a lot of attention in recent times. Although doubts have been cast on the efficacy of these methods for very large projects, some of the techniques and practices they advocate are very appealing and are being seriously considered by many organizations. It is our contention that many of these practices are antithetical to the orthodoxy of prevailing software approaches. In particular, nontrivial reconfigurations of organizational form, management practices, and workflows have to be undergone to successfully integrate agile principles into existing software development practices. This paper draws on the organizational change management literature to argue that the nature of change involved is resonant of the efforts to introduce Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in organizations. The magnitude of the change as well as the implications of migrating to agile methodologies is also presented

Exploring the Structure of Software Development Research: A Preliminary Text Analysis

Software development projects are critical to organizations when seeking operational efficiencies, competitive advantage, or both. In this research we use text analytics and bibliometrics to identify the key topics of software development that were studied in IS research published in four top IS journals. We also discuss the distribution of various topics across years and the underlying cluster groupings

Intellectual Structure of Business Analytics in Information Systems

Business Analytics is arguably the most dominant topic of discussion among both academics and practitioners. As organizations scramble to derive insights from rapidly growing data, we see an exponential growth in the number of articles related to Business Analytics. The purpose of this article is to examine the conceptual foundations of the field of analytics based on an analysis of articles that have appeared in the IS senior scholars’ basket of eight journals during the last 25 years (1992 - 2016). Using a combination of citation analysis and text mining, our study: (a) reveals the disciplines that influence Business Analytics research in information systems; and (b) explicates dominant themes latent in the corpus. Concepts related to Predictive Analytics, Business Intelligence, the Web, IT Management, Firm Performance and Decision Support were found to be at the heart of analytics research conducted by IS scholars in the basket of eight journals

Assessing Personality Profiles of Software Developers in Agile Development Teams

Agile methodologies are changing the way we develop software. Their emphasis on team-oriented development, joint code ownership, and reliance on people rather than predefined processes to guide activities, is transforming software development into a socio-technical process. As methodologies become increasingly more people and team-oriented, there is an urgent need to investigate the personality profiles of software developers and their likely impact on the productivity of the development team. A review of the IS research literature on personality studies found Jungian typology operationalized as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to be the most popular approach for assessing personality profiles. We compared the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, which is currently gaining popularity among personality psychologists, with MBTI. Our analysis, based on extant research literature in personality psychology and group behavior, suggests that FFM not only provides better measures for all factors that are measured by MBTI, but it also allows us to assess Neuroticism, an important personality trait that is of interest to researchers studying work groups, such as the agile development team. Our finding has important implications for researchers studying the agile development process. It is also highly relevant to studies investigating the personality profiles of IS professionals. Thus, our study attempts to bring in fresh insights from Personality Psychology, our reference discipline, to enrich IS research

Mob Programming – A Promising Innovation in the Agile Toolkit

Mob programming is a new agile practice that is attracting the attention of software community. This paper presents an overview of mob programming, its benefits and risks identified by its proponents and early adopters and suggests areas for future academic research that could help establish its efficacy and theoretical rationale. The paper also presents the results of text analysis done on the extant literature on the subject

Special Theme of Research in Information Systems Analysis and Design -III Teaching Systems Analysis and Design: A Case for the Object Oriented Approach

Object oriented technologies are widely accepted in software development. A survey of universities run in 2005 found that most schools recognize the need to teach OO languages. However, they continue to teach structured analysis and design. In this article we argue that this approach is a fundamental conceptual mismatch. Further, we contend that a pure OO curriculum involving OO languages and OO analysis and design is advisable in our efforts to equip our students with the knowledge to be successful as software developers. We offer ways to transition to a curriculum that emphasizes the OO philosophy of development

Performance Outcomes of Test-Driven Development: An Experimental Investigation

Despite the growing popularity of test-driven development (TDD), there is no empirical confirmation of the benefits that this contemporary practice confers on its users. Prior research findings on its efficacy have largely been inconclusive. We conducted a laboratory experiment to assess the impact of TDD on software quality and task satisfaction. Additionally, we investigated the productivity aspect of TDD as compared to the traditional test-last method of software development. Results indicate that software quality and task satisfaction are significantly improved when TDD is used. Despite the additional requirements of testing, TDD is not more resource intensive than the test-last method. We also examined TDD’s impact on learning post hoc and discuss the implications of our findings and directions for future research

Advances in Social Media Research:Past, Present and Future

Social media comprises communication websites that facilitate relationship forming between users from diverse backgrounds, resulting in a rich social structure. User generated content encourages inquiry and decision-making. Given the relevance of social media to various stakeholders, it has received significant attention from researchers of various fields, including information systems. There exists no comprehensive review that integrates and synthesises the findings of literature on social media. This study discusses the findings of 132 papers (in selected IS journals) on social media and social networking published between 1997 and 2017. Most papers reviewed here examine the behavioural side of social media, investigate the aspect of reviews and recommendations, and study its integration for organizational purposes. Furthermore, many studies have investigated the viability of online communities/social media as a marketing medium, while others have explored various aspects of social media, including the risks associated with its use, the value that it creates, and the negative stigma attached to it within workplaces. The use of social media for information sharing during critical events as well as for seeking and/or rendering help has also been investigated in prior research. Other contexts include political and public administration, and the comparison between traditional and social media. Overall, our study identifies multiple emergent themes in the existing corpus, thereby furthering our understanding of advances in social media research. The integrated view of the extant literature that our study presents can help avoid duplication by future researchers, whilst offering fruitful lines of enquiry to help shape research for this emerging field

Revolution or Evolution? A Comparison of Object-Oriented and Structured Systems Development Methods

This paper examines the changes engendered when moving from a structured to an objectoriented systems development approach and reconciles the differing views concerning whether 1 Ron Weber was the accepting senior editor for this paper. this represents an evolutionary or revolutionary change. Author co-citation analysis is used to elucidate the ideational and conceptual relationships between the two approaches. The difference in conceptual distance at the analysis and design level compared to that at the programming level is explained using Henderson’s framework for organizational change. The conceptual shift during analysis and design is considered architectural, whereas for programming it is deemed merely incremental. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for improving the likelihood of success in the adoption of object-oriented systems development methods are provided