Managing Uncertainty in Organic Development Projects

A variety of organic models for systems development have been recommended for more than three decades. These models rest on the assumption that the uncertainty is high and additional team capabilities have to be developed during the project life-cycle. In contrast to the single-pass and document-driven waterfall model, organic models impose less rigid structure on the process, and they are geared toward exploration. We know little, however, about how uncertainties are managed over the life-cycle of organic systems development projects. In response to this challenge, we adapt task uncertainty theory to conduct a qualitative study of management practices in a project based on two-phase funding, staged delivery, and a combination of prototyping and specifications. We provide detailed narratives of how uncertainties emerged, interacted, and were addressed in the project. The subsequent analyses suggest that the adopted organic model facilitated management of uncertainty, but it also introduced surprising and demanding management challenges that were not accounted for in the model. The study adds to our understanding of management practices in organic systems development. It shows how combinations of offensive and defensive responses can help managers address the uncertainties they face. In addition, managers are advised to differentiate between developing know-what and know-how capabilities and to dynamically adapt their uncertainty response mode to fit a project’s evolving context

Nye løsninger sikrer fremtidig vækst i økologisk æbledyrkning

Den danske produktion af æbler er lille og ustabil pga. udbytte- og kvalitetstab forårsaget af skadedyr og sygdomme.Projektet FruitGrowth fokuserer på robuste sorter, nye innovative metoder til ukrudtsbekæmpelse og ny lagringsteknologi. Der arbejdes med løsninger på kort og langt sigt for de alvorligste skadevoldere, bl.a. nyttedyr i blomsterbræmmer og naturstoffer til bekæmpelse

ENCOURAGEing Results on ICT for Energy Efficient Buildings

21st IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation (ETFA 2016). 6 to 9, Sep, 2016. Berlin, Germany.This paper presents how the ICT infrastructure developed in the European ENCOURAGE project, centered around a message oriented middleware, enabled energy savings in buildings and households. The components of the middleware, as well as the supervisory control strategy, are overviewed, to support the presentation of the results and how they could be achieved. The main results are presented on three of the pilots of the project, a first one consisting of a single household, a second one of a residential neighborhood, and a third one in a university campus.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices

The notion that firms can improve their innovativeness by tapping users and customers for knowledge has become prominent in innovation studies. Similar arguments have been made in the marketing literature. We argue that neither literatures take sufficient account of firm organization. Specifically, firms that attempt to leverage user and customer knowledge in the context of innovation must design an internal organization appropriate to support it. This can be achieved in particular through the use of new organizational practices, notably, intensive vertical and lateral communication, rewarding employees for sharing and acquiring knowledge, and high levels of delegation of decision rights. In this paper, six hypotheses were developed and tested on a data set of 169 Danish firms drawn from a 2001 survey of the 1,000 largest firms in Denmark. A key result is that the link from customer knowledge to innovation is completely mediated by organizational practices

A randomized placebo-controlled trial of convalescent plasma for adults hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia

Passive immunotherapy with convalescent plasma may be the only available agent during the early phases of a pandemic. Here, we report safety and efficacy of high-titer convalescent plasma for COVID-19 pneumonia. Double-blinded randomized multicenter placebo-controlled trial of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia. The intervention was COVID-19 convalescent plasma and placebo was saline allocated 2:1. The primary outcome was clinical status 14 days after the intervention evaluated on a clinical ordinal scale. The trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.Gov, NCT04345289, 14/04/2020. The CCAP-2 trial was terminated prematurely due to futility. Of 147 patients randomized, we included 144 patients in the modified intention-to-treat population. The ordinal clinical status 14 days post-intervention was comparable between treatment groups (odds ratio (OR) 1.41, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.72–2.09). Results were consistent when evaluating clinical progression on an individual level 14 days after intervention (OR 1.09; 95% CI 0.46–1.73). No significant differences in length of hospital stay, admission to ICU, frequency of severe adverse events or all-cause mortality during follow-up were found between the intervention and the placebo group. Infusion of convalescent plasma did not influence clinical progression, survival or length of hospitalization in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia