Supporting the tailoring of the product owner role to hybrid development environments

Product Owners have an important role in the agile software development process. While the description of the Product Owner role heavily depends on its particular agile framework, the application of a single development framework is seldom in practice. In fact, customized hybrid development approaches, where frameworks/methods are tailored or combined with others, are state of the art. Although it is common knowledge that processes need to be tailored to project needs, as they become, otherwise, a project risk - the tailoring of the Product Owner role has been neglected in research so far. Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge about how to tailor the Product Owner role to hybrid development environments. As this knowledge gap can put projects in a hybrid environment to a risk, the goal of this thesis is to close this gap. To achieve this, a knowledge-base of Product Owner peculiarities needs to be established and consolidated with knowledge from the area of Software Process Tailoring. To generate the knowledge-base of the Product Owner peculiarities, a number of case studies as well as a systematic mapping study was conducted to identify Product Owner tasks, characteristics and structures in hybrid development environments. This resulted in the identification of 13 frequently conducted tasks, 6 favorable characteristics and 12 different structures of Product Owners that apply in hybrid development environments. From the area of Software Process Tailoring, 14 influencing factors on the Product Owner role were extracted along with its respective action items. The consolidation of this knowledge results in a catalog which combines the influencing factors, the Product Owner tasks, characteristics & structures as well as the respective implications on the Product Owner role according to the research results of this thesis. Based on this catalog, any project environment can be assessed and distinct recommendations for a tailored Product Owner role can be deduced. Overall, this thesis generated 84 different recommendations on how to tailor the Product Owner role to a particular hybrid development. With this, so far missing knowledge was gained to systematically support the tailoring of the Product Owner role to hybrid development environments and thus, to support projects to complete successfully. To share the gained knowledge to other researchers as well as practitioners, this thesis also provides an expert system in the form of a proof of concept web-application. The so-called Hybrid Product Owner (short: HyPrO) Expert System represents the research results of this thesis. Its user-friendly interface enables the user to assess the project environment and displays the respective recommendations. The HyPrO Expert System validated the results of this thesis, as it surpassed human experts by providing more comprehensive recommendations in a comparative case study

Rethinking Media Synchronicity Theory: Examining the Cooperative Assumption

Much of information systems (IS) literature assumes team members have completely aligned goals. In practice, people interpret goals to suit personal agendas, even when they are collaborating. This motivates our examination of the cooperative assumption in Media Synchronicity Theory (MST)-”a leading IS theory of communication performance. We assess the boundaries of MST by relaxing the assumption of cooperation. Our results support MST for explaining communication and task performance in a cooperative context. However, MST was insufficient to capture how media capabilities influence performance in a non-cooperative context. Our study shows that relaxing the assumption of cooperation changes MST in profound ways-”altering which media capabilities are central to the model and the very processes that underlie communication

Hype or Help? A Longitudinal Field Study of Virtual World Use for Team Collaboration

Despite increasing organizational interest and investment in virtual worlds (VWs), there is a lack of research on the benefits of VWs. When and how does the use of VW systems engender better organizational outcomes than traditional collaborative technologies? This paper investigates the value of VWs for team collaboration. Team collaboration is particularly relevant in studying VWs given the rich interactive nature of VWs and an increasing organizational reliance on virtual teamwork. To understand the value of VW use for team collaboration, we examine the relationship between a team’s disposition toward IT, their general disposition (personality) and VW use in influencing team cohesion and performance. We conducted a field study that compares two collaborative technology systems – one that is based on a traditional desktop metaphor and one that is grounded in the principles of a virtual world. We tracked the use of the systems for one year. We analyzed data at the team level and the results generally support our model, with agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, and computer self-efficacy interacting with time and technology type to positively influence team technology use. We also found that the use of the virtual world system positively influenced the relationship between technology use and team cohesion, which, in turn, predicts team performance. The model explains 57 percent, 21 percent, and 24 percent of the variance in team technology use, team cohesion, and team performance, respectively

Path-creating networks in the field of next generation lithography: outline of a research project

Der Beitrag stellt ein Forschungsprojekt vor, das die möglichen technologischen Pfade bei der Entwicklung von Halbleitern untersucht, die schließlich zu einer Produktion, also zu einer Umsetzung des technologischen Fortschritts, führen. An solch einem Vorgang sind Personen mit unterschiedlichem wissenschaftlichem Hintergrund (optische Physik, Elektrotechnik, Chemie) und verschiedene Gesellschaftsbereiche (Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Staat) beteiligt. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt sich nun die Ausgangsfrage des Projektes, in welchem Umfang, unter welchen Bedingungen und Organisations-Netzwerken die Kreation eines neuen technologischen Pfades möglich ist. In das Thema einführend, wird zunächst der Forschungsstand zum Zusammenhang zwischen der Theorie der Pfadabhängigkeit und dem Konzept der Pfadkreation im Prozess der Technologieentwicklung beschrieben. Auf dieser Grundlage folgt die Konzeptionalisierung des dargestellten Forschungsprojektes. Im Anschluss wird das empirische Untersuchungsfeld in seinen Grundzügen präsentiert: die Entwicklung einer neuen Lithographie-Generation für Halbleiter mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der unterschiedlichen technologischen Pfade, die als realisierbar anzusehen sind. So gilt es, bei der Betrachtung der Pfadkreation von technologischen Neuerungen die Entwicklung reflexiver interorganisationaler Netzwerke zu betrachten. Gemäß der spezifischen Forschungsfragen werden abschließend das Forschungsdesign und die methodologische Vorgehensweise präsentiert. So ist das Projekt auf den Zeitraum von 2004 bis 2009 zugeschnitten und umfasst drei Interviewphasen. Auf diese Weise kann der Innovationsprozess der nächsten Lithographie-Generation in Realzeit bis zur voraussichtlichen Produktion dieser neuen Systemtechnologie untersucht werden. (ICG2

The Dynamics of Active Embedding and Field Structuration

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high- skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations. Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities

Securing access to lower-cost talent globally: The dynamics of active embedding and field structuration

This article examines how multinational corporations shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China illustrate how multinational corporations engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. Multinational corporations thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations. The findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and are shaped by multinational corporation activities