Client’s Readiness Assessment Success Factors for Outsourcing Software Projects

IT services such as software development, application maintenance, disaster recovery, help desk, network and operations are critical and highly demanded to better support the operations and management of organizations, especially in the government sector. The government sector faces various problems in providing IT services due to constraints or lack of knowledge, skills and expertise, human resource and technology. Thus, IT services need to be outsourced to overcome these problems. While the need for outsourcing has increased, reported weaknesses of the outsourcing activities are attributed to issues such as project rationale and the unclear role of the project team, lack of involvement of subject matter experts and users in the early stages, lack of control and lack of emphasis on quality. These issues indicate the low readiness level of the client’s organization to take up outsourcing activities. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the contributing readiness factors that clients should comply with in order to ensure the success of outsourcing software projects. Systematic reviews and content analysis were employed in order to propose a conceptual model. There are 27 factors identified and classified into 9 dimensions.  There are six internal dimensions were identified as contributing to the client’s readiness such as strategy, people, organization culture, process, technology and management whilst three other external dimensions include the government, market and people. The outcome of this study is a software outsourcing readiness model that will assist software practitioners in designing effective outsourcing software project strategies. The model is important since the agencies have difficulty in addressing their readiness level as part of the implementation plan and to avoid project failure

Considerations for Cost Estimation of Software Testing Outsourcing Projects

Software testing outsourcing appears to be the best alternative to acquire better software quality with competent ratification by extrinsic parties who have the capability to do it. Through the effort, organizations are peeking to promising benefits constitute in it such as current testing technology, experts, an abridgment of the project’s duration and more concentration on the main organisation’s activity. Along with these benefits, one important reason that encourages the decision is optimization of cost expenditure, which the strategy is perceived as a good move for a competitive organization. However, implementing such preference eventually results in a different outcome. Organizations have to bear the higher cost and incur losses of cost deviation from the expected estimation. The conflicting between cost and benefits raises an important concern of striving better cost estimation for such projects. This paper aims to address this interest by analyzing the existing literature in order to identify the contributing factors towards better cost estimation for software testing outsourcing project-context. The analysis is done using the content analysis method. The results could be divided into two categories; which are the cost items and contributing factors. Cost items consist of direct cost and indirect cost, which refers to the expenses for the project. While the contributing factors consist of people and environment, which are needed to produce accurate cost estimation. The findings provide an insight to excogitate attentively the essentials in the endeavor of improving the exactitude of cost estimation for software testing outsourcing project

Integrating Business Intelligence and Analytics in Managing Public Sector Performance: An Empirical Study

Business intelligence and analytics (BIA) is emerging as a critical area to boost organizational performance. Nowadays, data is not only important and valuable to the organization but recognized as necessary to spike the organization performance and success. As a result, many organizations spend a considerable amount of investment toward obtaining faster accurate information on a real-time basis. The previous study revealed that even though many organizations use business intelligence technologies for obtaining information, yet they still lack analytics implementation. Therefore, this study aims to discover the integrated implementation factors of business intelligence and analytics in managing organizational performance, particularly for organizations of the public sector. In achieving this, a depth literature review was carried out to identify the influential factors in the implementation of business intelligence, business analytics, and performance management. The subject matter experts in Business Intelligence (BI), Business Analytics (BA) and Organisational Performance Management (OPM) were invited to participate in this empirical study, which was conducted in Malaysia. The study was carried out through interviewing experts, in order to identify the essential factors for business intelligence and data analytics implementation. Twenty essential factors and sixty-four sub-factors were identified and analyzed to construct the integrated factors in BIA and OPM implementation. The result of the study revealed four integrated factors of the BIA and OPM implementation, such as skill, documentation, visualization, and work culture. Finance, data management, software, strategic planning, and decision-making are other factors integrated with BI, BA, and OPM respectively. Finally, this study illustrates the integrated factors in a visual form

Towards the Quality Factor of Software Maintenance Process: A Review

Software maintenance (SM) is classified as the common process of modifying a system or software product once it has been delivered to user. Different type of process applied to different type of applications and in certain stages of the processes involve adding new components to the existing system. Software maintenance process is a series of actions taken to overcome changes during the maintenance phase. To ensure the sustainable quality of software product throughout the software life cycle, a good mechanism in software maintenance process should be implemented. Most organization nowadays depend on software products to run their business operations. Thus, it is crucial to ensure the software applications operating in the organization are sustainable while preserving its quality in a long run. The kick-off study starts with identifying the quality factors related to maintainability dimension that affected software maintenance process. A comprehensive literature study is conducted to find related processes within maintainability sub-factors. The identified factors will be evaluated by practitioners who involve in maintaining process. The maintainer personnel help to prioritize the task and eliminate the insignificant activities during maintenance process. This paper focuses on maintainability quality factors and its sub-characteristics impact on software maintenance process

Pendekatan Mengurus Konflik dalam Rumah Tangga Bermadu: Approach in Managing Conflict in A Polygamous Household

Conflict is an unavoidable condition and is part and parcel of life in a household, especially in the lives of a polygamous household. This article aims to present the factors that contribute to household conflict and the approach in managing them. The data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with sampling techniques aimed at 5 sister-wives and 1 polygamous husband. The interview data transcriptions were analyzed to form themes and sub-themes and validation was performed using Cohen Kappa calculations. The data analysis revealed that the internal factors which trigger conflict are secretive marriage, lack of concern, jealousy, and misunderstanding, whereas the external factors are neglecting responsibility, difficulty in adjusting, and lack of communication. Among the approaches taken to manage this conflict are to hold discussions, to be generous, to be tolerant, to care for each other, to appreciate, to be patient, to accept the qada' and qadar of Allah Almighty, to protect the household’s honour, and to limit unimportant social activities. This finding can serve as a guide in the management of polygamous household conflicts. ABSTRAK Konflik adalah satu keadaan yang sukar dielakkan dan menjadi asam garam alam rumah tangga, lebih-lebih lagi dalam kehidupan rumah tangga bermadu. Artikel ini bertujuan mengemukakan faktor-faktor yang mencetuskan konflik rumah tangga bermadu serta pendekatan mengurusnya. Data diperolehi melalui temu bual separa berstruktur dengan teknik persampelan bertujuan iaitu terhadap 5 orang isteri bermadu dan 1 orang suami berpoligami. Transkripsi data temubual dianalisis bagi membentuk tema dan sub tema dan proses keesahan dilakukan menerusi pengiraan Cohen Kappa. Analisis data mengemukakan faktor dalaman yang mencetuskan konflik iaitu merahsiakan perkahwinan, kurang keprihatinan, perasaan cemburu dan salah faham manakala faktor luaran ialah pengabaian tanggungjawab, sukar membuat penyesuaian diri dan tiada komunikasi. Antara pendekatan yang dilakukan untuk mengurus konflik ialah mengadakan perbincangan, berlapang dada, bertolak ansur, menjaga hati, menghargai, sabar, redha dengan qada’ qadar Allah SWT, menjaga rahsia rumah tangga dan menghadkan aktiviti sosial yang tidak penting. Dapatan ini boleh djadikan panduan dalam pengurusan konflik rumah tangga bermadu.     &nbsp

Business intelligence and big data analytics for organizational performance management in public sector: the conceptual framework

The implementation of business intelligence (BI) and big data analytic (BDA) in managing organizational performance especially in public sector is important and critical. Weakness in managing the implementation strategy and the performance can result a massive impact to people and nation. Therefore, integration of BI and BDA are necessity to assist decision makers to increase efficiency in public services. However, preliminary study had identified limited implementation of BI and business analytics with organisation performance management (OPM) that led to inefficient performance in management practice. At the same time, large amount of data from various resources have headed to the emergent of big data analytics. Therefore, this research is proposed with the aim to develop an integrated framework of business intelligence and big data analytics (BI-BDA) for OPM. To achieve this goal, elements and sub elements of integrated BI-BDA and OPM implementation will be identified which focuses on big data analytics. Main outcome from this research is the new integrated framework of BI and BDA (BI-BDA) for OPM in public sector. The proposed framework is valuable for the practitioners as well as the stakeholders to ensure the OPM system to be more effective and dynamic