A Mixed Mode Analysis of the Impact of Requirement Volatility on Software Project Success

Requirement volatility has been identified as a significant risk factor behind software project success. This paper describes our findings of a 2-phase study comprising of interviews and surveys on the preparedness of organizations in managing requirement volatility and the resultant effect on project success and failure. Findings illuminate on the current level of awareness and management response to the problem of requirement volatility affecting software projects. The subjective treatment of project success/failure is brought out, and the association with requirement volatility is explored. Results are expected to lead to better governance mechanisms and improve project success rates under requirement volatility

A Specification for Designing Requirement Prioritization Artifacts

The importance of prioritizing requirements stems from the fact that not all requirements can usually be met with available time and resource constraints. Although several papers have been published in this domain, they mainly focus on descriptive research endeavors to suggest different requirement prioritization approaches. Prescriptive research dealing with design science for a systematic and holistic understanding of the prioritization process is still scarce. The gap motivates our research, which aims at arriving at a set of design principles that explains the form and function of software requirement prioritization artifacts. We resort to a non-experimental approach using content analysis to identify and analyze articles on requirement prioritization published up to 2009 in order to arrive at the set of initial design principles. This subsequently is evaluated based on expert feedbacks. We close the paper by indicating our research continuation plans, and highlighting issues for future considerations

A SYSTEMS VIEW OF SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT VOLATILITY

Mitigating the risk due to requirement volatility requires that we treat this as a systemic problem and understand what handles project managers can manipulate for management of project risk. In this paper we propose a systems view of this problem using existing theory on user involvement and qualitative research conducted among experienced project managers. Augmenting an existing model of software project dynamics with elements of our understanding, we show that requirement volatility can occur as an outcome of uncontrolled user involvement defeating the very purpose for which user involvement is solicited. Project managers normally treat user involvement as a pre-requisite for obtaining software project success. What-if analysis with the model generates patterns of requirement volatility reported in literature. These insights into the relationship among user involvement, requirement volatility, and project performance are expected to assist project managers in devising user management strategies for controlling project risk

Planning for Digital Transformation: Implications for Institutional Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) and its management have received considerable attention from the academic and practical audience. Despite a very wide treatment on EA, research on EA in the academic sector has not received similar attention till date. There is also a growing interest on digital transformation with evidences suggesting that academic institutions have increased their investment into digital technology which prompts a need to reflect on how this technology affects these institutions and the educational processes. In the dissertation, we propose to link these concerns based on three research issues, through which we explore the objectives an academic institute wants to achieve in planning for digital transformation and the necessary institutional readiness factors of a digital enterprise architecture, and then propose a design framework to support the endeavour. The dissertation employs both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Implications for research and practice are also delineated at the end

Understanding Technology Transition at the Individual Level

The present era is witness to numerous instances of new technologies constantly replacing those that are being used, a phenomenon coined as technology transition. In this research, based on existing evidences, we propose a theoretical model to explain technology transition from an individual user’s perspective. Results based on validation of the proposed model based on survey data identifies key factors that may influence an individual’s intention to transition from a conventional computing device to a tablet computer. The findings have implications to both theory and practice which have been also delineated. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol10/iss3/2

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Identifying the Motives for User Participation in Information System Projects

The importance of user participation in information systems development has received a lot of attention from researchers. While prior research efforts have clarified many issues related to user participation, the reasons behind user’s participation in IS projects are still unexplored. The study raises the question of what are the different motives for user participation in IS project. The investigation uses multivariate data analysis techniques to propose a dimensional representation of user participation motives in the context of IS projects. The results identify five user participation motives i.e. nature of association, techno centric activity, user centric activity, user interest, and project importance. The results of the study contribute to both theory and practice by segregating the different dimensions of user participation motives that may serve as cues in designing effective user integration mechanisms. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol9/iss3/5

Influence of Process Models on Requirement Volatility, and Strategies for its Management – An Empirical Investigation

The current research aims to investigate the preparedness among organizations in managing requirement volatility, and how it is influenced by process factors characterizing a software project. A combination of interviews and survey organized in two phases has been used to assess the level of awareness related to requirement volatility, and the current level of organizational competencies in dealing with the problem. Frameworks regarded suitable for handling volatility has been presented. Factors governing process model selection and usage and their applicability under requirement volatility have also been explored. Concerns were raised over the high percentage of projects found affected because of requirement volatility. Two widely used approaches for managing projects under volatility were found to be involving the business side and resorting to iterative project development. Difference in usage of the approaches based on process models could be observed. Influence of business/customers, project complexity and managerial preferences emerged as the top three factors guiding process model selection. The variation of these factors under requirement volatility has been pointed out. The results also highlight incongruence between perception and practice related to process model usage in projects endangered because of requirement volatility

Exploring User Participation Motives in Information System Projects

The importance of user participation in information systems (IS) development has received a lot of attention from researchers. While prior research efforts have clarified many issues related to user participation, the reasons behind user’s participation in IS projects are still unexplored. The study raises the question of what are the various motives for user participation in IS project? We propose a sequential exploratory strategy consisting of content analysis of focus group interviews in the first phase to be followed up by multivariate data analysis of survey data in the second phase in order to arrive at a dimensional representation of user participation motives. In this research-in-progress paper, we describe and report on the ongoing first phase. The preliminary results demonstrate the initial characterization of user participation motives to be consolidated and used subsequently for development of survey instruments for subsequent validation. The final results offer possibilities of both theoretical and practical contributions which are also delineated