Supporting global software development in open source ecosystems: a role for actability in the Pragmatic Web

New forms of collaboration between organizations based on open source principles are rapidly emerging. The collaboration is typically done in a spirit of co-opetition whereby companies, often SMEs, share cost and risk by developing software jointly and openly. The paper elaborates how this emerging phenomenon of open source ecosystems can be understood from the perspective of actability and the Pragmatic Web. The concept of open source ecosystems as a form of global software development is explored and actability is presented as a useful concept for articulating design criteria for the required collaborative tools. In doing so, a possible research agenda for pragmatic web research in this domain is outlined

Towards better understanding of agile values in global software development

Globally distributed software development (GSD) and agile methods are two current and important trends in software and systems engineering. While agile methods seem to cope well with increasingly changing business environments, it is far from obvious how these light-weight processes can best contribute to GSD. In this paper, method rationale is proposed as an analytical tool to understand the values that underpin agile methods and how these map to the GSD domain. Specifically, the paper presents an initial analysis of the values and goals embraced by the ‘agile manifesto’ and compares briefly with partial results from an ongoing study on the use of agile methods in GSD

Grounding through operationalization: constructing tangible theory in IS research

The research interests of information systems (IS) researchers often lead to a tension between theory development on the one hand and practical application, such as the implementation of computer applications or business processes, on the other. This tension is, for example, made manifest in the various action research approaches typically used in IS research. This paper presents an approach to IS research that aims to maintain a link between the abstract and the concrete in order to construct ‘tangible theory’. The approach is based on a perspective referred to as socio-instrumental pragmatism and on the concept of grounding knowledge in three different ways: internal grounding, external theoretical grounding, and empirical grounding. Specifically, the suggested approach puts forward the idea of operationalization of abstract knowledge into concrete forms that are more directly applicable in practice

CALIBRE at the crest of European open source software wave

CALIBRE (Co-ordination Action for Libre Software)l, a EUR I.S million EU-funded project which aims to revolutionise how European industry leverages software and services, was officially launched on Friday 10 September 2004 in Ireland. CALIBRE comprises an interdisciplinary consortium of 12 academic and industrial research teams from Ireland, France, Ital y, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and China

Method-user-centred method configuration

Method engineering approaches are often based on the assumption that method users are able to explicitly express their situational method requirements. However, similar to software requirements,situational method requirements are often vague and hard to explicate. In this paper we address the issue of involving method users early during method configuration. This is done through borrowing ideas from user-centred design and prototyping and implementing them on the method engineering layer in a computerized tool support. This tool has proven useful in eliciting situational method requirements in a continuously ongoing dialog with the method users during configuration work-shops

On the suitability of particular software development roles to global software development

Global software development surfaces various challenges and benefits that are not always present in co-located teams. The purpose of this paper is to explore a set of propositions that address the suitability of four different software development roles to Global software development (GSD). A qualitative research approach was applied to collaborations undertaken between remote counterparts playing the same development role in various GSD projects. Specific development roles were considered: business analyst, designer, developer and development-support. A framework that details the benefits and challenges of GSD was used as a basis for this research. Suitability of a role to GSD is based upon the balance of challenges and benefits discovered in that role’s case. Finally, opportunities for future research are presented

IT artefacts as socio-pragmatic instruments – towards an integration of the pragmatic, social, semiotic and technical

Development and implementation of an information system (IS) is a very demanding task, and many times the expectations from such endeavours are not met. Unexpected negative effects often arise while anticipated positive effects fail to appear. There are many attempts to explain IS failures in general terms. Some of them refer to a socio-technical gap; a gap between what is socially required and what is technically feasible (e.g. Ackerman, 2002). Such explanations tend to make a sharp differentiation between the social and the technical. For example in the socio-technical tradition represented by Mumford & Weir (1979) there are discussions about balancing the technical system and the social system. This is built upon a view that computerized Information systems are technical systems with social and organizational effects and that there exist a “serving system” to support a “system to be served” (Champion & Stowell, 2002). There are criticisms towards such a conceptualization. For example Nurminen (1988, p 82) writes “by removing the social dimension from the systems entity, we imply that the technical system is basically non-social”. In the same spirit, Goldkuhl & Lyytinen (1982) suggest that the traditional view “technical systems with social Implications” should be inverted to “social systems, only technically implemented”. As pointed out by Mead (1934): “Language does not simply symbolize a situation or object which is already there in advance – it makes possible the existence or appearance of that situation or object, for it is part of the mechanism whereby that situation or object is created.” Instead of a separation into a social realm (humans acting in the IS environment) and technical realm (the IS), another approach is preferred. Using “social” and “technical” as dimensions of the realms to study. The theoretical way to proceed is to articulate a common theory for both the IS and its organizational context. The concepts of social and technical are however not found to be sufficient. The purpose of this short paper is to outline a theory appropriate for interpretation, description, explanation and evaluation of the interaction between information systems and their organizational context. The developed theory involves besides “social” and “technical” also generic constructs as “instrumental”, “semiotic” and “pragmatic”. We call this theory socio-instrumental pragmatism, aligning with the work of Goldkuhl (2002). For illustrative purposes we will use a simple example of an IS. The example is brought from an extensive empirical study. This study involves an action research endeavour including development of an IS in an eldercare setting. The IS and its supported workpractice were developed through a participatory design approach. We will not describe this case study in any detail; but rather use part of the developed system and the workpractice in order to illustrate our theoretical endeavour

Expectations between parties playing similar roles in global software development: a psychological contract perspective.

Global software development (GSD), as a mode of information systems development, surfaces various challenges and benefits that are not always present in co-located teams. A psychological contract reflects the written and unwritten expectations, or obligations, of collaborating parties in a transaction. This paper uncovers a set of candidate obligations that make up the psychological contract of parties collaborating in global software development efforts (the GSD psychological contract). Particular focus is applied to certain development roles: business analyst, designer, developer and development-support. A qualitative research approach is employed against various incidents that occurred in development projects performed by a global software product development organization. Finally, opportunities for future research are presented

Methods as action knowledge:exploring the concept of method rationale in method construction, tailoring and use

Systems development methods are used to express and communicate knowledge about systems and software development processes; i.e. methods encapsulate knowledge. Since methods encapsulate knowledge, they also encapsulate rationale. Rationale can in this context be understood as the reasons and arguments for particular method prescriptions. In this paper we show how the combination of two different aspects of method rationale can be used to shed some light on the communication and apprehension of methods in systems development. This is done by way of clarifying how method rationale is present at three different levels of method existence. By mapping existing research on methods onto this model, we conclude the paper by pointing at some research areas that deserve attention and where method rationale could be used as an important analytic too

Socio-instrumental usability: IT is all about social action

Usability is an important concept that seems to receive less attention than it deserves outside of the core Human-Computer Interaction community. The reason for this apparent lack of interest may stem from an overly instrumental orientation towards usability that does not appeal to more socially oriented researchers. Three central criteria for usability, as reflected in the contemporary literature, are the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which users can achieve specified goals. These criteria are often expressed in terms of achieving goals, which, at least tacitly, seem to be restricted to goals related to an instrumental view on the use of IT. To broaden this view, the paper elaborates on how the concept of usability can be understood and used within a social action context. How social goals are related to the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction criteria is addressed specifically. It is argued that in order to truly understand usability, we must consider both instrumental and social goals since their combination constitute a fundamental part of the social action context in which systems are used. Both instrumental and social goals affect the way systems and usesituations are designed and conceived. Interpreting usability from this broad social action perspective may be a way to make the concept more accepted throughout the wide variety of areas dealing with the design of IT systems