Towards a Theory of Trusted Performance in Software Development Projects

Within the software development discipline, teams are created and disintegrated at an extremely rapid pace. IT organizations are therefore looking at ways to create an environment of greater performance in a shorter period of time. This paper integrates organizational trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) into the research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to help more clearly understand the relationships that are performance impacting. This integration called the “theory of trusted performance” should be able to be leveraged to deliver greater performance within an organization. This paper ends with a brief discussion of practical ways organizational leaders can leverage this model for software development and suggests ways to test this model

Global Project Management - Chinese and American Cultural Differences

This paper investigates cultural differences between Chinese and American project managers in the IT industry through a pilot study of interviewing six professional project managers with qualitative and quantitative questions. The interview questions were developed to compare core Chinese values and cultural styles with American cultural styles. Initial results found that Chinese and American project managers in the IT industry have similar ideas regarding resistance to corruption but have differences toward the idea of trustworthiness, harmony, avoiding confrontation, and non- competition

Ethical Issues in the Software Quality Assurance Function

The responsibility for correct execution of software, as well as its fitness in any given setting, becomes increasingly complex, especially when the software impacts life and death. This paper addresses the role of the software quality assurance (SQA) function and explores the ethics of the SQA organization as the last point of contact between the software manufacturer and the consumers of the software application. We explore the range of potential ethical issues, possible mitigation strategies, and responsibilities to disclose findings to both software manufacturers and consumers of software applications

Mitigating the Adversity of Outsourcing: Outsourcing from the Employee’s Perspective

This paper explores how outsourcing activities and decisions put the well-being of the remaining employees at risk, ultimately affecting productivity and creating further costs to the employer. It highlights four potential threats to remaining employees: trust, job satisfaction, motivation, and stress. The paper provides several suggestions for mitigating these impacts, including communication to retain trust, acting ethically to ensure satisfied employees, seeking an understanding of employee perspectives to build employee motivation, and providing good planning along with training and development to reduce employee stress

Integrating Human Computer Interaction Testing into the Medical Device Approval Process

Medical devices that utilize computer software are becoming common place in today’s health care environment. In this paper we examine device failures in the area of the human computer interaction—a failure of the interface between the hardware/software in the medical device, and the person using the device. We make the case that human computer interaction testing—starting early on in the product development life cycle—should be required before medical devices are approved by the FDA. Use of human computer interaction testing of medical devices can improve device quality and user experience, and most importantly, has the potential to reduce serious health care outcome

The Development of a Thorough Test Plan in the Analysis Phase leading to more Successful Software Development Projects

A critical problem in many software development projects is missing some important requirements until late in the development life cycle. Building a thorough test plan very early in the product development cycle has the potential for early discovery of missing requirements with attendant reduction in project costs and schedule improvement. Key to the success of this approach is the understanding that mature tests often go beyond the documented requirements for applications and into exploring the boundaries of the application domain where missing requirements are often uncovered. In addition, the test methodology of looking at features from multiple users’ perspectives and less common use cases, shed light on misinterpreted and/or misunderstood requirements

A Full Life Cycle Defect Process Model That Supports Defect Tracking, Software Product Cycles, And Test Iterations

There are a variety of models, methods and tools to help organizations manage defects found in the development of software. Defect tracking and processing must be integrated in the project life cycle and the testing process for software. This paper reviews a number of defect models and proposes the Full Life Cycle Defect Process model to manage defects that supports defect, project, and test processes. We describe the various states in our model and provide examples of various scenarios and paths through the model

Review of IT Offshore Outsourcing issues

This paper attempts to take an objective look at offshore outsourcing within the information technology (IT) industry. Background material is provided to establish a clear definition and context for the discussion. Basic benefits, risks, and trends are identified and domestic market impacts are explored

The Development of a Thorough Test Plan in the Analysis Phase Leading to more Successful Software Development Projects

A critical problem in many software development projects is missing some important requirements until late in the development life cycle. The impact of a missing or misunderstood requirement can add to the project cost and delay product launch due to rework both of the application code, documentation updates, and addition test passes. Building a thorough test plan very early in the product development cycle has the potential for early discovery of missing requirements with attendant reduction in project costs and schedule improvement. In this paper we discuss some of the causative factors of how and why requirements can be missed in software development projects and show how the early formulation of a test plan can directly address these factors. Key to the success of this approach is the understanding that mature tests often go beyond the documented requirements for applications and into exploring the boundaries of the application domain where missing requirements can often be uncovered. In addition the test methodology of looking at features from multiple users\u27 perspectives and less common use cases, shed light on misinterpreted and/or misunderstood requirements

Integrating Failure Mode Effect Analysis into the Medical Device Approval Process

Medical devices that utilize computer software are becoming common place in today’s health care environment. Device failures can have life threatening consequences. The medical device approval process issued by the FDA should enhance the software testing requirements. In this paper we suggest that Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FEMA) should be a standard component in the testing of software in medical devices that can have life threatening consequences