Digital Commons Network^™

Agile Software Development: Creating A Cost Of Delay Framework For Air Force Software Factories, J. Goljan, Jonathan D. Ritschel, Scott Drylie, Edward D. White

Faculty Publications

The Air Force software development environment is experiencing a paradigm shift. The 2019 Defense Innovation Board concluded that speed and cycle time must become the most important software metrics if the US military is to maintain its advantage over adversaries.¹ This article proposes utilizing a cost-o­f-d­elay (CoD) framework to prioritize projects toward optimizing readiness. Cost-­of-d­elay is defined as the economic impact resulting from a delaying product delivery or, said another way, opportunity cost. In principle, CoD assesses the negative impacts resulting from changes to the priority of a project.

Tools To Improve Interruption Management, Matthew R. Munns

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Interruptions carry a high cost, especially to software developers. To prevent unnecessary interruptions, several technologies are being explored that can help manage the timing of interruptions, such as displaying the interruptibility of a worker to their peers. Relatively simple algorithms utilizing computer interaction data have been created and used successfully in the workplace, while technology using bio-metric emotion recognition to detect the interruptibility of a user is also being developed.

Developmental Test And Requirements Best Practices Of Successful Information Systems Efforts Using Agile Methods, Jeremy D. Kramer, Torrey J. Wagner

Faculty Publications

This article provides insights into the current state of developmental testing (DT) and requirements management in Department of Defense information systems employing Agile development. The authors describe the study methodology and provide an overview of Agile development and testing. Insights are described for requirements, detailed planning, test execution, and reporting. This work articulates best practices related to DT and requirements management strategies for programs employing modernized Software Development Life Cycle practices.

Artificial Intelligence And It Professionals, Sunil Mithas, Thomas Kude, Jonathan W. Whitaker

Management Faculty Publications

How will continuing developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning influence IT professionals? This article approaches this question by identifying the factors that influence the demand for software developers and IT professionals, describing how these factors relate to AI, and articulating the likely impact on IT professionals.

Project Manager’S Perception Of Agile Methods Success, Ankit Sachdeva

Dissertations and Theses

Since it’s inception in 1970, the Waterfall model has been widely accepted and proven to be quite effective in the software technology development. As years have passed, there has been a rise in the number of technology companies and such rapid expansion in the software industry has called for frequent changes and swift delivery. To cope up with the increasing expectations, companies started to adopt new development processes and as a result, businesses witnessed several different process and Agile development methodologies like Scrum, Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, to name a few. Companies were able to effectively work with change …

The Impact Of Requirements Management Documentation On Software Project Outcomes In Health Care, Sujatha Alla, Pilar Pazos, Rolando Delaguila

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Despite considerable time and resources spent on the initiation phase of software projects, discrepancies often exist between formal project documentation, customer requirements, and final project specifications. Such discrepancies in the requirements management process can have a very negative impact on final project outcomes. The Business Requirements Document (BRD) constitutes the formal software requirements documentation, which typically includes stakeholders’ needs and expectations and project scope while providing a clear project roadmap and project plan. According to IEEE standards, a BRD should be a structured document that includes specific elements such as functional and technical requirements while incorporating certain traits such as …

Choice Of Agile Methodologies In Software Development: A Vendor Perspective, Sriram Rajagopalan, Saji K. Mathew

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The purpose of this research was to develop understanding about how vendor firms make choice about agile methodologies in software projects and their fit. Two analytical frameworks were developed from extant literature and the findings were compared with real world decisions. Framework 1 showed that the choice of XP for one project was not supported by the guidelines given by the framework. The choices of SCRUM for other two projects, were partially supported. Analysis using the framework 2 showed that except one XP project, all others had sufficient project management support, limited scope for adaptability and had prominence for rules.

Managing Technical Debt: Insights From Recent Empirical Evidence, Narayan Ramasubbu, Chris F. Kemerer, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Technical debt refers to maintenance obligations that software teams accumulate as a result of their actions. Empirical research has led researchers to suggest three dimensions along which software development teams should map their technical-debt metrics: customer satisfaction needs, reliability needs, and the probability of technology disruption.

The Interplay Among Software Volatility, Complexity And Development Outcomes: Evidence From Open Source Software, Jorge A. Colazo

School of Business Faculty Research

The study posits a mediating role of software complexity in the association between software volatility and different software development outcomes. Empirical tests using data from 326 open source software projects support such a partial mediating role of software complexity in the association between software volatility and development outcomes. Archival data is tested using an ordinary least squares mediated model. The paper uses productivity, defect count and development speed as dependent variables.

Performance Implications Of Stage-Wise Lead User Participation In Software Development Problem Solving, Jorge A. Colazo

School of Business Faculty Research

The problem-solving view of new product development sees the innovation process as a series of problem-solving loops broken down into three stages: problem detection, analysis and removal. We link this framework with lead user-driven innovation regarding software and show that effort by lead users (LUs) in each stage of the innovation problem solving process is, in varying degrees, associated with the source code’s quality, the productivity of the development process and the software’s popularity. We also test whether front loading the problem solving process is associated with development performance and we find that front loading is associated with increased code …

Alignment Within The Software Development Unit: Assessing Structural And Relational Dimensions Between Testing And Development, Jasbir Dhaliwal, Colin Onita, Robin Poston, Xihui Zhang

Faculty Publications

Just as business-IT alignment has received significant focus as a strategic concern in the IS literature, it is also important to consider internal alignment between the diverse subunits within the IT organization. This study investigates alignment between developers and testers in software development to understand alignment within the IT unit. Prior evidence of tension between these sub-groups (and others as well) suggests that all is not necessarily well within the IT organization. Misalignment within the IT unit can certainly make it difficult for the IT unit to add strategic value to the organization. This study is an important initial step …

The Role Of Leadership In Facilitating The Performance Of Dispersed Teamwork, Jaime Beth Newell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A mature body of research on leadership has investigated the impact of a variety of leadership behaviors and styles on team performance. This corpus of work is built on an assumption that team leaders can motivate, direct, and monitor teams by way of sustained, personal contact with team members. However, this assumption is being challenged by recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Use of ICTs has altered traditional team-based structures, enabling organizations to employ teams composed of members who are dispersed across geographic boundaries, while severing the direct, personal ties leaders have to team members. Recent reviews of …

Overview And Guidance On Agile Development In Large Organizations, Jordan B. Barlow, Justin Scott Giboney, Mark Jeffrey Keith, David W. Wilson, Ryan M. Schuetzler, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Anthony Vance

Faculty Publications

A continual debate surrounds the effectiveness of agile software development practices. Some organizations adopt agile practices to become more competitive, improve processes, and reduce costs. Other organizations are skeptical about whether agile development is beneficial. Large organizations face an additional challenge in integrating agile practices with existing standards and business processes. To examine the effects of agile development practices in large organizations, we review and integrate scientific literature and theory on agile software development. We further organize our theory and observations into a framework with guidelines for large organizations considering agile methodologies. Based on this framework, we present recommendations that …

Alignment Within The Corporate It Unit: An Analysis Of Software Testing And Development, Colin Onita, Jasbir Dhaliwal

Faculty Publications

Strategic alignment between an organization's business strategy/capabilities and those of its information technology (IT) unit is an extensively researched subject that addresses the issue of fit between business and technology strategies. A key gap in the literature is lack of recognition that underlying this macro level of alignment are other, more granular levels of alignment involving the interdependent subunits within the corporate IT unit. Given the critical interdependencies between development and testing subunits in software engineering, this paper focuses on an alignment model for ensuring that these two functions work together effectively. A development-testing alignment (DTA) model is described, and …

Project Dynamics: An Analysis Of The Purpose And Value Of System Dynamics Applied To Information Technology Project Management, Timothy Charles Delobe

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Project failure in the Information Technology (IT) sector is well documented in the literature; project managers miss their target budgets and schedules more than twice as often as they meet them. Traditional project management methodologies initially developed for the large-scale engineering projects of the 1950’s, while still relevant and useful, are reductionist in nature and are therefore missing a systems approach that concentrates on knowledge creation before, during and after a project. The research presented herein will demonstrate the role of system dynamics in augmenting a project’s control processes, as well as the skill set used by the project manager. …

User-Is Partnership And Is Development Success, Jook-Ting Jt Shim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 1970, high project failure rate and low user satisfaction has elicited research on users and their role in the process. It is believed that users' physical participation or psychological involvement in the development process can improve user satisfaction and/or system quality. Previous research treats users as a source of requirements and hypothesizes satisfaction to increase when requirements are fulfilled. However, inconsistent conclusions lead to confusion. Recently, a co-production concept has been proposed to understand consumer participation in product development process. In this reconceptualization, users, instead of requirement generator, should be part of the production. In this study, based on …

Understanding The Role Of Social Capital In Expertise Coordination In Information Systems Development (Isd) Teams, Shih-Chieh Hsu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information system development (ISD) project is a knowledge-intensive teamwork process which requires members to coordinate their expertise to generate the final outcome. Breakdown or coordination and insufficient knowledge integration have been reported as critical factors which lead to ISD project failure. Most existing coordination literature focus on the effect of administrative coordination mechanisms toward project performance which hints that more efforts are needed to understand expertise coordination and explore ways to improve it. Addressing the above issues, two studies in this dissertation attempt to understand expertise coordination within the IS development team based on social capital perspective. The first study, …

Best Practices For Implementing Agile Methods: A Guide For Department Of Defense Software Developers, Ann L. Fruhling, Alvin E. Tarrell

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Traditional plan-driven software development has been widely used in the government because it's considered to be less risky, more consistent, and structured. But there has been a shift from this approach to Agile methods which are more flexible, resulting in fast releases by working in an incremental fashion to adapt to the reality of the changing or unclear requirements.

This report describes the Agile software development philosophy, methods, and best practices in launching software design projects using the Agile approach. It is targeted to Defense Department software developers because they face broad challenges in creating enterprise-wide information systems, where Agile …

Effective Work Practices For Software Engineering: Free/Libre Open Source Software Development, Kevin Crowston, Hala Annabi, James Howison, Chengetai Masango

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

We review the literature on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and on software development, distributed work and teams more generally to develop a theoretical model to explain the performance of FLOSS teams. The proposed model is based on Hackman's [34] model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory [52] and collective mind [79] to extend Hackman's model by elaborating team practices relevant to effectiveness in software development. We propose a set of propositions to guide further research.

Collaborative Problem Solving And Program Development Model, Joanna Defranco-Tommarello

Dissertations

A model to enhance collaborative problem solving and program development is presented. The collaborative model is a detailed cognitive model that takes into consideration the cognitive and social activities that occur during collaborative problem solving and program development. The cognitive activities required for collaborative problem solving and program development are identified and integrated into a six-stage model. An extensive literature review in the associated fields is presented to show the need for the model described in this dissertation. In addition, a comprehensive study of tools to support collaboration during problem solving and program development was also performed as well as …

Reuse And Productivity In Integrated Computer-Aided Software Engineering: An Empirical Study, Rajiv D. Banker, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Growing competition in the investment banking industry has given rise to increasing demand for high functionality software applications that can be developed in a short period of time. Yet delivering such applications creates a bottleneck in software development activities. This dilemma can be addressed when firms shift to development methods that emphasize software reusability. This article examines the productivity implications of object and repository-based integrated computer-aided software engineering (ICASE) software development in the context of a major investment bank's information systems strategy. The strategy emphasizes software reusability. Our empirical results, based on data from 20 projects that delivered software for …

Optimal Process Structuring, Gary Klein, Jay E. Aronson, Philip O. Beck, Benn R. Konsynski

Historical Working Papers

A mixed integer progamming model is applied to the task of clustering relationships between tasks in order to assign them to programming modules in optimum fashion and as an aid in code development.

Teaching Software System Design: An Experiential Approach, Thomas E. Perkins

Historical Working Papers

A curriculum approach is presented that provides students with experience incorporating user input into the software design process.