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1 – 10 of over 108000Joseph D. Blackburn and Gary D. Scudder
Software projects are commonly late and over budget, causing the product to be late to market. Based on questionnaires and field research with software managers in Europe, the USA…
Abstract
Software projects are commonly late and over budget, causing the product to be late to market. Based on questionnaires and field research with software managers in Europe, the USA and Japan, seeks to isolate the management practices that accelerate software development. The results suggest that global differences are not pronounced: Japanese software factories have development processes structured similarly to their US and European counterparts; productivity is also roughly equivalent. To reduce development time, software managers currently achieve greater leverage from the management of people and the cross‐functional process than with the use of CASE tools and technology.
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Subhas Misra, Vinod Kumar, Uma Kumar, Kamel Fantazy and Mahmud Akhter
Agile software development is an emerging approach in software engineering, initially proposed and promoted by a group of 17 software professionals who practice a set of…
Abstract
Purpose
Agile software development is an emerging approach in software engineering, initially proposed and promoted by a group of 17 software professionals who practice a set of “lightweight” methods, and share a common set of values of software development. They consolidated their thoughts, and defined these methods as “agile”. The approaches are based on experiences and best practices from the past by the above‐mentioned group of 17 software professionals. The purpose of this article is to outline the history and evolution of agile software development practices, their principles, and the criticisms as reported by the software development community.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to do this research.
Findings
Based on the literature review, this paper provides a comprehensive document that helps the practitioners working in the area of the agile software development.
Originality/value
This article will provide comprehensive material for the researchers in the area of agile software development. It will also be very useful for the practitioners practicing software development in the area of agile software development.
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David A. Vogel and Jill E. Connelly
The purpose of this article is to examine why US companies outsource software development offshore and to present the factors to be considered to determine if the benefits of…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to examine why US companies outsource software development offshore and to present the factors to be considered to determine if the benefits of offshore outsourcing outweigh the drawbacks. Is offshoring worth it in terms of cost savings and quality? What are the risks associated with offshoring software development, and how can you hedge against such risks? What types of software should be considered for offshoring? How can you recognize the danger signs of offshore work going awry? Are there alternatives to outsourcing software development offshore, or are there alternative ways to offshore? Offshore outsourcing of software development may not be worth the risk in all cases. However, in the cases that it is worth moving offshore, this paper makes suggestions about how to help ensure success. This article presents advantages, disadvantages, risks and alternatives to offshore outsourcing of software development. Also, it provides alternatives for offshore outsourcing that will be useful for any company or individual considering offshore outsourcing.
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Eric Lesser and Linda Ban
Increasingly companies recognize that effective and rapid software development – from ideation to delivery – is crucial to achieving competitiveness. This article looks at how…
Abstract
Purpose
Increasingly companies recognize that effective and rapid software development – from ideation to delivery – is crucial to achieving competitiveness. This article looks at how leading companies are establishing an enterprise capability for accelerated software delivery to differentiate themselves in the market.
Design/methodology/approach
This research looks at how leading software organizations focus on software investments that efficiently and speedily deliver marketplace results.
Findings
Successful companies build comprehensive skills in Agile and lean software development methods and for fostering extensive collaboration among business users, IT professionals and customers throughout the software development and delivery lifecycle.
Practical implications
Advanced organizations are more likely to apply more mature development practices, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Agile iterative development methods.
Originality/value
Advanced organizations collaborate much more with customers and business partners to improve software development outcomes.
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As the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) impacts the world, software practitioners are collaboratively working remotely from home. The pandemic has disrupted software…
Abstract
Purpose
As the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) impacts the world, software practitioners are collaboratively working remotely from home. The pandemic has disrupted software practitioners’ productivity forcing changes to agile methodology adopted by software practitioners in software organizations. Therefore, this study aims to provide implication on the issues and recommendations for improving software practitioners’ productivity and also examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agile software development.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a narrative literature review to provide early assessment based on secondary data from the literature and available document reports from studies published from 2019 to 2022 to explore software practitioners’ productivity and agile software development during the working from home directive amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 60 sources which met the inclusion criteria were used to provide preliminary evidence grounded on secondary data from the literature. Descriptive analysis was used to provide qualitative findings from the literature.
Findings
Findings from this study present the significance of working from home directive on agile software development and software practitioners’ productivity. More importantly, findings from the secondary data shed light on software practitioners’ productivity adopting agile software development amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the findings present virtual collaborative platforms used by software practitioners, technical and social barriers of agile software development during the pandemic and recommendations for remote agile software development.
Originality/value
This study explores the significance of working from home directive on software practitioners’ productivity during COVID-19 pandemic and further investigates how are software practitioners’ productivity adopting agile software development practices amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, this study discusses the challenges software practitioners currently face and offers some strategies to bridge the gaps in agile software development to help software practitioners, system developers, software managers and software organizations adapt to the changes caused by the pandemic.
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Hubert Biskup and Karlheinz Kautz
Discusses problems related to software engineering taskmaintenance. Argues that since many scientists and practitioners haveregarded maintenance as divorced from development, it…
Abstract
Discusses problems related to software engineering task maintenance. Argues that since many scientists and practitioners have regarded maintenance as divorced from development, it is not properly embedded in project models. Relates four case studies. Looks at the range of maintenance tasks and strategies. Proposes a change of perspective that would make maintenance part of development. Advocates methods, tools and techniques as possible means of overcoming the problematic situation.
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Manjari Maheshwari, Uma Kumar and Vinod Kumar
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of alignment at the team level. Because teams are important in software development projects, the paper focuses on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of alignment at the team level. Because teams are important in software development projects, the paper focuses on studying the influence of alignment between the social and technical capabilities on software development team performance. Drawing on socio‐technical theory and software product development literature, the paper aims to identify social and technical capabilities for software development teams.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data from 192 software development teams were analyzed. The profile deviation approach was used to calculate alignment.
Findings
The findings suggest that misalignment between capabilities negatively impacts product and process performance.
Research limitations/implications
The study provides an intellectually coherent view in studying software development team performance. The study contributes to the literature by assessing alignment needs at the team level.
Practical implications
The study provides a holistic view for studying team capabilities and guides software development team leaders and managers to consider both the social and technical aspects in assessing team performance.
Originality/value
Alignment or misalignment is mostly studied in the literature from a macro level/organizational perspective. There exists a gap in the literature for studying alignment at more granular levels such as between various business sub‐units or within teams. The study addresses the gap by studying alignment within teams.
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Jeff Crawford and Lori N.K. Leonard
This study seeks to determine factors that encourage post‐meeting work activity in a software development group by assessing attendee diversity (functional, staffing and tenure)…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to determine factors that encourage post‐meeting work activity in a software development group by assessing attendee diversity (functional, staffing and tenure), meeting size, and meeting history.
Design/methodology/approach
One year's worth of meeting data from a software development group in a US‐based financial services company were collected and analyzed. A binary logistic regression analysis was utilized to determine the impact of diversity, meeting size, and meeting history on the likelihood of post‐meeting work activity.
Findings
Tenure diversity and meeting history for each meeting event significantly contribute to the likelihood of post‐meeting work activity.
Research limitations/implications
A lack of variance in the data does not allow for the examination of staffing diversity. Further, generalizability of findings is limited since data come entirely from one organization. Findings suggest that meeting characteristics, specifically tenure diversity and meeting history, can improve the likelihood of post‐meeting work activity occurring.
Practical implications
Findings illustrate that management can leverage tenure diversity and meeting history within a software development group to encourage post‐meeting work activity.
Originality/value
All organizations employ meetings, and research that clarifies how to extract maximum value from meeting events is critical. This study provides a first step in uncovering specific meeting characteristics which are most likely to impact post‐meeting work activity.
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Packaged software companies evolve in an environment characterized by ever‐shorter product life cycles and ever‐increasing competition. Reaching the marketplace first is often the…
Abstract
Packaged software companies evolve in an environment characterized by ever‐shorter product life cycles and ever‐increasing competition. Reaching the marketplace first is often the way to gain a competitive advantage. This situation leads many packaged software organizations to change both their (often sequential) software development processes and rely on (often cross‐functional) teams. Reports on the software development practices of Software Corp., an organization developing software products for the travel industry, which experimented with several different approaches and finally implemented cross‐functional development teams. Data presented show that changes in the software development process deeply affect many aspects of the organization. The conclusions emphasize the importance of considering the work culture and organizational history when implementing a new software development method and highlight the importance of clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of all groups involved and the necessity to modify the company’s performance‐appraisal system to promote and support the new organizational objectives embodied in the changes in software development methods.
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Mahesh Kumar, Omkarprasad S Vaidya and Rajiv Kumar Srivastava
The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the role of the bottlenecks in the dynamic software development supply chains. The paper examines the effects of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the role of the bottlenecks in the dynamic software development supply chains. The paper examines the effects of the task priorities in the software development and investigates the possible strategies to manage them effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a software development supply chain has been simulated. This includes modeling of the various sizes of software requirement, different priorities, variations in development times, quality defects, etc. The model assumes a fixed set of resources of various skills. The model is studied for the bottlenecks, throughput, work in progress (WIP), etc. under various work preemption scenarios.
Findings
The results indicate that job priorities impact the bottleneck formulation, throughput and WIP of the software development. The work interruption policies to accommodate priority jobs adversely impact the throughput. Selective introduction of interruptions by leaving the bottlenecks from interruptions helps balancing the throughput and priorities.
Research limitations/implications
The impact of the learning curve and knowledge acquisition time needed by the resources to restart the interrupted work has not been considered in this paper, which can be a future area of research.
Practical implications
The paper helps the practicing managers evaluate the dynamics of the bottlenecks with various task management approaches and comprehend the possible tradeoffs between priority and throughout.
Originality/value
The paper looks at software development from a perspective of workflow dynamics. This is a pioneer effort, as it utilizes simulation and modeling approach in understanding the software supply chains better.
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