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Software Development Life Cycles and Methodologies
Abstract
Information Systems as a discipline has generated thousands of research papers, yet the practice still suffers from poor-quality applications. This paper evaluates the current state of application development, finding practice wanting in a number of areas. Changes recommended to fix historical shortcomings include improved management attention to risk management, testing, and detailed work practices. In addition, for industry's move to services orientation, recommended changes include development of usable interfaces and a view of applications as embedded in the larger business services in which they function. These business services relate to both services provided to parent-organization customers as well as services provided by the information technology organization to its constituents. Because of this shift toward service orientation, more emphasis on usability, applications, testing, and improvement of underlying process quality are needed. The shift to services can be facilitated by adopting tenets of IT service management and user-centered design and by attending to service delivery during application development.
... As part of our research, we examined a sample of Internet artifacts and spoke with representatives from nine DevOps-using firms about their experiences with security procedures. In our research, we found that the majority of software developers and operations professionals believe that standard DevOps tasks like automated monitoring have the potential to increase system security [2]. The use of security settings and security needs analysis is common among firms that combine DevOps with their overall security strategy. ...
... The use of security settings and security needs analysis is common among firms that combine DevOps with their overall security strategy. The security team, development team, and operations team have all developed cooperation [2]. Most of the time, security modules and DevOps don't come together in a way that makes sense. ...
... Most of the time, security modules and DevOps don't come together in a way that makes sense. Security is an important aspect of any company, but it has proven tough to integrate into the DevOps process at every stage [2,3]. Due to a widespread lack of security knowledge, security implementations are often imbalanced, slowing down the environment's speed and agility. ...
The main purpose of this paper is to explore the best practices that can be adopted to ensure security in DevOps. Among the paper's key topics are the definitions of both DevOps and DevSecOps. The day when developers created code and operations built and managed it is long gone. To put it another way, the DevOps approach has altered how firms build software. Companies benefit from speedier releases and staying on top of the ever-changing market thanks to the integration of both teams. Security teams, on the other hand, often fell behind, unable to keep up with the rapid development cycles [1]. To identify and address security issues early in the development cycle, DevSecOps incorporates security policies throughout the DevOps process.
... This limitation, thus, leads to not gaining strong and sufficient information and evidence of related ideas, possible solutions, and potential opportunities and challenges. Hence, for designing our method and in order for us to be inspired by relevant methods, we referred (as an alternative) to the life cycle of the methods proposed, e.g., for prototyping [10], modeling and simulation [11], tool and product [12], technology development [13], system development [14], and software development [15]. We do so because we believe that the life cycle method can provide a kind of management approach that puts the Toolkits in the life cycle thinking basket into practice. ...
Globally, educational institutes are trying to adapt modernized and effective approaches and tools to their education systems to improve the quality of their performance and achievements. However, identifying, designing, and/or developing promising mechanisms and tools that can impact class activities and the development of students’ outputs are critical success factors. Given that, the contribution of this work is to propose a methodology that can guide and usher educational institutes step by step through the implementation of a personalized package of training Toolkits in Smart Labs. In this study, the package of Toolkits refers to a set of needed tools, resources, and materials that, with integration into a Smart Lab can, on the one hand, empower teachers and instructors in designing and developing personalized training disciplines and module courses and, on the other hand, may support students (in different ways) in developing their skills. To demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the proposed methodology, a model was first developed, representing the potential Toolkits for training and skill development. The model was then tested by instantiating a particular box that integrates some hardware to be able to connect sensors to actuators, with an eye toward implementing this system mainly in the health domain. In a real scenario, the box was used in an engineering program and its associated Smart Lab to develop students’ skills and capabilities in the areas of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The main outcome of this work is a methodology supported by a model able to represent Smart Lab assets in order to facilitate training programs through training Toolkits.
The development of software security in today's IT companies is considered in this article. The discussion focuses on the software life cycle, its models used to create a product, as well as the main principles and methodologies of software development, their key advantages and disadvantages. The optimum areas of using methodologies to achieve quality standards are investigated.
The software development lifecycle contains a list of steps to be performed to build software application. It includes requirement preparation, high level design, implementation, testing and preparing the final distribution for the end user and customers. Every step has their own efforts for the team of developers and managers. That efforts are worth reducing by automation approaches to reduce final cost of software product. The paper is devoted to reducing the efforts and time on preparation and delivering software releases to the customer by automation of the process for generation and publishing release notes for software applications. The paper contains research and comparative analysis of existing approaches for release notes generation in various existing tools like: ARENA, Chronicler, Atlassian and other. Based on the research new approach is suggested, and its automation workflow is presented in the paper as well as technical implementation details and integration into continuous delivery tool. The results and metrics that shows benefits of suggested approach usage in the process of mobile application development are listed.KeywordsAutomationRelease notesContinuous deployment
Rheumatoid arthritis affects around 1% of the world's population. Detection of the disease relies heavily on observation by physicians. The effectiveness of these kinds of tests is dependent on the ability and experience and can vary depending on the observer. This chapter aims to investigate the use of Xbox Kinect camera for monitoring in rheumatoid arthritis patients as a cost-effective and precise method of assessment. A system has been developed that implements the Kinect sensor for usage in a hand recognition and digit measurement capacity. This system performs the tasks usually completed by a physician such as digit dimension monitoring and exercise observations. With the system being designed to be portable and easy-to-use, it is an ideal solution for both the physician monitoring patients in a clinic as well as posing a possible solution for patients wishing to monitor their own condition in their homes.
Usability studies are often based on ad hoc definitions of usability. These studies can be difficult to generalize, they might have a steep learning curve, and there is always the danger of being inconsistent with the concept of usability as defined in standards and the literature. This alternative approach involves comprehensive, general-purpose, and hierarchically structured taxonomies that follow closely the main usability literature. These taxonomies are then instantiated for a specific product. To illustrate this approach, a usability study for a prototype of an Intelligent Speed Adaptation device is described. The usability study consists of usability requirements analysis, heuristic evaluation, and subjective analysis, which helped identify problems of clarity, operability, robustness, safety, and aesthetics. As a context-specific usability taxonomy for this particular field of application happened to exist, the way that real-world usability results can be mapped to that taxonomy compared to the taxonomy in this article is examined, with the argument that this study’s taxonomy is more complete and generalizable.
There exist plethora of research that investigates different topics related to management, use and impact of information technology in the organization. Despite the presence of heaps of research to date, considerably large number of information technology projects does not reap the maximum benefit. This paper provides a critical review of studies related to information technology post adoption stage. It highlights the importance of post adoption stage and assimilates research from different literature to identify the gaps within information systems literature. The paper also highlights the academic and practitioner contributions and implications on the future research.
An action research project was conducted to develop a 360-degree evaluation of an information technology organization for which existing process improvement techniques did not fit. A three-by-three matrix was developed that suited the complexity of the context yet provided a means for discussion the issues with the organization's Executive Committee.
When European policy makers agonise over how to close the growing productivity gap with North America, they often propose to boost IT spending. Just adding more computing power, the reasoning goes, will surely help. Yet in all likelihood, this approach won't have a substantial impact. Some economists have argued that good management - rather then more computing power - is the key. Now, however, a new study of 100 manufacturing companies in France, Germany, the U.K., and the USA supports the view that IT expenditures have little impact on productivity unless they are accompanied by first-rate management practices. Indeed, companies can significantly raise their productivity solely by improving the way they operate.
Usability testing a mobile application in the laboratory seems to be sufficient when studying user interface and navigation issues. Aki Kek?l?inen
ISO 9241-11 and ISO 13407 are two important standards related to usability: the former one provides the definition of usability and the latter one guidance for designing usability. We carried out an interpretative analysis of ISO 13407 from the viewpoint of the standard definition of usability from ISO 9241-11. The results show that ISO 13407 provides only partly guidance for designing usability as presumed by the definition. Guidance for describing users and environments are provided but very limited guidance is provided for the descriptions of user goals and usability measures, and generally for the process of producing the various outcomes.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework outlining best practice in ICT Service Management. To date, ITIL is the only comprehensive, non-proprietary, publicly available guideline for ICT Service Management (Pink Elephant, 2002). Although the OGC claims that the use of ITIL improves Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality, this was not proved to date but rather inferred. The aim of the research project was to ascertain if a direct correlation exists between customer satisfaction and the use of ITIL. Of secondary concern was to determine if Customer Satisfaction is an indication of effective service provision. Our research site was a large service unit of ICT in a provincial government in South Africa during
The authors respond to concerns raised by Cronin and Taylor (1992) and Teas (1993) about the SERVQUAL instrument and the perceptions-minus-expectations specification invoked by it to operationalize service quality. After demonstrating that the validity and alleged severity of many of those concerns are questionable, they offer a set of research directions for addressing unresolved issues and adding to the understanding of service quality assessment.
Despite wide agreement that we are in a service-dominated economy, there has been little movement toward treating service and service metaphors as core aspects of the IS field. This tutorial proposes that viewing systems as services is a potentially fruitful but generally unexplored approach for thinking about systems in organizations, systems analysis, and numerous applications of IT. An extension of past research in several areas, viewing systems as services proves to be an umbrella for developing new systems analysis and design methods, improving business/IT communication, and finding practical paths toward greater relevance and significance in business and society.
As the investment in and dependence on information technology grows, organizations have become increasingly aware of the need to ensure system, software, and information quality. Despite continuous efforts to improve system and software development, controlling quality remains difficult in today's environment. The complexity of assessing information system quality stems from its many important dimensions. Using as a starting point the well-known model of system quality developed by DeLone and McLean (2003), this study's goals are to translate these constructs into an overall measure of system quality to be used in practice, and examine the content validity of measures to assess information system quality using expert judges. In-depth structured discussions with top managers, members of the user community, and various information systems (IS) personnel roles were used to collect knowledge. From these interviews the need to add an IS perspective and a corporate perspective to the assessment of system quality was identified by personnel in all six host organizations. The discussions reveal that a standard measure for system quality is not advisable. The quality of different systems must be measured in terms of the features that are important to the system objectives and user/management expectations. Thus, for a particular system, a measure of importance for each item becomes important to compute a weighted average for overall system quality. The expanded measure for system quality provides the vehicle for a quick, comprehensive, and valid assessment.
A major obstacle to the implantation of User-Centered Design in the real world is the fact that no precise definition of the concept of usability exists that is widely accepted and applied in practice. Generally speaking, the literature tends to define usability in overly brief and ambiguous terms and to describe its application in informal terms. This is one of the main reasons why ad hoc techniques predominate in usability study methodologies. The aims of this article are to investigate the concept of usability and to describe it by means of a detailed taxonomy that is organized hierarchically and that contains exhaustive descriptions of usability attributes. This taxonomy can be used to support different stages in the development of usable systems.
Part I) Part I of this case describes a small MIS department responsible for medical information systems that support an occupational health clinic situated in a major university. Their customers are primarily medical and administrative professionals who, for a long time, have been disappointed with the team and the systems. The environment is rather hostile. A new MIS department head is hired and is in a quandary how to ensure success with major MIS projects that are critical to their medical community customers. This part of the case is suitable for discussion in a single class period, separated from the discussion of Part II, which follows.
The information systems development (ISD) environment tends to be treated as relatively homogeneous in the literature, although a small number of researchers have drawn analogously on theoretical perspectives from other disciplines to propose various paradigms for ISD. This paper categorises the ISD environment into four exemplar categories, informed by different development paradigms, namely, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Formalised Systems Development Methodology (FSDM), Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Accelerated Business Component Development (ABCD). One of the innovative aspects of the categorisation is that it is based directly on research into the actual practice of ISD, rather than drawing from any a priori theoretical perspectives. The paper derives a comprehensive framework from the literature and elaborates it in detail from characteristics found to be important in the study. This derived framework is then used to analyse the exemplars. The paper concludes with a brief description of the implications of the research for ISD practice.
Due to an enhanced customer focus in the planning, development and delivery of IT services, service-oriented IT management has become increasingly important. This paper investigates to what effect service-oriented IT management has already been put into place in European companies. Benefit and cost categories of integrating service-oriented principles into IT management processes are analyzed. Additionally success factors for implementing serviceoriented IT management are investigated. For this purpose, six case studies were conducted. The situation of IT management before and after implementation was analyzed and comments are made on the corresponding transformation projects. Based on the case studies, this paper shows three typical benefit categories of service-oriented IT management. Eight cost categories for implementing and operating service-oriented IT management processes are discussed and six success factors of pertinent re-organization projects are identified. Findings can serve as guidelines for other IT organizations and can be used as enabler for getting informed decisions regarding the initiation of service-oriented IT management. Finally, the article highlights four current trends for service-oriented IT management and further research is outlined.
Over 90 percent of companies are estimated to use IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks, yet there is little research on their benefits to the Information Technology (IT) department and the business units. An international survey of 503 firms was conducted to examine the benefits of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the de-facto ITSM framework, specifically on how these benefits evolve as companies increase their adoption of the ITIL model. Also studied are the perception of challenges of the implementation and the number of ITIL processes implemented in relation to the progress of the adoption of ITIL. Results indicate that as the maturity of implementation increases, the perception of challenges decreases. Findings also show that as the maturity of implementation increases, the number of realized benefits increases, as well as the number of implemented ITIL processes. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.
IT Service management is an emerging discipline likely to enhance existing academic IT program offerings. One barrier to adoption of ITSM in IT academic programs is the uncertainty that students can get jobs as a result of such education and knowledge. To overcome this barrier, a survey of the membership of the U.S. IT Service Management Forum, a practitioner organization, was conducted. The results of this survey show that there is a market of at least 15,000 hires per year in the U.S. for undergraduate and graduate students who have ITSM skills, and that companies are willing to hire ITSM-trained graduates.
The Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) movement is gaining adopters throughout the world, expanding from the 2005 ratification of International Standards Organization (ISO) ISO/IEC 20000. However, this concept grew out of older frameworks such as Britain's IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and U.S. service level management (SLM). To further confuse the landscape, there are also related terms such as business service management (BSM), the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (CobiT), and IT governance.There is a lack of descriptive academic literature currently published, which has mainly focused on prescriptive pieces. This paper gives a background on the several contributing frameworks mentioned above, and reports on a survey U.S. IT managers to determine the extent of understanding of these terms and frameworks. The findings indicate that ITSM adoption and knowledge may be lower than some studies have indicated. There is also conceptual confusion about what constitutes ITSM, with conflation of terms and practices.
A growing number of organizations are implementing the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) "best practice" framework in an attempt to improve their IT service management processes. However, not all ITIL implementations are successful and some companies have been disappointed with the outcomes. This exploratory research reports on four case studies of "successful" implementations of IT service management using the process-based ITIL V2 framework. Two companies are located in the U.S. and two in Australia. The cases demonstrate a mix of implementation justifications and strategies. Critical success factors (CSFs) suggested in the literature are compared against those attributed to these successful ITIL implementations. Some CSFs, including executive management support, interdepartmental communication and collaboration, use of consultants, training and careful software selection are confirmed. Three new CSFs are identified: creating an ITIL-friendly culture, process as a priority, and customer- focused metrics. Practitioner guidelines, to assist IT managers who are contemplating adopting ITIL for process improvement and organisational transformation, are also provided together with some challenges encountered and their associated resolutions.
This paper proposes the term method engineering for the research field of the construction of information systems development methods and tools. Some research issues in method engineering are identified. One major research topic in method engineering is discussed in depth: situational methods, i.e. the configuration of a project approach that is tuned to the project at hand. A language and support tool for the engineering of situational methods are discussed.
This paper summarizes the current state ofthe art and recent trends in software engineering economics. It provides an overview of economic analysis techniques and their applicability to software engineering and management. It surveys the field of software cost estimation, including the major estimation techniques available and the state of the art in algorithmic cost models.
The field of human–computer interaction (HCI) has grown beyond the study of the usability of technologies to examining the user experience created by various features of those technologies. The interactivity afforded by modern computer-based technologies has served to transform human–computer interaction into human–computer communication. This has resulted in greater attribution of agency to machines and a tendency among users to treat them socially. Principles of interpersonal communication inform—and are informed by—the study of human interactions with computer-based technologies, providing implications for theory as well as design.
Software inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs have become a standard process component in many software development domains. Maturity level 3 of the CMM-I requires establishment of peer reviews [12] and substantial sustained improvements in quality and productivity have been reported as a result of using reviews ([16], [21], [22], [27]). The NSF Impact project identifies the degree to which these industrial success cases have been instigated and improved by research in software engineering.
This research identifies that there is widespread adoption of inspections, reviews or walkthroughs but that companies do not generally exploit their full potential. However there exist sustained industrial success cases with respect to the wide-spread and measurably successful application of them. It also identifies research in software engineering that can be credibly documented as having influenced the industrial success cases. Credible documentation may exist in the form of publications or documented reports by witnesses. Due to the semi-formal nature of inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs, a specific focus is given to empirical research results as motivators for adoption. Through the examination of one detailed case study, it is shown that software engineering research has had a significant impact on practice and that the impact can be traced in this case from research to that practice. The case study chosen provides evidence of both success and failure regarding sustained application in practice.
Thus the analysis of historic impact chains of research reveals a clear impact of software engineering research on sustained industrial success for inspections, reviews and walkthroughs. More importantly, in impact chains where the empirical results have not been established, we conclude that success has not been achieved or has not been sustained.
The paper closes with (1) lessons learned for creating the sustained use and impact of semi-formal software engineering processes, (2) a request for researchers and practitioners to further consider how their work can improve the effectiveness of research and practice, and (3) a request to contribute additional success cases and impact factors to the authors database for future enhancements of this paper.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL ® 1) is a series of processes that are required to run a quality IT operation that delivers value to its parent organization. ITIL has become important to businesses that seek to align their IT operations with the business' strategy. This chapter outlines ITIL version 3, which was published in May, 2007 and discusses issues in its application to real-world situations.
The global technology strategy of Olivetti, a leading European computer firm, is analyzed over the last decade in order to illustrate how high-tech firms undergo transformations which not only tend to destroy their best core competencies, but also affect their very business identity. Task uncertainty is so pronounced that conventional ways of looking at the organizational structures and processes, such as the transaction costs approach or the strategy-structure link, need to be amended in favor of a more dynamic perspective. Such a perspective leaks at organizations as platforms, or contexts, out of which specific structures are extracted, tried out and discarded in a pragmatic manner. A platform is a meta-organization, a formative context that molds structures, and routines shaping them into well-known forms, such as the hierarchy, the matrix and even the network, but on a highly volatile basis. Hence, the platform organization may appear to be confused and inefficient but its value lies in its readiness to sport whatever organizational form is required under the circumstances. Platforms are characterized by surprises, and organization members, no matter how they see themselves after the fact, are busy improvising and tinkering. Drawing on similar studies carried out in Silicon Valley, one can draw the conclusion that high-tech firms can survive if they are smart at doing what ''savages do daily,'' i.e., bricolage.
In the past five years, more and more information technology (IT) projects have been adopting service-oriented solutions. In addition, more and more traditional business and government organizations are focused on clearly identifying and monitoring the core IT services they are delivering. The remarkable growth of web service technologies and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions yields both challenges and opportunities in improving the quality of IT services and has given rise to a variety of IT service management frameworks like IT Infrastructure Library (ITU) and Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMJ). This paper presents the problem of total quality management (TQM) in IT services, followed by a review of quality definitions from four levels of perspectives. Based on the comparison of the different definitions, the necessity of integration of quality measurement and improvement approaches is identified and our preliminary work on TQM in IT services is introduced.
Many recent studies have shown that computer-based systems continue to ‘fail’ at a number of different levels (Romtec, 1988; KPMG, 1990) and it is increasingly apparent (Maclaren et al., 1991) that the most serious failures of information technology (IT) lie in the continuing inability to address those concerns which are central to the successful achievement of individual, organizational and social goals. It is the contention of this paper that this failing is precisely because these are the areas which are ignored or inadequately treated by conventional system development methods.
Perceived accessibility to information is proposed as a unifying concept for the design and evaluation of a wide variety of information systems and services. This field study measured end-user perceptions of three sources of information (computer-based, libraries, and individuals) for three samples of individuals. The results suggest that 1) accessibility is a multidimensional concept encompassing physical access to the source, the interface to the source, and the ability to physically retrieve potentially relevant information, and 2) perceptions of accessibility are moderated by prior experience with the source and contextual factors.
For nearly two decades, the user-satisfaction construct has occupied a central role in behavioral research in Information Systems (IS). In industry, the construct has often been used as a surrogate for IS effectiveness. Given its widespread use by both academics and practitioners, it is surprising that no comprehensive theoretical assessment of this construct has been performed. This paper provides such a review. It begins by examining conceptual and theoretical limitations of the construct's use as a measure of IS effectiveness. Attention is then focused on the evolution of the construct in the literature and the theoretical problems associated with its broader use. The fundamental similarity between user satisfaction and the social and cognitive psychologists' notion of an attitude is suggested. The next sections focus on a discussion of attitude structures and function. First, alternative theoretical views on attitude structure are presented. While one of these structures, the family of expectancy-value models, is reflected in current research on user satisfaction, the second, the family of cognitive approaches, is not. The two attitude structures are considered from the perspective of possible refinements to future work in IS. Next, an examination is made of the ways in which these structures have been integrated in terms of understanding the relationship of users' affective responses to other responses (i.e., behavior or cognition). This leads to a discussion of the function attitudes might serve for the user other than the evaluation of an information system or IS staff. Finally, the question of how behavior influences attitude is considered. The paper concludes with suggestions for future work.
Early computer applications were implemented without the aid of an explicit information systems (IS) methodology. In the 1970s the need for a more formal methodology was recognized, and the methodologies of this decade emphasized the importance of documentation standards and good training for systems analysts. This was certainly an improvement. However, there were still a number of problems and the first part of this paper highlights lessons that can be drawn from this early experience with IS methodologies.The 1980s have witnessed a growth in the number of IS methodologies. Some are becoming widely used. However, this increase in the numbers of methodologies has caused much confusion. The second part of this paper overviews some of these themes in IS methodologies.Methodologies are being continually improved in an incremental fashion, but the final part of this paper suggests that IS methodologies might take a very different direction in the future.
This paper integrates a number of strands of a long-term project that is critically analysing the academic field of decision support systems (DSS). The project is based on the content analysis of 1093 DSS articles published in 14 major journals from 1990 to 2004. An examination of the findings of each part of the project yields eight key issues that the DSS field should address for it to continue to play an important part in information systems scholarship. These eight issues are: the relevance of DSS research, DSS research methods and paradigms, the judgement and decision-making theoretical foundations of DSS research, the role of the IT artifact in DSS research, the funding of DSS research, inertia and conservatism of DSS research agendas, DSS exposure in general “A” journals, and discipline coherence. The discussion of each issue is based on the data derived from the article content analysis. A number of suggestions are made for the improvement of DSS research. These relate to case study research, design science, professional relevance, industry funding, theoretical foundations, data warehousing, and business intelligence. The suggestions should help DSS researchers construct high quality research agendas that are relevant and rigorous.
Business Process Re-engineering has not been able to eradicate improvisation from economic organizations. On the ashes of this failed program of modernization, it is high time to take a serious look at the phenomenon of improvisation: its structure, dynamics and forms of occurrence in both emergency and routine situations.The study of such a ubiquitous human practice reveals that even in highly structured organizations improvisation is a well grounded process that can be leveraged to face those situations where rules and methods fail.Improvisation, seen as an ex-temporaneous process, opens up alternative approaches to cope with time in business. `Lifting out' the constraints posed by clock time, one can envisage the importance of those `moments of vision' that represent the elusive core of entrepreneurial behaviour. In the background of impromptu action, as well as of a more authentic notion of time, lies what is missing from the managerial models in good currency: human existence and experience.
In the past several years many organizations have initiated enterprise-wide information management systems projects, using such packages as SAP, Peoplesoft, and Oracle. These projects often represent the single largest investment in an information systems project in the history of these companies, and in many cases the largest single investment in any corporate-wide project. These enterprise-wide information management systems projects bring about a host of new questions, because they represent a new type of management challenge. Some of these questions and issues are:What are the major risk factors associated with implementing traditional MIS projects?What are the major risk factors associated with enterprise-wide information management projects?What new risk factors need to be addresed in ERP projects? What are some of the risks in MIS projects that are not factors in ERP projects?Based upon the findings, enterprise-wide information management systems projects pose new opportunities and significant challenges. Some of the “summary” ideas which are re-iterated throughout the case studies are:Justify the enterprise-wide projects based upon cost-justification and economies of scale.Re-engineer business processes to “fit” the package, rather than trying to modify the software to “fit” the organization's current business processes.Identify and implement strategies to re-skill the existing IT workforce and acquire external expertise through vendors and consultants when needed. Utilize “business analysts,” with both business knowledge and technology knowledge.Obtain top management support for the project and establish strong project leadership.Make a commitment to training end-users in custom report evelopment.Manage change through leadership, effective communications, and the role of a champion.
George Santayana's statement, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," is only half true. The past also includes successful histories. If you haven't been made aware of them, you're often condemned not to repeat their successes.In a rapidly expanding field such as software engineering, this happens a lot. Extensive studies of many software projects such as the Standish Reports offer convincing evidence that many projects fail to repeat past successes.This paper tries to identify at least some of the major past software experiences that were well worth repeating, and some that were not. It also tries to identify underlying phenomena influencing the evolution of software engineering practices that have at least helped the author appreciate how our field has gotten to where it has been and where it is.A counterpart Santayana-like statement about the past and future might say, "In an era of rapid change, those who repeat the past are condemned to a bleak future." (Think about the dinosaurs, and think carefully about software engineering maturity models that emphasize repeatability.)This paper also tries to identify some of the major sources of change that will affect software engineering practices in the next couple of decades, and identifies some strategies for assessing and adapting to these sources of change. It also makes some first steps towards distinguishing relatively timeless software engineering principles that are risky not to repeat, and conditions of change under which aging practices will become increasingly risky to repeat.
One way of responding to a keynote speaker is to put the expressed views into context, pointing to highlights in the address, suggesting areas where alternative viewpoints might have been presented, exposing any chinks in the armour of the otherwise ...
In this paper we attempt to assess the impact of IS research on practice. It is important to show a positive impact, if we can, so that academia, prospective students and the outside world more generally sees that the IS discipline has made a positive and major impact on organizations, people and society. Our research fills a gap as there has been little or no work to date that systematically assesses the effective relevance of IS research to practice. We find that the use of bibliometric indicators to trace the flow of ideas from research published in our top journals to practitioner journals does not detect any strong link between IS research and practice. We suggest several alternative means of assessing effective, rather than imagined, relevance and also consider how more effective diffusion of our IS research might be encouraged.
The result of usability evaluations is often accentuated as a distinctive input for developers to improve the usability of a software system. On the other hand developers say that many of the results from the usability evaluations are issues already known to them. This paper presents a study of usability problems as developers perceive them in their own emerging software in relation to usability problems experienced by users in a usability evaluation. The results indicate that having developers explicating their expectation on emerging software can provide a low-cost identification of problem areas, whereas a full scale usability evaluation provides specific knowledge of usability problems and their severity.
Software quality is important for the success of any information systems (IS). In this research, we find the determinants of software quality. We used five attributes for software quality: system reliability, maintainability, ease of use, usefulness, and relevance. By surveying 112 IS project managers, we collected data about their perceptions on the software quality attributes and their determinants. We arrived at six factors through exploratory factor analysis. We determined the individual factors that impacted the software quality attributes; for example, reliability is associated with responsiveness of IS department; ease of use is influenced by the capabilities of users and attitude of management; and usefulness is impacted by capabilities of IS department and responsiveness of IS department. We show that organizational factors are more important than technical factors in impacting software quality in IS projects. We provide implications of our research to practice and to future research.