Project management in plan-based and agile companies

Agile methods are a recent set of development techniques that apply a human-centered approach to software production. The agile approach aims to deliver high-quality products faster, producing satisfied customers. We conducted an empirical study to investigate whether agile methods change and improve project management practices in software companies. Survey results show that adopting agile methods appears to improve management of the development process and customer relationships. This article has given a first analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of adopting agile methods from a project management perspective.     

Helping small companies assess software processes

A first step toward process improvement is identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an organization's software processes to determine effective improvement actions. An assessment can help an organization examine its processes against a reference model to determine the processes' capability or the organization's maturity, to meet quality, cost, and schedule goals, but small companies have difficulty running them. MARES, a set of guidelines for conducting 15504-conformant software process assessment focuses on small companies.     

Experiences on establishing software processes in small companies

In order to guide the tailoring of existing approaches for the establishment of software processes in small companies, we report our experiences on defining and implementing software processes in two small software companies. The paper describes the principal steps performed and presents information on costs and duration. We analyse, if and how process guides are used, their impacts and how they are improved. Our findings indicate that also in this specific kind of organisation, software processes can be established successfully at low cost considering typical business models, goals and characteristics of small organisations.     

Change processes for attractive work in small manufacturing companies

The article originates from research in interaction between researchers and companies in a network, which has led to an increasing awareness among managers on issues such as reasons behind difficulties in attracting competent labor. Particularly, attention has been directed toward the importance of work environment improvements that increase the attractivity of industrial work. To deal with such challenges, for more than 5 years a number of small engineering companies, with research support, have been engaged in change processes based on the concept of attractive work. The purpose of the article is to develop knowledge and understanding for how small engineering companies can create more attractive work. One goal is to make it possible to draw conclusions about the employees' experiences of changes in the attractivity of industrial work. Efforts in this direction have been conducted through work environment assessments (before and after the changes) and through administration of a questionnaire. The results show that it is possible to analyze how employees experience changes in the attractivity of work. This is most interesting from the perspective that the results can be used for assisting further improvements. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Applying product line concepts in small and medium-sized companies

Because software product-line engineering requires long-term planning, the companies that have used it successfully are large ones that can afford to take the long-term view, but smaller enterprises must be flexible and fast in reacting to customer requests. The authors report results and lessons learned on applying the Pulse product-line method to six small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)     

Information and small companies: Chaos with intent

Small companies face an increasingly turbulent business environment. They are traditionally power cultures, with informal, chaotic, communication flows. This has enabled them to maintain flexibility. However, informal information is no longer enough in the face of complexity. These companies need to concentrate onformal information for traceability. Effective management of both formal and informal information enables these small companies to adapt to change. This paper explores information in a small company, using an in-depth case study. The work is of particular interest and value to the knowledge-intensive small company, one of the emerging types of company in Europe.     

Wisdom: a software engineering method for small softwaredevelopment companies

Wisdom (Whitewater Interactive System Development with Object Models), a lightweight software engineering method, addresses the needs of small teams that develop and maintain interactive systems. Small companies leveraging on their communication, speed and flexibility can benefit from Wisdom's process, notation and project philosophy     

A methodology for the automation of medium or small manufacturing companies

Many products are produced by discrete manufacturing plants in lots of 100 items or fewer. Currently, most small and medium-sized manufacturing companies are far from computer-integrated automation. New computer-integrated manufacturing systems with their associated hardwares require tremendous initial investments that are beyond the means of most small and medium-sized companies. In this paper we investigate how these companies can upgrade and automate their existing facilities at a minimal and viable cost. In Section 2 we discuss main references (books and trade journals) that contain detailed information on software packages for automation. In Section 3 we discuss the criteria for selecting software packages. In Section 4 we discuss how to use the obtained information to create a data base of different alternatives. In Section 5 we outline different areas of manufacturing. For illustrations, we discuss manufacturing planning, intelligent systems, and computer areas. In Section 6 we discuss a new method for the selection of the best alternative using the data base. The method is a simple interactive paired comparison method based on a computer package developed on a personal computer.     

Understanding the gap between software process practices and actual practice in very small companies

This paper reports on a grounded theory to study into software developers’ use of software development processes in actual practice in the specific context of very small companies. This study was conducted in three very small software product companies located in Ecuador. The data collection was based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with software project managers, focus group with software developers and was supplemented by the literature and document studies. We interviewed two types of participants (managers and developers), so as to ensure that we elicited a holistic perspective of how they approached the software development process in actual practice. The goal was to study what practices are actually used and their opinion and attitude toward the potential adopting of an international standard (ISO/IEC 29110) specifically designed for very small companies. With the collected data, we performed an analysis utilizing grounded theory coding techniques, as this methodology promotes the focus on uncovering the real concerns of the participants. This study highlighted three areas of concern: customer, software product and development tasks coordination and tracking. The findings in this study give an insight toward the work products as they relate to software development process practices in very small companies and the important factors that must be considered to assist project success.     

Towards a theoretical framework of SPI success factors for small and medium web companies

ContextThe context of this research is software process improvement (SPI) success factors for small and medium Web companies.ObjectiveThe primary objective of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework of SPI success factors for small and medium Web companies.MethodThe theoretical framework presented in this study aggregated the results of three previous research phases by applying principles of theoretical integration and comparative analysis. Those three previous phases were all empirical in nature, and comprise: a systematic review of SPI in small and medium Web companies [1], [2]; a replication study [3] and a grounded theory-based initial exploratory framework of factors in small and medium Web companies [4].ResultsThe theoretical framework includes 18 categories of SPI success factors, 148 properties of these categories and 25 corresponding relationships, which bind these categories together. With the help of these relationships, the categories and properties of SPI success factors can be directly translated into a set of guidelines, which can then be used by the practitioners of small and medium Web companies to improve the current state of SPI in their companies and achieve overall company success.ConclusionThe comprehensive theoretical framework of SPI success factors presented herein provides evidence regarding key factors for predicting SPI success for small and medium Web companies. The framework can be used as a baseline for a successful implementation of SPI initiatives in the mentioned domain.     

Factors affecting the implementation rates of energy and productivity recommendations in small and medium sized companies

The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has worked with more than 500 manufacturing companies to identify energy and productivity saving opportunities for small and medium sized companies. The most common saving recommendations are summarized. The implementation rates of the recommendations were only about 40%. The logistic regression analysis is used to investigate the factors that affect the implementation rates of the recommendations in 147 manufacturing plants from seven different types of industries. Six possible factors affecting the implementation rates of the recommendations are investigated; payback period, sales, number of employees, plant area, annual working hours, and the industry type. It is determined that each type of industry deals differently with implementing the recommendations. Furthermore, the recommendation type (energy or productivity) and payback period are the main factors that affect the implementation rates. It was also found that the companies which run on full capacity or work more hours are less likely to implement the recommendations.     

The crisis of control: A progressive approach towards information systems integration for small companies

When small companies grow, they face a range of strategic managerial challenges. Stage models for small company growth predict that a crisis of control can occur when existing information systems for communication and control are no longer able to cope with increased throughput, nor are they able to respond flexibly to opportunities and challenges in the business environment. In response, owner-managers (OMs) may seek technological enterprise-wide solutions, in a drive towards integrated information systems (IIS). This paper reports a case study in which the Viable Systems Model (VSM) was used during an integration project in a small manufacturing company. In this case, the solution was found in organisational learning, rather than technology. It is argued that such a phase may be an essential step to the adoption of ERP/MRP at a later date for small growing companies.     

Software process improvement success factors for small and medium Web companies: A qualitative study

Context

The context of this research is software process improvement (SPI) in small and medium Web companies.

Objective

The primary objective of this paper is to identify software process improvement (SPI) success factors for small and medium Web companies.

Method

To achieve this goal, we conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 21 participants representing 11 different companies in Pakistan, and analyzed the data qualitatively using the Glaserian strand of grounded theory research procedures. The key steps of these procedures that were employed in this research included open coding, focused coding, theoretical coding, theoretical sampling, constant comparison, and scaling up.

Results

An initial framework of key SPI success factors for small and medium Web companies was proposed, which can be of use for small and medium Web companies engaged in SPI. The paper also differentiates between small and medium Web companies and analyzes crucial SPI requirements for companies operating in the Web development domain.

Conclusion

The results of this work, in particular the use of qualitative techniques - allowed us to obtain rich insight into SPI success factors for small and medium Web companies. Future work comprises the validation of the SPI success factors with small and medium Web companies.     

Initial failures in distributed computations

We investigate the possibility of solving problems in completely asynchronous message passing systems where a number of processes may fail prior to execution. By using game-theoretical notions, necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for solving problems is such a model with an without a termination requirement. An upper bound on the message complexity for solving any problem in the model is given, as well as a simple design concept for constructing a solution to any solvable problem.Supported in part by the Guttwirth Fellowship, by the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-8405478, and by the Hebrew Technical Institute scholarship.Supported in part by Technion V.P.R. fund—C. Wellner Research fund.     

Localizing failures in distributed synchronization

The fault-tolerance of distributed algorithms is investigated in asynchronous message passing systems with undetectable process failures. Two specific synchronization problems are considered, the dining philosophers problem and the binary committee coordination problem. The abstraction of a bounded doorway is introduced as a general mechanism for achieving individual progress and good failure locality. Using it as a building block, optimal fault-tolerant algorithms are constructed for the two problems     

打造航运企业特色网管

本文针对航运企业的特点,详细介绍了航运企业的网络管理解决方案,分析了航运企业信息系统特点,以及网络管理系统架构。