Partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master in Commerce (Information Systems) (Course work) At the School of Economic and Business Sciences University of the Witwatersrand, 2017 / Due to the trite nature of the software development environment, traditional software methodologies are no longer relied on to deliver software products in a timeous manner. As a response to this limitation, the agile manifesto was launched. The manifesto consists of values and principles centred around the self-organising team’s ability to achieve higher productivity, that is, to deliver software products quickly and with a high quality. With the self-organising team at the centre of this phenomenon, this interpretive case study seeks to gain greater insight into the processes and reasons behind this outcome. The site selected for this study is the IT divisions of a South African bank that have adopted Agile as a methodology to deliver software products. The data was collected through semi structured interviews, focused groups and documentation. The data was analysed qualitatively using thematic and content analysis. The framework for enhanced performance in agile software development teams was conceptualised. The conceptualisation was informed by the empirical evidence and the interpretation of findings and literature / XL2018

M.Sc. (Computer Science) / The process that involves creating and altering software systems can be defined as the software development lifecycle. People often use methodologies and methods in order to develop these systems with success factors such as people, processes and technology. The lifecycle is comprised of the following stages: • Planning • Requirements definition • Design • Development • Integration and testing • Installation • Acceptance. The underlying issue in such a lifecycle is that project defects are identified late within the lifecycle and therefore, the process of rectifying these problems becomes costly. Ultimately, an ideal product is one with minimal or zero defects which can be achieved with a software project that prevents or detects defects earlier within the cycle. Release management can be described as the process involving decision-­‐making regarding the implementation and releasing of a software product. A conceptual framework exists which stipulates the stages involved in the development process of a software application. Several models exist that describe the SDLC in different approaches. A philosophy is adopted within the RAD model, known as Agile and is beneficial since it minimises future scope creep and scope changes. Development occurs in shorter intervals. Over and above the stages and values in this methodology, the Agile methodology includes incremental changes which are then captured in the scheduled software releases. The purpose of the research presented in this dissertation is to incorporate findings where large companies with global IT projects can adopt the Agile conceptual framework and to testify whether all types of IT projects will benefit from a frequent release approach to the delivery of the project. Three different projects across a large South African financial institution that specialises in corporate organisation banking and core-­‐banking functionality will be studied and presented as case studies. Release management will also be studied from an organisational perspective with the following banking institution in context. Data will be retrieved by carrying out interviews and surveys with appropriate stakeholders, and therefore, analysed to generate a valid conclusion.

This thesis examines alternative prototyping processes as a means of implementing manufacturing information systems in a small to medium sized batch process manufacturing company. Prototyped IS (Information Systems) ate compared to other systems designed and implemented according to the traditional Systems Development Life Cycle model. Action research is used in conjunction with an IS case study framework. as the strategy to provide a rich analysis of the power, political, organizational and business effects resulting from the prototype implementations. Survey and structured interview methods are used to assess the rate of spread and extent of prototyped versus non prototyped IS applications. Perceptions of IS user managers from both prototyped and non prototyped systems are measured using an IS user satisfaction measurement tool. Alternative manufacturing information systems implementation methodological choices are examined resulting in the identification of three paradigms important to the appropriate selection of implementation methodology dependent on manufacturing environment context: Systems ProblemlLearninglAction (SPLA); Systems Engineering; and Systems Architecture. Prototyping is identified as belonging to the SPLA paradigm characterized by 'soft' systems methodologies orientated to problem solving by an iterative process of learning. Conclusions from this multi-disciplinary research enquiry are that prototyping is a viable implementation methodology with defInite performance improvements over traditional methodologies. A five dimensional framework for prototyping manufacturing information systems is proposed. The five dimensions: IS Strategy; Organizational; User; Business; and Prototyping provide a mechanism (or planning and managing the prototyping process. Recommendations are made for more research to be carried out into the derivation of a structure for the evolutionary prototyping process, for more investigation into the problems of early implementation of prototypes, whilst maintaining technical and quality integrity, and for more field studies to identify potential implementation contexts of the prototypingframework.

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Workflow implementations require a deep understanding of business and human cooperation. Several approaches have been proposed to address this need for understanding, but largely in a descriptive way. Attempts to use them in software development have had mixed results. The work reported here proposes that these approaches can be used in a generative way, as part of the requirement engineering process, by (a) extending requirements engineering modelling techniques with underlying cooperation properties, (b) integrating these techniques through the use of a derivation modelling approach, and (c) providing pragmatic heuristics and guidelines that support the real-world requirements engineering practitioner to ensure a high probability of success for the business workflow system to be developed. This thesis develops and evaluates a derivation modelling approach that is based on scenario modelling. It supports clear and structured views of cooperation properties, and allows the derivation of articulation protocols from business workflow models in a scenario-driven manner. This enables requirements engineering to define how the expectations of the cooperative situation are to be fulfilled by the system to be built - a statement of requirements for business workflow systems that reflects the richness of these systems, but also acts as a feasible starting point for development. The work is evaluated through a real-world case study of business workflow management. The main contribution of this work is a demonstration that the above problems in modelling requirements for business workflow systems can be addressed by scenario-based derivation modelling approach. The method transforms models through a series of properties involving cooperation, which can be addressed by using what are effectively extensions of current requirements engineering methods.