El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Through digital transformation, company processes that are, or could be, conducted manually are reduced; moreover, human tasks are automated when software-based processes are established. This paper analyzes the adoption of a digital transformation tool to manage inventory through the application of agile models, such as Just-In-Time, and the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), employing the Deming cycle method, as several unclear empiric processes exist for managing inventory and purchases. It also upholds that as defined processes are established and the companies exert higher control over inventory turnover and outflows, they could apply methods, such as demand forecasting, to avoid stockout, supply shortage, and inventory loss.

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Context: Planning in software projects is a difficult problem due to the uncertainty associated with it. There are many factors that cause difficulty in formulating a plan. Not many factors that influence the efficiency of planning are identified in the previous studies. The literature focuses only on technical aspects such as requirements selection and estimation in order to plan a release or iteration. Objectives. The objective of this study is to identify factors that affect planning efficiency. The context in which the objective is achieved is large scale complex projects that are distributed across multiple teams, in multiple global sites. The motivation for selecting large scale context is because most of the existing releases planning approaches discussed in the literature were investigated in small scale projects. Hence this context will allow studying the planning process in large scale industry. Methods. A case study was conducted at Siemens’ Development Centre in Bangalore, India. A total of 15 interviews were conducted to investigate the planning process adopted by Siemens. To achieve triangulation, process documents such as release planning documents are studied and direct observation of the planning meeting is performed. Therefore multiple sources are used to collect evidences. Results. The identified challenges are grouped into technical and non-technical category. In total 9 technical factors and 11 non-technical factors are identified. The identified factors are also classified based on the context in which they affect the planning. In addition 6 effects of the factors are identified and improvements perceived by the participants are discussed in this study.

Yes / Agile development methodologies (ADM) have become a widely implemented project management approach in Information Systems (IS). Yet, along with its growing popularity, the amount of concerns raised in regard to human related challenges caused by applyingADMare rapidly increasing. Nevertheless, the extant scholarly literature has neglected to identify the primary origins and reasons of these challenges. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine if these human related challenges are related to a lack of Emotional Intelligence (EI) by means of a quantitative approach. Froma sample of 194 agile practitioners, EI was found to be significantly correlated to human related challenges in agile teams in terms of anxiety, motivation, mutual trust and communication competence. Hence, these findings offer important new knowledge for IS-scholars, project managers and human resource practitioners, about the vital role of EI for staffing and training of agile managed IS-projects.

Agile software development methods are characterized by developer’s empowerment through self-organization, incremental requirements and constant knowledge sharing. Despite some effort to elaborate how successfully agile methods can be applied in co-located development teams, little is known on how the same is done when the development teams are distributed. Our research focus is to uncover factors that influence the successful application of agile methods in distributed development teams using a software development company as our case study. With three distributed teams applying different agile methods, we conducted focused ethnography alongside interviews to comprehend what and how various factors under distributed development teams influence successful agile methods application. It seems, all that matters is team structure, team spirit, effective communication, product requirements, and knowledge sharing. The team structure has more influence than other factors and therefore our suggestions for successful application of agile methods in distributed software development is to focus on the development team, above all factors. The analysis shows that the development methods themselves have little to do with the successful application of agile methods in distributed software development teams.

The nature of software development has changed in last decade. Waterfall or traditional command and control methods have been replaced by Agile methodologies. Agile came as a “solution” to the disadvantages of the waterfall methodology, but using Agile has its own challenges. Due to the attractive characteristics of Agile such as flexibility and short time-to-market, Agile development has been increasingly popular and the number of organisations which have started to move to Agile is growing every day. Implementing new methodologies in any organisation is always a big challenge, especially for large-scale organisations due to their complexity, many different interacting interfaces, strong organisational culture, etc. The nature of these challenges and obstacles changes from different perspectives within an organisation, and each of these perspectives needs to be studied and investigated to ensure a successful transition from traditional approaches to Agile. In this thesis we focus on the project manager and project governance perspectives. We aim to define the success and failure factors that play a key role in moving from traditional approaches to Agile approaches in large-scale organisations. To address these challenges we conducted literature reviews on the latest research in implementing Agile methodologies. To collect our data we used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. We explored both IT project manager and Chief project manager opinions and experiences of the organisations by conducting interviews and questionnaires in our research. The results reveals the difficulty to find proper product owners in the Agile projects. It is challenging to set a product owner who has Agile knowledge and is expert in the project domain. Specialized training and coaching for product owners is mentioned as one of the solutions that could be provided for this challenge. “Distributed teams”, “Lack of focus on the business side” and “Weak coaching and support” are some of the other critical areas which have been presented by the participants in the interviews and survey in this study. The main conclusion is that in order to have a successful transition to Agile approaches, the Agile mind-set should be set in all different part in an organizations, not only the development side and also that everyone have to understand “Why” Agile is beneficial. Also the communication of lessons learnt and feedback should be strong and effective in order to avoid repetition of the same mistakes. In addition, specialized training and coaching for different roles within the period of the development is necessary to ensure the successful adoption of Agile. / Synen på mjukvaruutveckling har förändrats under det senaste decenniet; Vattenfalls- eller traditionella kommando- och styrmetoder har ersatts av Agila metoder. Agila utvecklingsmetoder kom som en "lösning" till nackdelarna med vattenfalls metodiken, men användning av Agila metoder har sina egna utmaningar. På grund av Agila metoders attraktiva egenskaper såsom flexibilitet och kort tid till marknaden, har denna typ av utveckling blivit alltmer populärt och antalet organisationer som har börjat flytta till Agila metoder växer varje dag. Att genomföra nya metoder i en organisation är alltid en stor utmaning. Särskilt för stora organisationer på grund av deras komplexitet, med tanke på många olika samverkande gränssnitt, stark organisationskultur, etc. Karaktären på dessa utmaningar och hinder ändras från olika perspektiv inom en organisation, och vart och ett av dessa perspektiv behöver studeras och undersökas för att säkerställa en framgångsrik övergång från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder. I denna avhandling fokuserar vi på projektledare och projektförvaltningsperspektiv. Vi strävar efter att definiera framgångs- och misslyckande faktorer som spelar en nyckelroll i att flytta från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder i storskaliga organisationer. För att möta dessa utmaningar genomfört vi dessutom en litteraturstudie av den senaste forskningen om införande av Agila metoder. För att samla våra data vi använt en kombination av kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder. Vi utforskade både projektledare för IT och chefs-projektledare sidor av organisationer genom intervjuer och enkäter i vår forskning. Resultaten visar den kritiska roll produktägare utgör i Agila projekt. Det är en utmaning att tillsätta en korrekt produktägaren som har Agile kunskap och är expert i projektet domänen. Specialiserad utbildning och coaching för produktägare nämns som en av de möjliga lösningar som finns för denna utmaning. "distribuerade team", "brist på fokus på affärssidan" och "Svag coachning och support" är några av de andra viktiga områden som har lagts fram av deltagarna i intervjuerna och undersökning i denna studie. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är att för att få en lyckad övergång till Agila metoder bör Agilt tänkande tillämpas i alla delar i en organisations, inte bara utvecklingssidan, utan alla måste förstå "varför" Agila metoder är fördelaktigt. Även överföring av lärdomar och återkoppling bör vara stark och effektiv för att undvika återkommande samma misstag. Dessutom, specialiserad utbildning och coaching för olika roller och inom den tidsfrist för utvecklingen är nödvändig för att säkerställa ett framgångsrikt antagande av Agila arbetsmetoder.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how mature eight Swedish companies are in regards of IT- and agile maturity. Furthermore, how they can improve upon their IT- and agile maturity. The research objects of this study has been eight different organizations who all hired the same IT-consultancy. Information has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with respondents from each organization. The interviews were built upon a theoretical framework consisting of Ragowsky et al. (2012) IT-maturity model and Sidky et al. (2007) Agile Measurement Index (SAMI). We have attempted to combine the models into a matrix model that takes both types of maturity into account. The results have shown a greater level of IT-maturity than expected. Agile maturity on the other hand have been a contributing factor to failures in some of the projects. Although we have found that being mature in only one of the factors has been unusual. In conclusion, the organizations in our sample have shown high IT-maturity so the next challenge for Swedish organizations seems to be to acquire greater agile maturity.

Background: Based upon two important phenomena within the manufacturing industry an upcoming agile era is being proposed within this thesis, those phenomena have shown a shift in the focus of attention for companies within the manufacturing industry in the past. The first phenomenon is being referred to as “physical product development saturation” and the second phenomenon is “lean saturation”, which are introduced in order to give importance to the aspiration for a new emphasis to remain competitiveness and create more value within the manufacturing industry. Where in the past the focus was on physical product development, this in order to enhance and or invent new products. This was followed by the need for a more efficient way of working by eliminating wastes (Lean), although both phenomena are about to reach their limits with respect to the extra value they (can) create. The forthcoming agile era allows for a new way of value creation, this by adaptivity. This introduces the potential of a new way to create value, this being done by the agile way of working. Purpose: The research in this thesis aimed to find an answer to the question of how companies within the manufacturing industry could adopt an agile way of working in order to allow for a new way of value creation. Method: This research was approached by conducting a qualitative study. Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted, with companies from the manufacturing, IT and consultancy industries. The collected data was then sorted and analysed systematically to generate knowledge and draw upon conclusions to answer the proposed research questions. Conclusion: In order to successfully adopt the agile way of working, within an organization in the manufacturing industry, the challenge is to create awareness and an understanding of the value and benefits an agile way of working could create, especially for the middle-management. This could be done by explaining an agile way of working as an extension to Lean. Furthermore, the tools &amp; processes of the agile way of working could be experimented with in order to start “doing agile”, this finally resulting in creating an understanding of the potential power of an agile way of working. Whereas, an agile way of working is being characterized by an encouraging, transparent culture led by a servant leadership style by making use of empowerment to stimulate value creation. Ultimately, resulting in adopting an agile way of working and achieving “becoming agile”. / <p>Thesis written in the  context of the study program “Engineering Management”.</p>

Les robots industriels, bien connus pour être des systèmes de fabrication flexibles et agiles, atteignent leurs limites lorsqu'il s'agit d'effectuer des tâches sur des pièces de grande taille (par exemple: les pièces longues et minces de l'industrie aéronautique). Pour ce type des tâches, les solutions existantes sont à leurs limites: les bras manipulateurs à base fixe souffrent d'un espace de travail trop limité; les bras manipulateurs montés sur véhicule ne sont pas assez précis; les machines-outils conventionnelles doivent être conçus à méga-échelle (plusieurs dizaines de mètres). Dans la cadre de cette thèse de doctorat, nous avons proposé des solutions robotiques innovantes qui combinent la capacité de marcher (ou de grimper) sur la pièce (ou sur le montage d'usinage) avec la capacité d'usiner. De l'analyse de la topologie et de la mobilité à la modélisation géométrique et cinématique, ainsi que la proposition d'algorithmes de contrôle innovants, des robots ont été proposés et étudiés pour la réalisation des tâches d'usinage ainsi que des tâches de locomotion. Un prototype a été construit qui témoigne de la pertinence de ce concept innovant. Il repose sur une architecture parallèle à actionnement redondant (8 moteurs pour 6 degrés de liberté) et combine moteurs, freins, dispositifs de bridage et de nombreux capteurs de position. Le prototype peut se fixer sur le montage d'usinage, réaliser ses tâches de fabrication, puis modifier sa configuration pour devenir un robot marcheur capable d'atteindre la zone de travail suivante. / Industrial robots, well known as flexible and agile manufacturing systems, reach their limits when dealing with very large workpieces (e.g.: very long and slender parts found in aeronautics industry). For such tasks, existing solutions are at their limits: stationary manipulator arms suffer from a too limited workspace; manipulators mounted on a vehicle are not accurate enough; classical machine-tools must be designed at mega-scale (several tens of meters). This thesis work aims at offering an innovative robotic solution that combines the ability to walk (or climb) on the workpiece (or on the tooling that supports the workpieces) together with manufacturing ability. From the topology and mobility analysis to the geometrics and kinematics modeling, as well as innovative control algorithms proposition, the proposed mobile manufacturing robots have been studied for achieving both machining and locomotion tasks. A prototype has been built to show the concept effectiveness . It is based on a parallel mechanism with actuation redundancy (8 motors for 6 degrees-of-freedom), combining motors, brakes, clamping devices and numerous position sensors. The robot can clamp itself on the manufacturing tooling, and then change its configuration to become a walking robot able to reach the next working area.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo principal identificar o enfoque de gerenciamento de projetos – ágil ou clássico – mais apropriado para o desenvolvimento de software com o uso de Métodos Ágeis. De forma mais específica, a dissertação investiga se existe uma associação entre o desempenho dos projetos de desenvolvimento de software realizados com o uso de Métodos Ágeis e o enfoque de gerenciamento de projetos adotado. Este trabalho é decorrente de um estudo exploratório inicial, por meio do qual se buscou a ampliação do conhecimento sobre o tema, a elaboração de um estudo comparativo entre o Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos e o Gerenciamento Clássico de Projetos, a investigação das principais características de um projeto de desenvolvimento de software realizado com o uso de Métodos Ágeis, a identificação de uma comunidade de pessoas que tivesse experiência em projetos desta natureza e, por fim, a estruturação de uma segunda etapa de pesquisa. Esta segunda etapa, de caráter quantitativo-descritivo, visou à descrição do conjunto de dados e a determinação das relações relevantes entre as variáveis de interesse. Para tanto, foram definidas as variáveis independentes, dependentes e intervenientes da pesquisa, como sendo, respectivamente, os enfoques de gerenciamento de projetos ágil e clássico, o desempenho dos projetos de desenvolvimento de software e os desenvolvimentos de software conduzidos com o uso dos Métodos Ágeis. Procedeu-se a uma amostragem intencional por julgamento, sendo selecionada uma amostra de pesquisa composta por pessoas com interesse e/ou experiência em projetos de desenvolvimento de software com o uso de Métodos Ágeis, associadas a grupos de internet especializados na discussão sobre o tema. Para a coleta de dados utilizou-se um questionário auto-administrado, enviado por meio de correio eletrônico à amostra selecionada. O tratamento dos dados foi feito com o uso de métodos estatísticos: análise descritiva, análise discriminante e regressão logística. A partir dos resultados da pesquisa pôde-se concluir que os Métodos Ágeis e o Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos, apesar de recentes, já fazem parte da realidade brasileira. Quanto à resposta à pergunta problema, não houve evidência amostral para encontrar uma associação estatisticamente significativa entre o desempenho de um projeto de desenvolvimento de software e o enfoque de gerenciamento de projetos adotado, não sendo possível comprovar, de forma conclusiva, a existência de um enfoque de gerenciamento de projetos mais apropriado para o desenvolvimento de software com o uso de Métodos Ágeis. Porém, os resultados da análise descritiva sugeriram que a maioria dos respondentes indicou o Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos como o enfoque mais apropriado para o desenvolvimento de software com o uso de Métodos Ágeis. Pôde-se constatar também a possibilidade de se adotar qualquer um dos enfoques de gerenciamento de projetos – ágil ou clássico – ou mesmo uma combinação deles, nos projetos desta natureza. Na pesquisa ainda foram identificados o critério primordial utilizado para mensuração do desempenho dos projetos de desenvolvimento de software realizados com o uso de Métodos Ágeis, as características principais destes projetos, seus fatores críticos de sucesso, além de se comprovar a importância do apoio da alta administração na adoção do Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos. Cabe ressaltar que todas estas conclusões devem ficar restritas ao âmbito desta dissertação. Para pesquisas futuras recomenda-se a adequação do instrumento de pesquisa e o cuidado especial na seleção da amostra. Sugere-se a exploração de assuntos correlatos ao tema, como o estudo da prontidão das organizações para a adoção do Gerenciamento Ágil de Projetos, ou mesmo, a avaliação dos resultados obtidos com sua aplicação. Por fim, o cenário brasileiro atual favorece a realização de estudos nesta temática, atendendo às necessidades de pesquisadores que se interessam pelo assunto. / The main purpose of this here research is to identify the most appropriated project management approach for software development using the Agile Methods. Essentially, this study aims to determine if there is a statistical relationship between the software development project performance and its project management approach. This research is based on a preliminary exploratory study that ensured the content and context understanding, the comparison between the Agile Project Management and the Classical Project Management, the identification of the main characteristics of an agile software development project, the identification of the people involved in this kind of software development initiative and also provided the basis to structure a second phase of this research. This second quantitative-descriptive phase intends to describe the research data and to find the relevant relationships between the variables of interest. The independent variables of this study were defined as being the agile and classical project management approaches; the dependent variable was defined as being the project performance; and, the intervenient variables were defined as being the agile software development projects. A non-probabilistic intentional sampling was done. The sampling framework was drawn from people who have experience managing or participating in software projects conducted using one of the Agile Methods, and were associated to internet discussion groups on this theme. For data gathering it was used a self-applied survey, sent by e-mail to the selected groups. The respondents’ data were primarily analyzed using descriptive analysis and, after that, using discriminant analysis and logistics regression. It was possible to conclude that, although the Agile Methods and the Agile Project Management are quite recent, they are being used here in Brazil. Considering the main research question, there was not a statistical evidence to prove the relationship between the software development project performance and its project management approach. Thus, it was not possible to establish a final conclusion about the most appropriated project management approach for software development using the Agile Methods. Nevertheless, the results of the descriptive analysis indicated that most of the respondents tended to choose the Agile Project Management as the approach that better fits the agile software development initiatives. It was also possible to conclude that the referred projects may be managed using either the agile or the classical project management approach, or even using a combination of these two approaches. The main agile software development project success criterias were identified, as well as the project characteristics and the main critical success factors. The important role of the upper management in supporting the Agile Project Management adoption was also discussed. The research conclusions should be restricted to this here context. For future studies, special attention should be paid to the research instrument improvement and to the sampling process. The study of the organization readiness for the Agile Project Management adoption or the analysis of this project management approach implementation results could be the aims of new investigations. Finally, it is important to notice that the current Brazilian scenario stimulates and favors the development of future studies, meeting the expectations of the researchers that are interested in this subject.