Context. Global Software Development is software work undertaken at geographically separated locations across national boundaries in a coordinated fashion involving real time or asynchronous interaction. Distributed Agile Development aims at the benefits of both Agile Software Development and Global Software Development aiding the distributed teams to overcome the challenges brought by the distribution. Objectives. In this study the author investigates whether a globally distributed company is prepared to be agile, determining hindrances for agile and providing recommendations to mitigate or overcome the detected hindrances. Methods. In this case study, surveys and interviews were used to study the hindrances for agile and literature was used to provide the recommendations towards the detected hindrances. Results. 4 hindrances were detected. Only 1 was justified as necessary for the good performance of the distributed company. Several recommendations to overcome the hindrances were proposed. Both hindrances and proposed solutions were validated by the company representative. Conclusions. We conclude that the studied individuals are willing to be agile. As agile is built bottom-up, the company is prepared to be agile. However, they will not be able to be agile until they overcome or mitigate the detected challenges. In the study, several solutions for it are proposed.

O gerenciamento de informação possui um papel essencial para garantir um bom desempenho do processo de desenvolvimento de produtos, principalmente quando este envolve o trabalho colaborativo e distribuído entre empresas. Este trabalho surgiu dessa observação com o objetivo de caracterizar os processos de gerenciamento de informação de engenharia em ambientes distribuídos de desenvolvimento de produtos. O trabalho de pesquisa consistiu principalmente em uma revisão bibliográfica e um estudo de caso como trabalho de campo. Foram estudadas três empresas: dois fornecedores de primeiro nível do setor automobilístico e uma montadora. No estudo de caso foram levantadas as características dos principais aspectos do gerenciamento de informação enfatizando as relações de colaboração praticadas por cada empresa. / lnformation Management has a key role to assure o good performance of product development process. It is more significant when this is a collaborative and distributed process. This work emerged from these facts intending to characterize the engineering information management processes in a collaborative and distributed product development environment. The research work was developed in two main parts: a literature review and a case study. Three companies were studied: two first level automotive suppliers and an assembler company. ln the field work the characteristics of the main aspects of information management was collected with particular emphasis in the collaborative relationship.

O volume crescente de projetos de pesquisa que envolvem software motiva a realização de análises sobre os processos utilizados no desenvolvimento desses projetos, considerando-se as atividades realizadas, os resultados obtidos e a aplicação de recursos. Na área de Engenharia de Software, processos têm sido propostos nos últimos anos com o objetivo de contribuir para o desenvolvimento de projetos de pesquisa que envolvem software. Busca-se, de forma geral, auxiliar o gerenciamento dos diversos artefatos que podem ser gerados, por exemplo, modelos, código fonte, relatórios técnicos e artigos científicos. As soluções apresentadas na literatura começaram a ser propostas recentemente e, portanto, os estudos realizados nessa área apresentam-se em estágio bastante inicial. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste trabalho foi definir um processo para o desenvolvimento de projetos de pesquisa envolvendo software, que esteja de acordo com um conjunto de requisitos identificado e que possa contribuir para a evolução desses projetos. Para reforçar a continuidade dos projetos, foi estudada a abordagem de design rationale, com o objetivo de oferecer meios para que as decisões sejam capturadas e registradas em fases específicas do desenvolvimento. O processo de documentação foi enfatizado, ou seja, foi investigado como a abordagem de design rationale poderia ser utilizada para melhorar a documentação dos projetos de pesquisa. Como um resultado obtido, foi definido um modelo para representação de design rationale (DR-SACI), implementado em uma ferramenta CASE e avaliado em um experimento / The increasing volume of research projects in the context of software is a motivation for analyzing processes which are used to develop such projects, regarding activities that are carried out, results that are gathered and application of resources. In the Software Engineering area, recently, processes have been considered with the objective to contribute for research projects development in which software is an element. Overall, the main purpose is to help management overtime of artifacts that can be produced, such as, models, code, technical reports and scientific papers. However, research developed in this direction and solutions discussed in the literature are presented in an initial stage. Therefore, the objective of this work was to define a process for development of research projects regarding a set of requirements. It is expected that such process can be useful to contribute for evolution of these projects. To reinforce the aspect of research project evolution, the design rationale approach was studied. The goal was to provide the opportunity of capturing and registering decisions in specific development phases. The documentation process was emphasized, i.e., the design rationale approach was analyzed focusing on the improvement of research projects documentation. As a result, a model for design rationale representation was defined, implemented in a CASE tool and evaluated by means of an experiment

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how information sharing in distributed development projects can be improved through the use of information sharing tools. Work published on this subject has been investigated and ABB employees whose work highly depends on information sharing have been interviewed.</p>

<p>Today’s information systems engineering involves large number of stakeholders, wide geographical distribution and wide range of tools. Success in system engi-neering depends on effective human communication. Early understanding and modelling of the problem domain is a key to manage large scale systems and pro-jects. This requires stakeholders to reach a certain level of shared interpretation of the domain referred throughout the development</p><p>We propose a method for semantics driven change impact assessment. In our method, first a collaborative problem analysis is conducted. The problem analysis results in an agreed and committed common understanding of the prob-lem domain, expressed in a conceptual domain model. The constructed concep-tual domain-specific model is then actively used as a communication medium, e.g., to abstract development objects from representation format in order to expli-cate their semantics. Stakeholders browse the domain model and interactively as-sociate to product fragments by selecting concept clusters that best describe the contents (intended meaning) of the product fragments.</p><p>Associations of the development objects with concepts from domain model, as well as the domain model itself constitute the basis for change impact assess-ment throughout the development. Every revision of a development object in-vokes change impact notifications that are either confirmed or rejected. Accumu-lated statistics are used to refine associations via the domain model to the direct dependency links among development objects.</p><p>The method has been implemented in a prototype system CO2SY and has been evaluated in an experiment, where a set of test users has been provided with a problem domain description including a domain model and a set of develop-ment objects. The experiment was based on two real world cases. Users were asked to perform tasks using the prototype and two comparative tools. The method and prototype have been evaluated with respect to actual performance and users perceptions. The result shows actual effectiveness, perceived ease of use and usefulness comparing to other tools used in the experiment, as well as intention of the subjects to use the method in future.</p><p>A discussion of future research directions and possible revisions of the method concludes the thesis.</p>

Today’s information systems engineering involves large number of stakeholders, wide geographical distribution and wide range of tools. Success in system engi-neering depends on effective human communication. Early understanding and modelling of the problem domain is a key to manage large scale systems and pro-jects. This requires stakeholders to reach a certain level of shared interpretation of the domain referred throughout the development We propose a method for semantics driven change impact assessment. In our method, first a collaborative problem analysis is conducted. The problem analysis results in an agreed and committed common understanding of the prob-lem domain, expressed in a conceptual domain model. The constructed concep-tual domain-specific model is then actively used as a communication medium, e.g., to abstract development objects from representation format in order to expli-cate their semantics. Stakeholders browse the domain model and interactively as-sociate to product fragments by selecting concept clusters that best describe the contents (intended meaning) of the product fragments. Associations of the development objects with concepts from domain model, as well as the domain model itself constitute the basis for change impact assess-ment throughout the development. Every revision of a development object in-vokes change impact notifications that are either confirmed or rejected. Accumu-lated statistics are used to refine associations via the domain model to the direct dependency links among development objects. The method has been implemented in a prototype system CO2SY and has been evaluated in an experiment, where a set of test users has been provided with a problem domain description including a domain model and a set of develop-ment objects. The experiment was based on two real world cases. Users were asked to perform tasks using the prototype and two comparative tools. The method and prototype have been evaluated with respect to actual performance and users perceptions. The result shows actual effectiveness, perceived ease of use and usefulness comparing to other tools used in the experiment, as well as intention of the subjects to use the method in future. A discussion of future research directions and possible revisions of the method concludes the thesis.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how information sharing in distributed development projects can be improved through the use of information sharing tools. Work published on this subject has been investigated and ABB employees whose work highly depends on information sharing have been interviewed.

Service organizations need to respond rapidly to both changes in the market and customer expectations. One way of accomplishing this is through service innovation enacted to achieve competitive advantage. This study applies a service-dominant logic (SDL) lens to describe how a service organization may achieve service innovation through value co-creation that is facilitated by agile distributed methods. Literature on value co-creation is somewhat limited; although a few studies have provided guidance on what is needed to achieve value co-creation, no study has yet presented how this might be achieved. Therefore, using a single-site case study in the context of a large service organization, this study examines how value is co-created and the role that agile distributed methods play in this process. This research seeks to contribute to practice by providing service organizations with recommendations for achieving value co-creation. It contributes to theory by advancing our understanding of value co-creation processes; moreover, by using the context of an SDL, it presents a framework that maps elements of service innovation to agile distributed practices.

O gerenciamento de informação possui um papel essencial para garantir um bom desempenho do processo de desenvolvimento de produtos, principalmente quando este envolve o trabalho colaborativo e distribuído entre empresas. Este trabalho surgiu dessa observação com o objetivo de caracterizar os processos de gerenciamento de informação de engenharia em ambientes distribuídos de desenvolvimento de produtos. O trabalho de pesquisa consistiu principalmente em uma revisão bibliográfica e um estudo de caso como trabalho de campo. Foram estudadas três empresas: dois fornecedores de primeiro nível do setor automobilístico e uma montadora. No estudo de caso foram levantadas as características dos principais aspectos do gerenciamento de informação enfatizando as relações de colaboração praticadas por cada empresa. / lnformation Management has a key role to assure o good performance of product development process. It is more significant when this is a collaborative and distributed process. This work emerged from these facts intending to characterize the engineering information management processes in a collaborative and distributed product development environment. The research work was developed in two main parts: a literature review and a case study. Three companies were studied: two first level automotive suppliers and an assembler company. ln the field work the characteristics of the main aspects of information management was collected with particular emphasis in the collaborative relationship.

O volume crescente de projetos de pesquisa que envolvem software motiva a realização de análises sobre os processos utilizados no desenvolvimento desses projetos, considerando-se as atividades realizadas, os resultados obtidos e a aplicação de recursos. Na área de Engenharia de Software, processos têm sido propostos nos últimos anos com o objetivo de contribuir para o desenvolvimento de projetos de pesquisa que envolvem software. Busca-se, de forma geral, auxiliar o gerenciamento dos diversos artefatos que podem ser gerados, por exemplo, modelos, código fonte, relatórios técnicos e artigos científicos. As soluções apresentadas na literatura começaram a ser propostas recentemente e, portanto, os estudos realizados nessa área apresentam-se em estágio bastante inicial. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste trabalho foi definir um processo para o desenvolvimento de projetos de pesquisa envolvendo software, que esteja de acordo com um conjunto de requisitos identificado e que possa contribuir para a evolução desses projetos. Para reforçar a continuidade dos projetos, foi estudada a abordagem de design rationale, com o objetivo de oferecer meios para que as decisões sejam capturadas e registradas em fases específicas do desenvolvimento. O processo de documentação foi enfatizado, ou seja, foi investigado como a abordagem de design rationale poderia ser utilizada para melhorar a documentação dos projetos de pesquisa. Como um resultado obtido, foi definido um modelo para representação de design rationale (DR-SACI), implementado em uma ferramenta CASE e avaliado em um experimento / The increasing volume of research projects in the context of software is a motivation for analyzing processes which are used to develop such projects, regarding activities that are carried out, results that are gathered and application of resources. In the Software Engineering area, recently, processes have been considered with the objective to contribute for research projects development in which software is an element. Overall, the main purpose is to help management overtime of artifacts that can be produced, such as, models, code, technical reports and scientific papers. However, research developed in this direction and solutions discussed in the literature are presented in an initial stage. Therefore, the objective of this work was to define a process for development of research projects regarding a set of requirements. It is expected that such process can be useful to contribute for evolution of these projects. To reinforce the aspect of research project evolution, the design rationale approach was studied. The goal was to provide the opportunity of capturing and registering decisions in specific development phases. The documentation process was emphasized, i.e., the design rationale approach was analyzed focusing on the improvement of research projects documentation. As a result, a model for design rationale representation was defined, implemented in a CASE tool and evaluated by means of an experiment