Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Requirements Engineering (RE) approaches are widely used in several domains such as telecommunications systems, information systems, and even regulatory compliance. However, they are rarely applied in healthcare beyond requirements elicitation. Healthcare is a multidisciplinary environment in which clinical processes are often performed across multiple units. Introducing a new Information Technology (IT) system or a new process in such an environment is a very challenging task, especially in the absence of recognized RE practices. Currently, many IT systems are not welcomed by caregivers and are considered to be failures because they change what caregivers are familiar with and bring new tasks that often consume additional time. This thesis introduces a new RE-based approach aiming to evaluate and estimate the potential impact of new system integrations on current practices, organizational goals,and user satisfaction using goal modelling and process modelling techniques. This approach is validated with two case studies conducted in real hospitals and a usability study involving healthcare practitioners. The contributions of the thesis are: • Major: a novel Activity-based Process Integration (AbPI) framework that enables the integration of a new process into existing practices incrementally, in a way that permits continuous analysis and evaluation. AbPI also provides several alternatives to a given integration to ensure effective flowing and minimal disturbance to current practices. AbPI has a Goal Integration Method to integrate new goals, an Integration Method to integrate new processes, and an Alternative Evaluation Method exploiting multi-criteria decision-making algorithms to select among strategies. The modelling concepts of AbPI are supported by a profile of the User Requirements Notation augmented with a new distance-based goal-oriented approach to alternative selection and a new data-quality-driven algorithm for the propagation of confidence levels in goal models. • Minor: a usability study of AbPI to investigate the usefulness of the framework in a healthcare context. This usability study is part of the validation and is also a minor contribution due to: 1) the lack of usability studies when proposing requirements engineering frameworks, and 2) an intent to discover the potential usefulness of the framework in a context where recognized RE practices are seldom used.

Abstract ------------- Background ---------------- Like other businesses, the failures and problems faced by the software development industry over the time have motivated experts to look for software process improvement to create quality software rapidly, repeatedly, and reliably. Objective ------------ The purpose of this study is to evaluate if and how Lean thinking and principles primarily associated with auto manufacturing industry can be applied to software development lifecycle for Software Process Improvement (SPI). The secondary aim is to analyze how BPR can be integrated with Lean software development for process improvement. Method ---------- A derived Lean-BPR adoption pattern model is used as a theoretical framework for this thesis. The seven Lean software development principles along with four-step BPR process are selected as process improvement patterns, which effects the KPIs of a software organization. This research study incorporates both Qualitative and Quantitative methods and data to analyze the objectives of this study. The methodological framework of Plan-Do-Check-Act is used in the case study to implement process re-engineering incorporating Lean and BPR principles. The impact of adopting the Lean and BPR principles is assessed in terms of cost, productivity, quality of products and resource management. Results ---------- Application of Lean and BPR principles for software process improvement in the organization under study resulted in 79% improvement in test coverage, 60% reduction in time for test execution and analysis and 44% reduction in cost for fixing defects that were being passed to customer in past. Conclusion ------------- Based on case study results, it can be concluded that Lean, a bottom up approach, characterized by empowerment of employees to analyze and improve their own working process can be effectively combined with IT centric traditionally top down BPR approach for improving KPI’s and software processes. / +45 40968458

Please read the abstract in the dissertation.pdf of this document / Dissertation (MEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / MEng / unrestricted

Bakgrund: När covid-19 spred sig i Sverige under våren 2020 blev både samhället, näringslivet och andra samhällsfaktorer drabbade. Regeringen utformade flera restriktioner under årets gång och speciellt drabbad blev restaurang- och hotellbranschen. För företagen blev det snabbt viktigt att anpassa sig och tillämpa rätt strategi för att överleva. När covid-19 drabbade världen i modern tid skapade det ett unikt tillfälle att undersöka vilka faktiska strategival företag har tillämpat under en kris. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att nå en djupare förståelse i hur företag arbetat med strategiförändringar till följd av covid-19 och hur planering används i företags strategiarbete. Metod: I denna studie tillämpas en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med en abduktiv ansats. För att kunna undersöka forskningsfrågan har en intervjustudie gjorts. Data har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer från sex olika företag som ligger till grund för empirin. Slutsats: I studien framkommer det att samtliga företag har arbetet med att tillämpa nya strategiförändringar för att kunna fortsätta bedriva sin verksamhet till följd av covid-19. Företagen har inte använt någon långsiktig planering vid deras strategiarbete. Deras strategiarbete i covid-19 har istället handlat om kortsiktig planering, samarbete, kommunikation och kreativt entreprenörskap. / Background: When covid-19 spread in Sweden in the spring of 2020, both society, business and other important societal factors were affected. The government designed several restrictions during the year and the restaurant and hotel industry was particularly affected. For companies, it quickly became important to adapt and apply the right strategy to survive. When covid-19 hit the world in modern times, it created a unique opportunity to examine strategy choices companies have applied during a crisis. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how companies worked with strategy changes as a result of covid-19 and how planning is used in companies' strategy work. Method: In this study, a qualitative research method with an abductive approach is applied. In order to investigate the research question, an interview study has been conducted. Data have been collected through semi-structured interviews from six different companies that form the basis of the empirical data. Conclusion: The study shows that all companies have had to apply new strategy changes in order to stay in business due to the covid-19. The companies have not used any long-term planning in their strategy work. Their strategy work in covid-19 has instead focused on short-term planning, collaboration, communication and creative entrepreneurship.

The study identifies how different stakeholders perceive service quality improvement initiatives in public higher education institutions in Ethiopia. For this purpose, a mixed research methodology was employed. Furthermore, secondary data were collected from a variety of literature and primary data were collected from academic staff and final year students at public higher education institutions using the SERVQUAL scale and through focus group interviews. The collected data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The research findings indicated that all dimensions of the service quality improvement initiatives were perceived by academic staff and studentsto be verypoor. The reasons for these poor or low perceptions were: the high expectationsof the stakeholders, the government’s intention to expand, lack of adequate knowledge regarding the implementation of the BPR process, the lack of motivation by service providers, poor management and the lack of good governance by the universities, inexperienced workers, non-empowered and task specific frontline employees, the low quality of the infrastructure, non-value adding hierarchical structures and approval systems, ethical problems with some service providers, the high staff turnoverand the lack of experienced staff. In addition, at all new universities, construction is underway and as a result,there are problems such as the poor state of the dormitories, classes,bathrooms, recreation areas, lounges, TV rooms, sport fields and internet connectivity, while the libraries are not well stocked with books and periodicals either. This study has recommended that the institutions should have standardised instruments that can be used to measure the status of service quality improvement and deliveryperiodically and to identify the areas that have the highest perceived performance gap scores in order to redeploy some of the resources. It also needs to be pointed out that the service providers lack sufficient knowledge and skillsconcerning the implementation of BPR, thus training is recommended in this regard.It is further recommended that for effective implementation of the BPR process, the importance of the provision of different guiding documents, continuous monitoring of activities and top management support should be kept in mind. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Educational Management)

The study identifies how different stakeholders perceive service quality improvement initiatives in public higher education institutions in Ethiopia. For this purpose, a mixed research methodology was employed. Furthermore, secondary data were collected from a variety of literature and primary data were collected from academic staff and final year students at public higher education institutions using the SERVQUAL scale and through focus group interviews. The collected data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The research findings indicated that all dimensions of the service quality improvement initiatives were perceived by academic staff and studentsto be verypoor. The reasons for these poor or low perceptions were: the high expectationsof the stakeholders, the government’s intention to expand, lack of adequate knowledge regarding the implementation of the BPR process, the lack of motivation by service providers, poor management and the lack of good governance by the universities, inexperienced workers, non-empowered and task specific frontline employees, the low quality of the infrastructure, non-value adding hierarchical structures and approval systems, ethical problems with some service providers, the high staff turnoverand the lack of experienced staff. In addition, at all new universities, construction is underway and as a result,there are problems such as the poor state of the dormitories, classes,bathrooms, recreation areas, lounges, TV rooms, sport fields and internet connectivity, while the libraries are not well stocked with books and periodicals either. This study has recommended that the institutions should have standardised instruments that can be used to measure the status of service quality improvement and deliveryperiodically and to identify the areas that have the highest perceived performance gap scores in order to redeploy some of the resources. It also needs to be pointed out that the service providers lack sufficient knowledge and skillsconcerning the implementation of BPR, thus training is recommended in this regard.It is further recommended that for effective implementation of the BPR process, the importance of the provision of different guiding documents, continuous monitoring of activities and top management support should be kept in mind. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Educational Management)

Companies are under constant pressure to adapt and improve their processes to staycompetitive. Since most of their processes are handled by software, it also needs toconstantly change. Those improvements and changes add up over time and increase thecomplexity of the system, which in turn prevents the company from further adaption.In order to change and improve existing business processes and their implementation withinsoftware, several stakeholders have to go through a long process. Current IT methodologies arenot suitable for such a dynamic environment. The analysis of this change process shows thatfour software characteristics are important to speed it up. They are: transparency, adaptability,testability and reparability. Transparency refers to the users capability to understand what thesystem is doing, where and why. Adaptability is a mainly technical characteristic that indicatesthe capability of the system to evolve or change. Testability allows automated testing andvalidation for correctness without requiring manual checks. The last characteristic is reparability,which describes the possibility to bring the system back into a consistent and correct state, evenif erroneous software was deployed.An architecture and software development patterns are evaluated to build an overall programmingmodel that provides the software characteristics. The overall architecture is basedon microservices, which facilitates decoupling and maintainability for the software as well asorganizations. Command Query Responsibility Segregation decouples read from write operationsand makes data changes explicit. With Event Sourcing, the system stores not only the currentstate, but all historic events. It provides a built-in audit trail and is able to reproduce differentscenarios for troubleshooting and testing.A demo process is defined and implemented within multiple prototypes. The design of theprototype is based on the programming model. It is built in Javascript and implements Microservices,CQRS and Event Sourcing. The prototypes show and validate how the programmingmodel provides the software characteristics. Software built with the programming model allowscompanies to iterate faster at scale. Since the programming model is suited for complex processes,the main limitation is that the validation is based on a demo process that is simpler and thebenefits are hard to quantify. / ör att fortsatt vara konkurrenskraftiga är företag under konstant press att anpassa ochförbättra sina processer. Eftersom de flesta processer hanteras av programvara, behöveräven de ständigt förändras. Övertiden leder dessa förbättringar och förändringar till ökadsystemkomplexitet, vilket i sin tur hindrar företaget från ytterligare anpassningar. För attförändra och förbättra befintliga affärsprocesser och dess programvara, måste idag typiskt fleraaktörer vara en del av en lång och tidskrävande process. Nuvarande metoder är inte lämpade fören sådan dynamisk miljö. Detta arbete har fokuserat på fyra programvaruegenskaper som ärviktiga för att underlätta förändringsprocesser. Dessa fyra egenskaper är: öppenhet, anpassningsförmåga,testbarhet och reparerbarhet. Öppenhet, hänvisar till förmågan att förstå varför, var ochvad systemet gör. Anpassningsbarhet är huvudsakligen en teknisk egenskap som fokuserar påsystemets förmåga att utvecklas och förändras. Testbarhet strävar efter automatisk testning ochvalidering av korrekthet som kräver ingen eller lite manuell kontroll. Den sista egenskapen ärreparerbarhet, som beskriver möjligheten att återhämta systemet till ett konsekvent och korrekttillstånd, även om felaktig programvara har använts. En programmeringsmodell som rustarprogramvara med de ovan beskrivna programegenskaperna är utvecklad i detta examensarbete.Programmeringsmodellens arkitektur är baserad på diverse micro-tjänster, vilka ger brafrånkopplings- och underhållsförmåga för en programvara, samt användarorganisationerna.Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) frånkopplar läsoperationer från skrivoperationeroch gör ändringar i data explicita. Med Event Sourcing lagrar systemet inte endastdet nuvarande tillståndet, utan alla historiska händelser. Modellen förser användarna medett inbyggt revisionsspår och kan reproducera olika scenarion för felsökning och testning. Endemoprocess är definierad och implementerad i tre olika prototyper. Designen av prototypernaär baserad på den föreslagna programmeringsmodellen. Vilken är byggd i Javascript och implementerarmicro-tjänster, CQRS och Event Sourcing. Prototyperna visar och validerar hurprogrammeringsmodellen ger programvaran rätt egenskaper. Programvara byggd med dennaprogrammeringsmodell tillåter företag att iterera snabbare. De huvudsakliga begränsningarna iarbetet är att valideringen är baserad på en enklare demoprocess och att dess fördelar är svåraatt kvantifiera.

System dynamics modelling has been used for around 40 years to address complex, systemic, dynamic problems, those often described as wicked. But, system dynamics modelling is not an exact science and arguments about the most suitable techniques to use in which circumstances, continues. The nature of these wicked problems is investigated through a series of case studies where poor situational awareness among stakeholders was identified. This was found to be an underlying cause for management failure, suggesting need for better ways of recognising and managing wicked problem situations. Human cognition is considered both as a limitation and enabler to decision-making in wicked problem environments. Naturalistic and deliberate decision-making are reviewed. The thesis identifies the need for integration of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Case study results and a review of the literature led to identification of a set of principles of method to be applied in an integrated framework, the aim being to develop an improved way of addressing wicked problems. These principles were applied to a series of cases in an action research setting. However, organisational and political barriers were encountered. This limited the exploitation and investigation of cases to varying degrees. In response to a need identified in the literature review and the case studies, a tool is designed to facilitate analysis of multi-factorial, non-linear causality. This unique tool and its use to assist in problem conceptualisation, and as an aid to testing alternate strategies, are demonstrated. Further investigation is needed in relation to the veracity of combining causal influences using this tool and system dynamics, broadly. System dynamics modelling was found to have utility needed to support analysis of wicked problems. However, failure in a particular modelling project occurred when it was found necessary to rely on human judgement in estimating values to be input into the models. This was found to be problematic and unacceptably risky for sponsors of the modelling effort. Finally, this work has also identified that further study is required into: the use of human judgement in decision-making and the validity of system dynamics models that rely on the quantification of human judgement.