Business process management (BPM) is a philosophical approach to organisation-wide management in which the focus is on the processes through which it operates, and in particular the streamlining and optimising of these processes, for which software solutions may be used. CTexT is an intrapreneurial software organisation that has been experiencing problems with software development due to a lack of formal processes relating to customer support, versioning, configuration, quality, risk and project management. The objective of the study is to determine whether the implementation of an electronic BPM system can effectively solve CTexT's development problems and thereby improve its overall software development capacity. More specifically, the focus is on i) the effect of the resulting standardisation on creativity and innovation, and ii) implementation matters, such as the type of processes that can be subjected to an electronic system, and how CTexT can overcome the time and cost constraints of such a system. The study investigates these questions by means of a literature investigation in combination with interviews with knowledgeable respondents from other innovative and software organisations. Interviews with six employees from CTexT determine the relevance of these findings and highlight critical areas for process improvement. Since BPM systems improve organisational efficiencies and are generally employed in larger corporate contexts marked by transactional and repetitive activities where they enforce administrative rules, the conclusion is drawn that a BPM system will not be suitable for an intrapreneurial organisation, and that it is likely to cause more disruption to the creative environment than improve its operations. It is further shown that although a BPM system is theoretically applicable to software development, it generally does not seem to be applied practically in the industry, and the suitability of this process as manageable through a BPM system is seriously questioned. Instead, the research points to improvement through the application of software development methodologies and a holistic approach towards BPM. The investigation at CTexT confirms that its development problems relate to flawed methodologies and that remedies should therefore focus on improving its methodologies and controlling certain aspects of the software development life cycle by means of suitable software tools. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007

O processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de grande porte, envolvem particularidades que tornam a sua gestão mais complexa, quando comparada ao desenvolvimento de sistemas tradicionais. Estudos ilustram resultados favoráveis quando aplicado a filosofia ágil durante o processo de fabricação de um software, no entanto, desperdícios ainda são observados quando o contexto do desenvolvimento são aplicações de grande porte. Assim sendo, a pesquisa em questão procura a redução de desperdícios identificados durante o processo de desenvolvimento de sistemas de grande porte. Foram realizados estudos teóricos e práticos objetivando analisar as técnicas e ferramentas Lean para obtenção de resultados mais eficientes. O estudo apresenta e discute conceitos do Lean para desenvolvimento de software e a sua relação com as metodologias ágeis para desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação. Resultados apontam melhorias no processo de desenvolvimento de software além da redução de desperdícios com superprodução de funcionalidades e defeitos encontrados. A dissertação em questão será constituída de uma etapa de revisão da literatura, e duas próximas etapas com aplicações práticas de ferramentas e técnicas Lean para a redução de desperdício no processo de desenvolvimento de software de grande porte. / The development process of large systems involves particularities that make their management more complex when compared to the development of traditional systems. Studies illustrate favorable results when applied to agile philosophy during the manufacturing process of a software, however, wastes are still observed when the development context are large applications. Therefore, the research in question seeks the reduction of wastes identified during the development process of large systems. Theoretical and practical studies were carried out to analyze Lean techniques and tools to obtain more efficient results. The study presents and discusses Lean concepts for software development and its relationship with agile methodologies for the development of information systems. Results point to improvements in the software development process besides the reduction of waste with overproduction of functionalities and defects found. The dissertation in question consists of a literature review stage, and two next steps with practical applications of tools and Lean techniques to reduce waste in the large software development process.

This dissertation investigates current trends concerning exceptions. Exceptions influence the reliability of software systems. In order to develop software systems that are most robust, thus delivering higher availability at a lower development and operating cost, the occurence of exceptions needs to be reduced and the effects of the exceptions controlled. In order to do this, issues such as detection, identification, classification, propagation, handling, language implementation, software testing and reporting of exceptions must be attended to. Although some of these areas are well researched there are remaining problems. The quest is to establish if a unified exception-handling framework is possible and viable, which can address the issues and problems throughout the software development life cycle, and if so, the requirements for such a framework. / Computing / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

South Africa has shown an increased interest and awareness of Open Source Software (OSS) in the past decade. One of the reasons for this was the support from the Shuttleworth Foundation for Open Source initiatives. Migrating to OSS is a difficult and time consuming activity that should not be underestimated by the migration team. Careful planning and roll-out procedures should be in place before one commence on this journey. Process reference models are used in different fields to capture the generic process flow of activities. For the OSS domain, no process reference models could be found for migration purposes. Therefore, this study has as aim the suggestion of an initial set of process reference models for an organisational OSS migration. These process reference models were identified by capturing the process models for a case study that entailed the migration of the CSIR software systems and desktops from proprietary to OSS. From this set of process models, the migration processes were identified and refined to a set of suggested process reference models for organisational OSS migrations. This set of process reference models are useful to determine the processes necessary for organisations considering migrating to OSS. The study is divided into four research questions, where the first focusses on use and value of process reference models and the second on what is already known about OSS migration processes. The third deals with key processes within an organisational open source migration (OOSM) and the last with process reference models for an OOSM. For the first research question, the use and value of process reference models and the usefulness of utilising process reference models is discussed as well as using process models as a modelling tool to identify and capture processes. For the second research question, a summary is provided of what we know about OSS migration processes and a description about what the researcher and others have learnt about OSS, OSS migrations, process reference models, the process and its structure. For the third research question, the key processes within an OOSM is discussed as well as all the processes that took place during the OSS migration project from basic administrative processes to complex processes, from the beginning of the project until its completion. Lastly, for the fourth research question, process reference models that are essential for an OOSM and possible generic migration process models bound to reoccur are identified by the researcher and validated using a focus group discussion. / M.Tech. (Information Technology)

People work together to solve a wide variety of problems using different forms of cooperation for each class of problem. Modern technology is complex, and therefore it is unusual for an individual to attempt the development of a major project single-handedly. In an attempt to provide computer-based support for the problems that arise when two or more people attempt to cooperate to perform a task or solve a problem, the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) becomes relevant. The software development process almost invariably involves cooperation that crosses group, professional, and subcultural boundaries. The complexity of software development demands that highly integrated groups of analysts, designers, and users are involved in the process. Many development activities may occur concurrently. The area of CSCW and advanced information technology, with its enormous capabilities for transmitting and storing information, holds considerable promise for the software development process. / Computing / M. Sc. (Information Systems)

Software project development is increasingly becoming geographically distributed especially in today’s global business environment. In order to build quality software faster andat a lower cost, companies in industrialised countries are turning to globally distributed software development projects. Emerging countries such as India and Israel are known to have large pools of highly trained software engineers at relatively low cost. However, recent trends have shown that new locations are emerging as developmental sites. Examples of those locations in the Middle East include Oman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The main attraction of those countries is that they are close to the Arab market. However, distributed development also entails a number of risks and problems, for instance in terms of communication and knowledge transfer between sites, resulting in project failures. Being the project manager of a team that includes remote members has additional challenges compared to managing co-located team members. These projects face particular challenges that need careful managerial attention.This research aims to examine how globally distributed software development projects are managed in the Middle East. The main question to be answered was “How do companies in the Middle East successfully manage and organise software development in a globally distributed environment?”. We outline the factors that were perceived as important by project managers. We also look at how culture affects the operation of virtual teams in a globally distributed software development environment in the Middle East taking religion into consideration. To understand how these factors influence the success of globally distributed software development projects in the Middle East, we conducted a qualitative case study research involving three different companies operating in Dubai, Oman, Abu Dhabi, India and Pakistan. We used semi-structured interviews as the primary sources of information as these allow highly personalised data. This research outlines the following specific project management-related areas that need to be addressed to facilitate successful virtual team operation: Cross-cultural collaboration • Tools and technology used to facilitate GSD • An infrastructure that facilitates communication between virtual teams • Effective project management / Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

O desenvolvimento de software entre equipes geograficamente distribuídas tem adquirido relevância devido a interesses das organizações, relacionados a custos de projetos, busca de profissionais multidisciplinares e especializados ou visando ampliar a cobertura de seus clientes, atendendo-os de forma mais globalizada. Porém, apesar dos benefícios existentes, há algumas dificuldades oriundas da distribuição de equipes que são inerentes da dispersão temporal e geográfica. Estas dificuldades incluem as diferenças culturais, linguísticas, temporais entre outras, que comprometem a qualidade da comunicação e consequentemente interferem na compreensão mútua entre as equipes que desenvolvem um mesmo projeto de software. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma melhoria de um processo de desenvolvimento distribuído de software (DDS), baseado em Scrum, capaz de minimizar as interferências e perdas de informações, descentralização de conhecimentos em pessoas específicas e melhorar no fluxo de comunicação e disseminação das informações. Um caso real foi abordado e para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho o método de pesquisa adotado foi a pesquisa-ação. Neste cenário real haviam problemas originados da comunicação ineficiente entre seus atores e exigiu que o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa tivesse várias iterações e retroalimentações até atingir a maturidade. A melhoria da comunicação foi alcançada e é a principal contribuição deste trabalho. / Software development between geographically distributed teams has acquired relevance due to interests of organizations, project-related costs, looking for multidisciplinary and specialized professionals or aiming to expand the coverage of its customers, serving them in a globalized form. However, despite the existing benefits, there are some difficulties originated from the distribution of teams that are inherent in the temporal and geographic dispersion. These difficulties include the cultural, linguistic, temporal among others, which affect the quality of communication and consequently interfere with the mutual comprehension between the teams which develop the same software project. Thus, the aim of this work is to present an improvement in the process of distributed software development (DSD) based on Scrum, capable to minimize interference and information losses, decentralization of knowledge in specific people and improve the communication flow and dissemination of information. A real case was discussed and as for the development of this work the action research was the approach employed in this study. In this scenario, problems originated from inefficient communication between their actors and demanded that the development of this research present several iterations and feedbacks in order to reach its maturity. Improved communication has been achieved and is the main contribution of this work.

O desenvolvimento de software entre equipes geograficamente distribuídas tem adquirido relevância devido a interesses das organizações, relacionados a custos de projetos, busca de profissionais multidisciplinares e especializados ou visando ampliar a cobertura de seus clientes, atendendo-os de forma mais globalizada. Porém, apesar dos benefícios existentes, há algumas dificuldades oriundas da distribuição de equipes que são inerentes da dispersão temporal e geográfica. Estas dificuldades incluem as diferenças culturais, linguísticas, temporais entre outras, que comprometem a qualidade da comunicação e consequentemente interferem na compreensão mútua entre as equipes que desenvolvem um mesmo projeto de software. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar uma melhoria de um processo de desenvolvimento distribuído de software (DDS), baseado em Scrum, capaz de minimizar as interferências e perdas de informações, descentralização de conhecimentos em pessoas específicas e melhorar no fluxo de comunicação e disseminação das informações. Um caso real foi abordado e para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho o método de pesquisa adotado foi a pesquisa-ação. Neste cenário real haviam problemas originados da comunicação ineficiente entre seus atores e exigiu que o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa tivesse várias iterações e retroalimentações até atingir a maturidade. A melhoria da comunicação foi alcançada e é a principal contribuição deste trabalho. / Software development between geographically distributed teams has acquired relevance due to interests of organizations, project-related costs, looking for multidisciplinary and specialized professionals or aiming to expand the coverage of its customers, serving them in a globalized form. However, despite the existing benefits, there are some difficulties originated from the distribution of teams that are inherent in the temporal and geographic dispersion. These difficulties include the cultural, linguistic, temporal among others, which affect the quality of communication and consequently interfere with the mutual comprehension between the teams which develop the same software project. Thus, the aim of this work is to present an improvement in the process of distributed software development (DSD) based on Scrum, capable to minimize interference and information losses, decentralization of knowledge in specific people and improve the communication flow and dissemination of information. A real case was discussed and as for the development of this work the action research was the approach employed in this study. In this scenario, problems originated from inefficient communication between their actors and demanded that the development of this research present several iterations and feedbacks in order to reach its maturity. Improved communication has been achieved and is the main contribution of this work.

Este trabalho procurou unir dois temas que, embora sejam muito relevantes, parecem trilhar caminhos independentes na administração: a avaliação de desempenho organizacional e as empresas brasileiras de desenvolvimento de software. Se, por um lado, a avaliação de desempenho organizacional pretende fornecer ferramentas e processos que auxiliem os gestores na condução de seus negócios, por outro lado, o desenvolvimento de software é tido como um setor que gera empregos de alta qualificação e que exporta um produto ou serviço com margens reais bem mais altas que aquelas registradas pela pauta tradicional de exportação. Nesse cenário, uma pesquisa de interesse é entender como é que as empresas brasileiras de desenvolvimento de software fazem avaliação de desempenho organizacional. Para cumprir com os objetivos deste trabalho exploratório, foi utilizada uma abordagem tanto qualitativa (dois estudos de caso) quanto quantitativa (16 respondentes de survey). Como resultados preliminares, há indicação de que existe um processo de amadurecimento da avaliação de desempenho das empresas de desenvolvimento de software e esse amadurecimento inclui a diminuição da importância atribuída ao curtíssimo prazo e o aumento da importância do médio e longo prazos. Estágios mais avançados desse amadurecimento devem incluir níveis cada vez maiores de sistematização das práticas de avaliação de desempenho e também devem privilegiar determinadas dimensões de avaliação. Em relação à percepção e à prática, também como resultados preliminares, percebe-se que as empresas não consideram importante preocuparem-se com as dimensões sociais e de meio-ambiente e não acreditam que eles gerem impactos positivos nos indicadores financeiros e, talvez, por esse motivo, as práticas são pouco maduras. Por fim, e talvez o resultado preliminar mais importante (até surpreendente), as empresas consideram que ter inovação e pessoas motivadas e desenvolvidas tecnicamente são as dimensões mais importantes e as que geram mais impactos positivos nos indicadores financeiros, mas elas não sabem ou não conseguem implementar indicadores para mensurá-las adequadamente. / This study has tried to bind two subjects of utmost importance but that seems to have independent pathways in Management: organizational performance measurement and Brazilian software development companies. On the one hand, organizational performance measurement intends to offer tools and processes so that managers can improve the way they run their businesses; on the other hand, the software development industry generates highly qualified jobs and exports goods and services with higher margins when compared to the Brazilian traditional export basket. As a result, a research of interest should ask how Brazilian software development companies are conducting organizational performance measurement. In order to comply with the goals of this exploratory study, both qualitative (two study cases) and quantitative (16 respondents of a survey) approaches were applied. Preliminary findings show that evidences lead to the existence of a performance measurement maturation process that software development companies undergo. According to this maturation process, companies shift their focus from the short term to the medium and long terms. More matured companies may experience a growing performance measurement systematization, even if it is non-declared at the beginning, and they should also privilege certain measurement perspectives. Regarding perception and practice, preliminary results show that companies do not perceive social and environmental perspectives as important, and they believe these perspectives do not have positive impacts on financial indicators. Consequently, practices related to these perspectives are not matured. Finally, the most important-even surprising-preliminary findings show companies believe that producing innovation and having motivated and well-trained employees are the most important perspectives to their businesses and they have positive impacts on financial indicators. Nevertheless, they do not know or they are unable to adequately implement performance measurement indicators of these perspectives.

Context. Global Software Development (GSD) or Global Software Engineering (GSE) is defined as the plan of action in which the software development is performed under various boundaries, such as temporal, political, organizational and cultural [1,2] . The projects developed in globally distributed environment are containing more risks than projects developed in collocated environment because of different challenges such as temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distances [67]. In this thesis communication risks have been discussed along with their causes and effects that hinder the effectiveness of GSD projects. Moreover mitigation practices to resolve communication risks and their negative impacts are also discussed. Objectives. The study describes the identification of communication risks, their causes, effects and the practices to mitigate the risks from both literature and industrial perspectives. Some recommendations has also been discussed on the basis of these resulted communication risks and their mitigation practices. Methods. Detailed systematic literature review in order to collect the data from relevant empirical studies with respect to our scope has been conducted in the first phase. Studies were selected from various Electronic Data Sources (EDS) such as IEEE Xplore (IEEE), ACM Digital Library (ACM), Inspec (IS), Compendex (CD), ISI Web of Science (WoS), Cite Seer (CS), Google Scholar (GS), Science Direct (SD), Springer Link (SL), Wiley Inter Science (WIS), and Business Source Premier (BSP). In second phase 22 industrial interviews were conducted from 13 different multinational organizations. In third phase data analysis has been made based on the analysis of ground theory. On the basis of the codes of grounded theory, comparative analysis has been performed between literature and industrial settings. At the end of the thesis some recommendations has been provided in order to resolve communication risks in GSD. Results. As a result of systematic literature review 44 risks, 44 causes, 38 effects and 63 practices have been identified in GSD with respect to communication. 27 risks, 22 causes, 19 effects and 39 mitigation practices were identified from the industrial interviews. These risks, causes, effects and practices are not only described in this thesis but also mapped in relation to each other. At the end in comparative analysis the combined risks, causes, effects and practices were identified in tabular form. In total 47 risks, 45 causes, 39 effects and 65 mitigation practices were identified through this work. Conclusions. Communication plays a fundamental role in achieving the best practices in Global Software Engineering. This study points out the salient risks and limitations that hamper the process of smooth communication in geographically dispersed teams. The causes and effects of the mentioned risks are discussed in detail and a set of recommendations is provided to cope with those risks and to minimize their effect. The resultant set of recommendations is based on the best suitable practices which shall be followed by globally distributed organizations to achieve a fully communicated environment just like an in-house development setting. / 0046760622684