Enterprise portals are comprehensive solutions that enable centralized access to information and employees. They also support the business processes taking place in companies. The diversity of functionality offered by enterprise portals is the source of the complexity of the manufacturing process of such applications. Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) are a novel approach to solving problems associated with the software development. By limiting the possibilities of expression to the concepts related to a specific area Domain-Specific Languages are more focused on solving specific problems. The subject of this thesis is DSL SharePoint – Domain-Specific Language which supports the production of enterprise portals on Microsoft SharePoint platform. Language was developed with respect to the newest achievements in area of building DSLs. By applying the language in the industry, it was possible to verify the hypothesis that its usage positively affects the quality of software products. To this end, the quality model was built, and products made with the support of language have been compared to those developed in the traditional manner.

Context. Global software development (GSD) has become a significant practice in software industry due to rapid globalization processes and technological advances. In GSD, software development activities are carried at geographically distributed locations by collaboration of people with different background and culture. In this study, we studied an area of global software maintenance from both of state of the art and state of practice in order to understand which challenges are hampering the effectiveness of distributed maintenance team as well as which mitigation strategies can appease their impact. Objectives. The study unravels challenges of global software maintenance and alleviation strategies to address to those challenges by methodically reviewing relevant studies and industrial practitioners’ experiences. It also explores the convergence and divergence between the outcome from scientific studies and industrial settings Methods. Data collection processes are done through systematic literature review and industrial interviews. In the systematic review a variety of article sources are queried, including Compendex, Inspec, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Wiley Inter Science, Scopus, Science Direct, ISI WOS and Springer Link. Interviews are conducted with five practitioners from 4 different multinational organizations. As data analysis methods, grounded theory and qualitative comparative analysis are applied. Results. Totally, 90 different challenges and 73 strategies were revealed. Unlike most of similar studies in GSD which used 3C categorization (Communication, Control and Coordination), we come up with a different view as we called 3PT which conceptualizes challenges and strategies into People, Process, Product and Technology factors. Conclusions. We conclude that collaborative processes and their clear definitions among all maintenance stakeholders are one of the critical success factors of effective maintenance in global collaboration. Most importantly, a maintenance management should focus on the holistic improvement of each factor in 3PT and their synergy can contribute much to the successful software maintenance in globally distributed environment. / We found that collaborative processes and their clear definitions among all maintenance stakeholders are one of the critical success factors of effective maintenance in global collaboration. Most importantly, a maintenance management should focus on the holistic improvement of each factor in 3PT and their synergy can contribute much to the successful software maintenance in globally distributed environment.

Agile software development methods are often advertised as a contrast to the traditional, plan-driven approach to software development. The reported and argued benefits on software quality, coordination, productivity and other areas are numerous. The base of empirical evidence to the claimed effects is however thin, and more empirical studies on the effects of agile software development methods in different contexts are needed, especially in large-scale, industrial settings. The purpose of the thesis was to study the impact of using agile principles and practices in large-scale software development projects at Ericsson and it was carried out as a multiple-case study of two projects. One of the projects had implemented a limited number of agile software development practices and was largely plan-driven, while the other project had fully adapted its organization and product design for agile software development. Propositions of possible effects of the use of agile principles and practices in the two projects were generated by a literature review. Empirical data was then collected from online surveys of project members, internal documents, personal contact with key project members and a collection of metrics, to study the presence of the proposed effects. The study was focused on eight different areas: internal software documentation, knowledge sharing, project visibility, pressure and stress, productivity, software quality and project success rate. Agile principles and practices were found to: Lead to a more balanced use of internal software documentation, when supported by sound documentation policies. Contribute to knowledge sharing. Increase project members’ visibility of the status of other teams and the entire project. Increase coordination effectiveness and reducing the need for other types of coordination mechanisms. Increase productivity. Possibly increase software quality. Additionally, the study showed that internal software documentation is important also in agile software development projects, and cannot fully be replaced with face-to-face communication. Further, it was clear that it’s possible to make a partial implementation of agile principles and practices, and still receive a positive impact. Finally, the study showed that it’s feasible to implement agile principles and practices in large-scale software development. It therefore contributes to understanding the effects of agile software development in different contexts.

Due to its growth at exponential rate offshore software development has become a common way of producing software by software organizations from highly industrialized countries in Europe and North America.  Previous studies have revealed that some of these organizations use agile project management frameworks in managing and running their offshore software projects. Blending agile principles and offshore software development appears to raise a contradiction as the two notions have opposite characteristics. This research focuses the implementation of agile project management frameworks such as Scrum in offshore software projects. The research project was performed by reviewing relevant literature and analyzing the results obtained from the interviews conducted to Cambio Healthcare Systems AB, a Swedish software company that offshore its software projects with Creative Technologies Pty Ltd located in Sri Lanka. The interviews were conducted to Swedish based staff involved in offshore software projects with their Sri Lankan partners. The research findings indicate that offshore software development is a challenging business and requires close monitoring to minimize its challenges. Some of the challenges include dispersion, loss of communication richness and cultural differences between the parties involved. Moreover even though the agile project management frameworks and offshore software development principles differ in nature, the findings have revealed that software organizations such as Cambio make use of these differences to minimize the challenges they face in their respective offshore software projects. The main conclusions drawn from this research is that there is not much evidence that the application of agile project management frameworks such as Scrum is feasible enough to combat the challenges. This research suggests for further research studies to collect information from staff in both offshore and onshore sites in order to formulate enough evidence on whether to apply these strategies or not.

This thesis describes the design, development and implementation of the core hardware and software of a modular data acquisition system for geophysical data collection. The primary application for this system is the acquisition and realtime processing of seismic data captured in mines. This system will be used by a commercial supplier of seismic instrumentation, ISS International, as a base architecture for the development of future products. The hardware and software has been designed to be extendable and support distributed processing. The IEEE-1394 High Performance Serial Bus is used to communicate with other CPU modules or peripherals. The software includes a pre-emptive multitasking microkernel, an asynchronous mailbox-based message passing communications system, and a functional IEEE-1394 protocol stack. The reasons for the end design and implementation decisions are given, and the problems encountered in the development of this system are described. A critical assessment of the match between the requirements for the project and the functionality of the implementation is made.

In this master thesis two different worldviews are compared: a mechanistic, and an organic worldview. The way we think the world and the nature work reflects on how we think organizations work, or how they ought to work. The mechanistic worldview has dominated our way of thinking since the seventeenth century, and it compares the world with a machine. The organic worldview could use a number of different metaphors, but the one addressed in this thesis is complexity theory. Complexity theory is related to chaos theory and is concerned with complex adaptive systems (cas). Complex adaptive systems exist everywhere and are systems such as the human immune system, economies, and ecosystems. What complexity theory tries to do is to understand these systems—how they arise, how they function and how order emerge in them. When looking at complex adaptive systems you can’t just look at the different parts. You must take a more holistic view and look at the whole and the interaction of the parts. If you just look at the parts you will miss the emergent properties that have emerged as the system has self-organized. One prominent aspect of these systems is that they don’t have any central authority, but somehow order do arise. In relation to organizations, complexity theory has something to say about almost all aspects of organizations: from what kind of leadership is needed, and how teams should be organized to the physical structure of the organization. To understand what complexity theory is and how to relate that to (software developing) organizations is the main focus of this thesis. Scrum is an agile and lightweight process which can be applied on development projects in general, but have been used in such diverse examples as software development projects, marketing programs, and business process reengineering (BPR) initiatives. In this thesis Scrum is used as an example of how to apply complexity theory to organizations. The result of the thesis showed that Scrum is highly influenced and compatible with complexity theory, which implies that complexity theory is of some use in software development. However, there are more work to be done to determine how effective it is, how to introduce it into organizations, and to explore more specific implementations. This master thesis should give the reader a good understanding of what complexity theory is, some specific issues to consider when applying complexity theory on organizations, and some specific examples of how to apply complexity theory on organizations.

The Node.js based web application Entize Planning needs to evolve and become distributable, and the logical transformation is into a SaaS cloud service that can compete in a pressured economic climate concerning resources. The aim is to provide an insight into the challenges in mitigating a web service to the cloud. By utilising the edge concerning low-cost and rapid development associated with Open Source use, a NoSQL supported and Node.js with related technologies, cloud service prototype development process and environment is proposed. Keeping guidelines such as: security, maintenance, complexity, scalability and mobility; emphasised, in order to carefully utilise existing architecture will result in an flexible solution that preserves aforementioned attributes, making the project as a whole a success towards its endusers. Key remarks that surfaced was the distinct separation between Entize Planning - the product - and the delivery mechanism - the cloud service plattform - and also the explicit need to investigate any utilisation of preexisting cloud architecture pertaining limitations in their delivery, before adoptation.

This is a report concerning the software development project Eldflugan, a system developed by eight students at Linköping University. It addresses experience from developing a web-based e-commerce using Scrum, an agile development method, which was used throughout the project. The teams work, how Scrum was applied with both advantages and disadvantages is being lifted. Different development environments have been used due to separate issues and opportunities, which is described. The database management systems, MySQL, and the local version, SQLite, are discussed as well as AJAX and PJAX, tools for giving the users a better and faster experience. To prepare Eldflugan for entering the e-commerce market, a marketing plan including environmental scanning, a SWOT analysis and a STP, has been made. Ethical aspects such as legal, use and handling of personal information and how it is communicated are also being addressed. Finally the report discusses product weaknesses, future opportunities, implementation difficulties and how those could have been prevented. It was found that Scrum is best used when it is utilized fully and a risk analysis can prevent unexpected problems to surface.

This master thesis deals with problems of information technology projects and their solutions using agile project management. Based on an analysis of the company and its projects is suggested solution using agile methods.

This paper provides a report on the experimental collaborative and distributed development of a prototypic Widget-based PLE. The development process is described and detailed taking into account the requirements of a language learning scenario. First results are presented, and developer experiences are discussed critically with a focus on the development process as well as problems with current Widget technologies and interoperability.