This study investigates the critical success factors involved in agile systems development projects. Various systems development methodologies and project management methodologies are presented with their underlying principles, strengths and weaknesses. Thereafter the critical success factors adopted from the work of Chow and Cao (2007) are presented. A positivistic research paradigm was chosen for data collection and analysis. The survey method was chosen for data collection. A questionnaire was sent to multiple respondents in a predominantly agile work environment, which resulted in a total of 129 respondents in various business sectors. The results were analysed by implementing multiple correlation and regression statistics as well as descriptive statistics. The results show that there are in fact 16 critical success factors that have a direct impact on the success of agile systems development projects. Agile systems development methodologies have been increasing in use during the last 3 years, and most organisations are implementing some form of project management methodology. The first recommendation is based on the findings that strong customer involvement and the appropriate management of the agile process with a satisfactory amount of documentation resulted in greater process success. Therefore, organisations should encourage these critical success factors when implementing an ASDM as this has a positive effect on the project outcome. The appropriate management of the agile process with a satisfactory amount of documentation, the application of good design practices and technical knowledge to a project, and a cooperative organizational culture instead of hierarchical are three of the key critical success factors that were positively related to the success of the product. By focussing on these critical success factors, the success of the entire project can be predicted. / Thesis (MCom (Computer Science & Information Systems))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Over the years, organizations have seen fit to adopt the use of agile systems development methodologies (ASDMs) because of the benefits that they offer, such as flexibility and the ability to deliver products faster, in constantly changing environments. When ASDMs are used in projects, they are made to fit or be suitable for a project‟s unique aspects, such as its size, requirements, scope and outcomes. This is known as the contingent use of ASDMs. Little is known about the contingent use of ASDMs in South African organizations. It is not known whether it is happening, its procedure and its success. It is important to know this because quality and control need to be maintained in systems produced. There is always a danger that the benefits of using a system development methodology (SDM) would be lost if ASDMs are highly adapted. This led to an investigation of three organizations in South Africa that use contingent ASDMs. With the help of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and documents, data was collected that was analysed, using the tool ATLAS.ti, and the analysis methods content and cross-case analysis. It was found that some South African organizations in the telecommunications, consulting, technological, outsourcing and agricultural sectors use ASDMs in combination with the still popular waterfall SDM. Compatibility between the SDM and the project is a factor in some organizations. Scrum was cited to be the ASDM that was used in some of the organizations interviewed due to its maturity. They make ASDMs contingent by using aspects in the methods, such as Scrum, that are useful for their unique projects. These aspects are in some cases combined with other SDMs to form hybrid methodologies. Some organizations use criteria, such as project needs, outcomes, size and complexity to make ASDMs contingent. Some organizations have measures and facilities in place to manage, monitor, control and document the process used to make ASDMs contingent. They make use of contingent ASDMs as they have experienced more success with them and they will continue to do so. / Thesis (MCom (Computer Science & Information Systems))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

With the increasing demand for high performance communication networks and the proliferation of mobile devices, significant advances in antenna design are essential. In recent years the rising demands of the mobile wireless communication industry have forced antennas to have increased performance while being limited to an ever decreasing footprint. Such design constraints have forced antenna designers to consider frequency agile antennas so that their behavior can adapt with changing system requirements or environmental conditions. Frequency agile antennas used for mobile handset applications must also be inexpensive, robust, and make use of electronic switching with reasonable DC power consumption. Previous works have addressed a number of these requirements but relatively little work has been performed on frequency agile dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs). The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of DRAs for frequency reconfigurability. DRAs are an attractive option due to their compactness, very low losses leading to high radiation efficiencies (better than 95%) and fairly wide bandwidths compared to alternatives. DRA’s are also well suited for mobile communications since they can be placed on a ground plane and are by nature low gain antennas whose radiation patterns typically resemble those of short electric or magnetic dipoles. One way to electronically reconfigure a DRA, in the sense of altering the frequency band over which the input reflection coefficient of the antenna is below some threshold, is to partially load one face of the DRA with a conducting surface. By altering the way in which this surface connects to the groundplane on which the DRA is mounted, the DRA can be reconfigured due to changes in its mode structure. This connection was first made using several conducting tabs which resulted in a tuning range of 69% while having poor cross polarization performance. In order to address the poor cross polarization performance a second conducting surface was placed on the opposing DRA wall. This technique significantly reduced the cross polarization levels while obtaining a tuning range of 83%. The dual-wall conductively loaded DRA was then extended to include a full electronic implementation using PIN diodes and varactor diodes in order to achieve discrete and continuous tuning respectively. The two techniques both achieved discrete tuning ranges of 95% while the varactor implementation also had a continuous tuning range of 59% while both maintaining an acceptable cross polarization level.

Agile methods for Information Systems Development (ISD) projects are claimed to encourage developers to be more flexible and efficient by means of arrangements in the development team’s physical and social environment. Research has, however, not yet answered the questions of how, why, and in what contexts agile methods work. ISD can be understood as a highly complex undertaking, which requires the developers’ creativity. The creative process is susceptible to the individual’s task motivation, which in turn is affected by the physical and social environment. In view of this, I argue that theories of motivation, such as the Self-Determination Theory, and theories of creativity could be usefully applied in such research. This study analyses Scrum, one of the most popular agile methods. Empirical data were collected through focused interviews with developers who had extensive experience of working in projects using various agile methods. Narratives of work episodes with perceived high and low motivation were analyzed in terms of motivation theory. Interview data were classified according to the type of motivation experienced and analyzed in relation to the agile method arrangement involved. The results of the investigation demonstrate how agile methods affect developers’ motivation in ways that are conducive to creative performance. The most pronounced effects are related to the individuals’ perceived work-related competence, autonomy, and sense of belonging to the team. Several agile arrangements in combination affect motivation in the positive direction, the single most influential factor being the team’s daily stand-up meetings. The agile arrangement that seems most difficult to implement without causing episodes of low motivation is the product owner role. The analytical approach taken in this study contributes to a better understanding of the aspects that are critical to the successful implementation of agile methods. / Agila metoder för systemutvecklingsprojekt syftar till att öka utvecklarnas flexibilitet och effektivitet genom arrangemang av utvecklarnas fysiska och psykosociala arbetsmiljö. Forskning om hur, varför och i vilka sammanhang agila metoder fungerar är dock ännu otillräcklig. Systemutveckling kan beskrivas som en komplex uppgift som fordrar utvecklarnas kreativitet. Individens kreativa process påverkas av individens uppgiftsmotivation, vilken i sin tur påverkas av faktorer i den fysiska och psykosociala arbetsmiljön. Mot den bakgrunden framhålls psykologisk teori om motivation, som Self-Determination Theory, och teori om kreativitet, som relevant för forskning om agila metoder. I avhandlingen analyseras Scrum, en av de mest populära agila metoderna. Empiriska data har hämtats från fokusintervjuer med utvecklare med lång erfarenhet av arbete i agila projektmiljöer. Deras berättelser om episoder med starka motivationsupplevelser har analyserats med stöd av teorin. Intervjudata har klassificerats avseende motivationstyp och i relation till inverkande agila arrangemang. Resultaten visar hur agila metoder inverkar på utvecklares motivation i avseenden med relevans för kreativa prestationer. Starkast var inverkan relaterad till utvecklarnas upplevelse av arbetsrelaterad kompetens, autonomi och samhörighet med utvecklingsteamet. Flera samverkande agila arrangemang inverkade positivt på motivationen; allra starkast inverkan hade teamets dagliga stå-upp-möte. Det agila arrangemang som var svårast att implementera utan att bidra till uppkomsten av negativt inverkande episoder var rollen produktägare. Studien bidrar med kunskap relevant för implementering av agila metoder i systemutvecklingsprojekt.

Under denna studie så hade författarna ett uppdrag från en uppdragsgivare som var att skapa en ny agil projektmetod åt denna, för att främja deras arbete med ett projekt som de genomför årligen, som heter Jobb Shop. Projektet hade under det senaste genomförandet inte genomförts med hjälp av någon särskild projektmetod. Författarna till denna studie skapade under arbetets gång en specifik agil metod åt uppdragsgivaren som de kan använda under kommande år vid genomförandet av Jobb Shop. Vid sidan av detta så gjorde författarna även en metaanalys av den nya metoden där de studerade hur den nya agila arbetsmetoden, rent teoretiskt, kan främja kreativitet och innovation. Resultatet av studien visade att den teoretiska grunden för ovanstående fråga var god, och de drog slutsatsen att agila metoder, teoretiskt sett, mycket väl kan främja kreativitet och innovation. / During this study the authors had an assignment from a client which was creating a new Agile project methodology for the client, to promote their work on the project they undertake annually, named Jobb Shop. The project had during the last execution not been implemented by means of a specific project methodology. During this process the authors of this study created a specific agile methodology for the client that they can use in future years in the implementation of Jobb Shop. Alongside this, the authors also did a meta-analysis of the new method in which they studied how the new agile method, theoretically, can promote creativity and innovation. The results of the study showed that the theoretical basis for the above question was good, and they concluded that agile methods, theoretically, may well promote creativity and innovation.

In this thesis, the Test Driven Development method (TDD) is studied for use in developing embedded software. The required framework is written for the development environment Rhapsody. Integration of TDD into a classical development cycle, without necessitating a transition to agile methodologies of software development and required unit test framework to apply TDD to an object oriented embedded software development project with a specific development environment and specific project conditions are done in this thesis. A software tool for unit testing is developed specifically for this purpose, both to support the proposed approach and to illustrate its application. The results show that RhapUnit supplies the required testing functionality for developing embedded software in Rhapsody with TDD. Also, development of RhapUnit is a successful example of the application of TDD.

Thesis (MSc (Computer science))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Oldenburg, Univ., Diss., 2009

<p>Examensarbetet har sin ansats i utvecklingsmetoder närmare bestämt den lättrörliga utvecklingsmetoden Extreme Programming (XP). Beståndsdelen i en utvecklingsmetod är människorna, deras erfarenheter och kunnande samt deras förmåga att skapa idéer och lösa problem såväl enskilt som tillsammans. Utan nödvändig kompetens inom utvecklingsteamen ökar risken att utvecklingsprojekten misslyckas eller försenas. Syftet med detta arbete är att utifrån intervjuer med systemutvecklare undersöka vilka nödvändiga kompetenser som är nödvändiga för att XP skall kunna användas på ett effektivt sätt, även att uppmärksamma vilka problem som kan uppstå då den sociala kompetensen saknas. Metoden som har använts för att undersöka vilka faktorer som är nödvändiga i avseende till kompetenser är baserad på en kvalitativ ansats. Undersökningen har gjorts på två medelstora företag som använder XP vid utveckling av programvara. I stora drag har resultatet från denna undersökning utifrån intervjuer visat att social kompetens är viktig hos medarbetarna för att uppnå ett lyckat resultat. I ett projekt där samarbete med kunden sker kontinuerligt är det nödvändigt att systemutvecklarna har en god kommunikation vilken grundar sig på den sociala kompetensen. Slutsatser som kan dras från denna undersökning utifrån det empiriska materialet visar att social kompetens utgör en central roll inom XP. Systemutvecklare som använder XP behöver kunna kommunicera på ett klart och tydligt sätt, samt kunna samarbeta med övriga gruppmedlemmar för att projekten skall drivas framåt. I resultaten berörs även ytterligare kompetenser som kan vara till nytta vid användning av XP. Vidare redogörs för faktorer som kan vidtas för att uppnå kraven.</p>

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Please refer to full text for abstract.