The basic aim for any software development organization is to maximize value creation for any given investment. To amplify and speed up value creation efforts, Agile Software Development has gained much popularity during the last decade as a response to a volatile and disruptive market. In an Agile environment, the team focuses on lightweight working practices, constant deliveries and customer collaboration rather than heavy documentation and inflexible processes. However, the Agile way of working has complicated how an organization can control and evaluate the process; allowing organizations to believe that all Agile processes is the ideal process. This master thesis was conducted as a case study at Sectra ImIT, an Agile Health IT company working with Imaging and IT solutions that is currently in an early phase of introducing metrics in the System Development process. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate and suggest how the organization could use metrics to control and evaluate value creation in the System Development process. It also aimed to provide strategic recommendations to such an organization how they could continue their work with implementing and using metrics. The descriptive and exploratory purpose of this study was realized through unstructured and semistructured interviews with people involved in the process as well as observations. One of the major findings in this thesis is related to a missing feedback loop from defects occurring at customer site to the internal System Development process. Therefore, this study developed and implemented a concept to generate this feedback. The concept builds on defect information that can be used both to generate feedback and statistics for evaluation. The second major finding in this study is related to the identification of barriers to why the organization is not using metrics in teams to control and evaluate the process. Based on these findings, the authors presented several recommendations that should be considered to create a culture where teams are using metrics to learn more about the process. The first recommendation is that the organization should set guidelines among teams of what should, and is desired to be evaluated with focus on information need. Secondly, metrics need to be higher prioritized through directives from management granting team’s resources to manage metrics, which at the same time provides incentives that the organization believe metrics could improve their work. Thirdly, based on the company context, teams should identify metrics based on an information need derived from their prioritizations, changes, decisions and what is currently left unanswered. Finally, metrics should primarily be used to provide means for discussion and provide feedback with focus on trends rather than absolute numbers. / Det huvudsakliga målet för ett godtyckligt företag inom mjukvaruutveckling är att maximera det värde som skapas i varje enskild investering. För att förstärka och snabba upp värdeskapande har Agil mjukvaruutveckling växt i popularitet som en respons mot volatila och osäkra marknader. I en Agil miljö fokuserar grupper på ”lättviktade” arbetsmetoder, kontinuerliga leveranser och kundsamarbeten över det tidigare arbetssättet som bestod av mycket dokumentation och inflexibla processer. Samtidigt har det Agila arbetssättet gjort det svårt för organisationer att kontrollera och utvärdera processen, vilket har resulterat i att organisationer antar att deras Agila process är ideal och välfungerande med avsaknad av belägg för det. Detta examensarbete genomfördes som en fallstudie på Sectra ImIT, ett Agilt företag inom medicinsk teknik med fokus på bildhanteringssystem och IT lösningar. Företaget är i en tidig fas av att undersöka och introducera mätetal i systemutvecklingsprocessen, där syftet med examensarbetet var att utvärdera och föreslå hur organisationen kunde använda mätetal för att kontrollera och utvärdera värdeskapande i processen. Därtill ämnade studien även att ge strategiska förslag på hur företaget i framtiden kan arbeta med att implementera och använda sig av mätetal. Det deskriptiva och explorativa syftet realiserades genom ostrukturerade och semi-strukturerade intervjuer samt observationer med människor som dagligen arbetade inom processen. En iakttagelse var kopplad till avsaknaden av återkoppling mellan de defekter som uppkommer ute hos kund tillbaka till systemutvecklingsprocessen. Detta resulterade i ett koncept som utvecklades och implementerades av författarna med syfte att skapa återkoppling och möjlighet till statistisk utvärdering av processen som helhet. Den andra iakttagelsen berörde ett antal anledningar till varför organisationen inte använder mätetal i teams för att kontrollera och utvärdera processen. Baserat på en analys av dessa presenterar författarna flertalet rekommendationer som företaget borde ta hänsyn till för att skapa en kultur som främjar användandet av mätetal för att skapa ytterligare förståelse för processen. Den första rekommendationen är att organisationen bör diskutera riktlinjer gemensamt för teams gällande vad som anses önskvärt att utvärdera, med fokus på informationsbehov. Därtill bör organisationen uppmana teams till att allokera mer resurser på mätetal, vilket samtidigt ger incitament att det är något företaget tror kan hjälpa teams att bli bättre. Utifrån företagets kontext bör teams själva tillåtas att identifiera mätetal baserat på deras informationsbehov som ett resultat av exempelvis prioriteringar, förändringar, beslut och vad som för tillfället är obesvarat. Slutligen ska mätetal användas i huvudsak som en grund för diskussion och feedback med fokus på trender snarare än att uppnå specifika mål.

This thesis introduces an orienting mechanism and control system for the purpose of eye tonometry. The design is based on a 3RRR spherical parallel manipulator architecture. The end-effector is mounted with a triad of force sensing elements. Presented in this paper is a unique approach to force control based on an artificial neural network. The mechanism generates movements to collect data about its tactile environment ultimately generating a path to the force sensors' equilibrium point.

In a rapidly growing and evolving environment, organizations must be able to reconfigure their resource base in order to adapt to changes. Several studies and research findings have already recognized knowledge management as a mean to enhance an organization’s dynamic capabilities and innovation. Effective knowledge management strategies have therefore become essential for an organization to achieve competitive advantage and finally innovate. Among the challenges for an effective knowledge management strategy, the transformation of "tacit" knowledge, that exists only in the experiences and mind of individuals and as such is difficult to be codified and transmitted, into "explicit" knowledge, which instead can be easily expressed and documented, is essential to guarantee continuous organizational learning. Modern software development processes, such as Agile, provide to organizations several knowledge sharing techniques, to aid in the transformation of knowledge from "tacit" to "explicit" one. This study aims at investigating the impact of agile knowledge sharing methodologies on both dynamic and innovation capabilities of a selected case study organization, and further analyses the factors that may be contributing to such relationship. The research is carried out by surveying a representative sample of employees of a German software development company, CompanyX. In total, 15 responses were received and a semi-structured face-to-face interview was conducted with one senior manager. Correlation and reliability testing are used as statistical tools to test both the reliability and validity of the model. Finally, the causality between the factors affecting knowledge sharing methodologies in use at CompanyX and the organization’s dynamic and innovation capabilities are analysed and compared to previous theoretical and empirical research findings. Several important observations are made as a result of our study. In particular, the overall research findings demonstrate that agile knowledge sharing methodologies can act as enhancers of CompanyX dynamic capabilities and enablers of innovation.

Abstract In the last decade, the software industry has been marked by a growing trend of software companies’ ability to deploy new software features fast and frequently in short release cycle times. The companies’ software release cycles have been shortened to hours and minutes rather than months. To enable the transformation towards short release cycle times, companies have adopted several different strategies, including the DevOps approach. DevOps in the software industry emerged to represent a professional movement emphasising the collaboration between software development and operations. In practice, DevOps affects the company culture, processes, products, associated technologies and organisational structures used in software development and operations processes. The multifaceted nature of DevOps makes the concept ambiguous and difficult for software companies to adopt as there are many different paths to its adoption. The purpose of the thesis is to provide detailed description of the adoption and implementation of DevOps in software development comprehending the DevOps concept definition, and its practices, benefits and challenges. The research was performed by systematically reviewing the literature, multi-vocal documents and making qualitative inquiries among software practitioners; and based on that the consolidated body of knowledge of DevOps was constructed. The key finding of the research is that the DevOps approach includes an automated software deployment mechanism focusing on the rapid and repeatable release of software changes and automated management of operational infrastructure. The adoption and implementation of DevOps practices are prominent in software companies that use cloud computing technology, while its adoption is challenging in the embedded system domain. DevOps is not a silver bullet; challenges pertaining to the management of infrastructures due to legacy technologies still persist. The key lesson learned in the adoption and implementation of DevOps is that the software operational infrastructure is no longer considered separate from the development of software features; and this is achieved by having software development and operations teams jointly working together. / Tiivistelmä Viimeisen vuosikymmenen aikana ohjelmistoteollisuudessa on ollut kasvavana trendinä ohjelmistotalojen lisääntyvä kyky toimittaa ohjelmistomuutoksia nopeasti ja usein toistuvina päivityksinä. Yritysten ohjelmistotoimitus- ja päivitysjaksot ovat lyhentyneet kuukausista tunneiksi ja jopa minuuteiksi. Yritykset ovat ottaneet käyttöön useita erilaisia toimintatapoja kyetäkseen muuttamaan toimintaansa lyhyen aikavälin ohjelmistopäivityksiin kykeneväksi, joista yksi viimeisimmistä on DevOps (saumaton ohjelmiston kehittäminen ja käyttö). Ohjelmistotuotannossa DevOps syntyi ohjelmistoteollisuudessa ammattilaisten alkaessa painottaa ohjelmistojen kehittämisen ja käytön yhteistyön tärkeyttä. Käytännössä DevOpsilla on vaikutusta ohjelmisto-organisaation toimintakulttuuriin, prosesseihin, tuotteisiin, sekä teknologioihin ja organisaatiorakenteisiin, joita käytetään ohjelmistokehityksessä ja käyttöönottoprosessissa. DevOpsin käsitteen moniulotteisuudesta johtuen käsitteen sisältö jää usein epäselväksi ja samalla sen mukainen toiminta vaikeasti käyttöön otettavaksi ohjelmistoyrityksissä, koska toteutus on mahdollista tehdä monella eri tavalla. Tämän väitöksen tarkoituksena on antaa selkeä kuvaus DevOpsista ja sen toteutuksesta ohjelmistokehityksessä niin, että sen käsite, ja käytännöt, sekä sen tarjoamat edut ja haasteet tulevat ymmärretyiksi. Tutkimuksessa suoritettiin systemaattinen kirjallisuuskatsaus tieteellisiin julkaisuihin ja muihin lähinnä käytännön kokemuksiin pohjautuviin lähteisiin, suoritettiin kvalitatiiviset kyselytutkimukset, joiden kohteena olivat ohjelmistoammattilaiset, sekä muodostettiin näiden pohjalta saumattoman ohjelmistokehityksen ja käytön yhtenäinen tietämyskanta. Tutkimuksen keskeinen tulos on, että DevOps-lähestymistapa sisältää automaattisen ohjelmiston käyttöönottomekanismin, joka keskittyy nopeiden ja toistettavien ohjelmistomuutosten käyttöönottoon ja sitä tukevan operatiivisen infrastruktuurin hallintaan. DevOpsin omaksuminen ja käyttöönotto ovat näkyvästi esillä pilvipalvelinteknologiaa käyttävissä ohjelmistoyrityksissä, kun taas sen käyttöönotto on haastavaa sulautettujen järjestelmien alueella. DevOps ei ole mikään ’hopealuoti’, vaan sisältää erityisesti infrastruktuurien hallintaan liittyviä haasteita, jotka johtuvat edelleen käytössä olevista vanhoista tekniikoista. Keskeisin oppima DevOpsin omaksumisesta ja soveltamisesta käytäntöön on, että ohjelmistojen käyttöinfrastruktuuria ei enää tarkastella erillään ohjelmistojen kehittämisestä, vaan ne toimivat saumattomassa yhteistyössä keskenään.

This thesis provides a tour of main software development methods and their assimilation with usability. Various software development methods have been developed since the origin of software products, and with integration of usability they have achieved great heights. Software developers and researchers are also keen to integrate usability with their methods to develop a successful software product, as their product might not lose its grip over their competitors. This thesis is a preliminary literature review that provides solutions to key questions such as: Which development methods are used in projects with high demands on usability?Do agile methods positively contribute to the usability of the product? Do projects with high demands on usability use usability specialists?Which types of usability are addressed in articles relating development methods and usability? The research aim is to identify how software development methods deal with usability. This thesis clearly discusses about previous empirical studies on software development methods and usability. In this thesis, Kitchenham’s systematic literature review was followed to extract the knowledge from the databases (Inspec and ACM). Validation on the literature is performed using Cohen’s kappa value with a researcher. Four research questions mentioned above are discussed in detail to analyse the results. Agile software development methods have been widely deployed due to its iterative, incremental approach and positive contribution towards usability rather than traditional approach. The role of an usability expert has been analyzed in this thesis and their need in the development process. Futhermore, various usability types like satisfaction, efficiency and effectiveness have also been discussed in detail. Finally, this thesis suggess a solution of incorporating usability with software development methods.

The theme of this thesis is how to implement an existing software development methodology in small company. The main aim of the thesis is to choose and adapt one of existing methodology and implement it in the real enterprise environment, therefore the first step is analyze existing (current) state in this environment and consequently propose the best way of implementing and establishing the chosen methodology. The first chapter of the thesis deals with theoretical background devoted to history of software development methodologies and explains the meaning of software development and describes its goals and parts. Existing trends in the area of software development methodologies are also described in this chapter. The next part of the thesis is focused on most widely used methodologies and approaches in this area. Some of possible methodologies for small companies are described and presented with the view of making process of selection easier. Next logical step of this work is analyzing the current state of development process of client and choosing appropriate methodology for implementation. The last chapter deals with project of implementation that consists of several steps divided into three main phases. The aim of the first phase of the project is to propose solution to establishing new methodology. It is followed by the phase implementing this solution in real enterprise environment. The project of implementation concludes with verification of results through real pilot project.

Development of web applications is closely associated with testing. This master's thesis deals with the domain of testing. The goal of this thesis is to design a methodology of testing of web applications for small software company. The designed methodology results from OpenUP methodology and author's work experience. First, the theoretical part of this thesis is devoted to testing, history of testing and introduces several approaches to testing. Next, the theoretical part focuses on web applications and its specifics in light of testing. In view of the fact that the designed methodology is inspired by OpenUP methodology, this methodology including its basic principles and components is introduced in next separate chapter. The largest chapter describes the designed methodology of testing of web applications and its basic components: roles, activities and artifacts. Also errors and their lifecycles are examined. The thesis is concluded by a short muse upon the aspects of the implementation of the designed methodology in the environment of small company.

The main objective of this work is to propose a software development methodology which will reflect both issues -- design of User Experience (UX) and its implementation. The second objective is to compare the current software development methodologies. The third objective is to describe the work environment and the principles of that environment to fully implement this methodology. The fourth objective is to test the methodology in practice and validate its performance on my own startup. The fifth objective is to analyze companies which are focusing on similar product as my startup and their approach to UX development. First I will take look at waterfall methodology and then at modern agile methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban and Lean management, which are now becoming standard in software development. I will describe issues with the integration of UX into software development. The next section will introduce my own methodology, which is based on Scrum. The methodology consists of general principles of Lean and Agile management and the management, which is sometimes called "freedom at work". Then I will use the proposed methodology on my own startup project and will evaluate its use in practice. In last part I will analyze development process with focus on UX in projects Medium and Facebook. Thesis combines knowledge from Lean and agile management, economy and cognitive science to show the way to succeed in today services with great UX.

This thesis deals with the issue of project management in the development of custom software, particularly PRINCE2 methodology and agile approaches to software development. The work is divided into two parts. The first part is theoretical. It describes the basic concepts of project management, project history and characterizes the selected software development methodologies. The classical methods are represented by waterfall and spiral models. In the context of the agile methods are described Scrum, Extreme Programming, Kanban and Scrumban. Regarding the standards of project management this thesis describes in detail the methodology PRINCE2 which at the end of the theoretical part will be compared to the standards of PMI and IPMA. The second part is practical and describes an adaptation of PRINCE2 for small projects and helps to decide which tools of PRINCE2 are required for small projects use and which ones can be ignored. In this thesis the process of managing product delivery within the PRINCE2 methodology is replaced by the agile methodology Scrumban that is adapted for a software development within analyzed organization. The thesis focuses on a more detailed description of the methodology Scrumban, established metrics and motivation within the development team.

The thesis focuses on the selection and design of using project management methodology in a small IT company. The company develops enterprise software and deals with many problems that lead to frequent failure to comply with deadlines and cost overruns on projects. The theoretical part deals with the analysis of a range of approaches and "best practices" for implementation of the project management methodology into the organization. The analysis of these materials is then the basis for creating my own framework of recommended procedures for implementing project management methodology into the organization. The theoretical part also contains characteristics of the most widely used project management methodology. There are two objectives in the theoretical part - analysis of approaches and best practices for the implementation of the project management methodology into the organization and creating a framework of recommended procedures for implementing the methodology into the organization. The practical part has three objectives and starts with analysis of the current state of the small IT company from the perspective of project management. This analysis is the first objective of the practical part. To achieve this objective, several analytical methods were used, alongside with the measurement of the maturity of processes using CMMI models. The second objective of the practical part is the comparison and selection of a suitable methodology for project management of the small company according to selected criteria. To select the appropriate project management methodology are used two approaches - empirical and simplified selection. The final objective of the thesis is the application of the framework of recommended procedures for establishing the project management methodology into the organization.