The software artwork creation process is investigated using interviews with the artists, Brogan Bunt, Pierre Proske, Nathaniel Stern, Joshua Goldberg and Pall Thayer. This research asks the questions: How do practising software artist experience their development process? How does this process compare with the Agile software development process? How can conclusions made from a comparison between the Agile process and the discussions held with practising software artists shed light on the areas where the Agile process can assist artists and areas which might be avoided? The creative process was investigated from a cognitive psychological angle. The software development process was investigated from an Agile process point of view. Concepts connected with software as art medium provides the themes that face artists who choose software as medium. This study illuminates aspects of the Agile process that may assist software artists as well as highlight areas of the process that may disrupt the creative process. A process that is iterative, allows different cognitive styles and supports collaboration is recommended. Tools such as source code control and exploratory testing can support artwork documentation and exploration of the medium. The practical component of this research relates to the philosophical themes of the underlying software visibility in software art and a visual interpretation of the software development process.

Os Métodos Ágeis surgiram no final da década de 90, como uma alternativa aos métodos prescritivos de desenvolvimento de software. Eles propõem uma nova abordagem de desenvolvimento, eliminando gastos com documentação excessiva e burocrática, enfatizando a interação entre as pessoas e as atividades que efetivamente trazem valor ao cliente. Nos últimos anos, diversos princípios e práticas baseados na indústria de manufatura foram incorporadas pelos Métodos Ágeis de desenvolvimento de software. Um dos princípios absorvidos é o de melhorar a eficácia de uma organização através de melhorias globais. Embora este princípio seja bem difundido nos Métodos Ágeis, utilizá-lo não é uma tarefa fácil. Nem sempre é fácil ter uma visão global do processo de desenvolvimento. Além disso, para realizar melhorias globais é necessário descobrir a causa para possíveis problemas, o que também pode ser uma tarefa difícil. Esse trabalho investiga duas abordagens da indústria de manufatura que enxergam uma organização como um sistema no qual todas as partes são inter-relacionadas. Com base nelas, três abordagens de desenvolvimento de software existentes são analisadas. Finalmente, um estudo comparativo foi feito para avaliar as principais características dos métodos de desenvolvimento estudados. Esse estudo estende o trabalho feito por Abrahamssom et al., no livro Agile Software Development: Current Research and Future Directions, avaliando o desempenho dos métodos seguindo o arcabouço proposto pelos mesmos autores. / Agile methods appeared in the late 90\'s as an alternative approach to the classic prescriptive planning approaches to software development. They propose a new style of development, eliminating excessive and bureaucratic documentation, and emphasizing the interactions between people collaborating to achieve high productivity and deliver high-quality software. In the last few years, several principles and practices based on the manufacturing industry were incorporated by Agile software development. One of the principles absorbed is to improve the effectiveness of an organization through an overall improvement. Although this principle is quite widespread in Agile Methods, using it is not an easy task. It is not easy to get the big picture of the development process. Moreover, to achieve overall improvements is necessary to discover the cause of possible problems, which can also be a difficult task. This work investigates two approaches in the manufacturing industry that shares the assumption that the whole organization is focused on overall throughput, not on micro-optimization. Based on then, three approaches to existing software development are analyzed. Finally, a comparative study was done to assess the main characteristics of the studied methods. This study extends the work done by Abrahamssom et al. In the book Agile Software Development: Current Research and Future Directions, evaluating the performance of the methods following the framework proposed by the same authors.

A utilização de uma gestão de portfólio de projetos permite que as empresas possam se adaptar rapidamente frente as turbulências advindas do ambiente interno e externo e com isso, possam rearranjar os projetos para que estes estejam alinhados com estratégia da organização. Entretanto, o modelo tradicional de gerenciamento de portfólio possui procedimentos que não seguem necessariamente essa característica de agilidade e adaptação. Na maioria das vezes os procedimentos são pouco visíveis, extensos e poucas vezes são interativos ou divulgados por todos os níveis hierárquicos das organizações. Dessa maneira o propósito deste trabalho é a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis na gestão de portfólio de projetos. Para isto, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura, a análise crítica do modelo tradicional por 7 especialistas da área e desenvolvimento de um modelo com base na análise das respostas das entrevistas por três especialistas sendo 2 da área acadêmica e 1 profissional da área. Os principais resultados revelam, que a existe uma escassez de trabalhos referentes a utilização de ferramentas ágeis em gestão de portfólio de projetos e na percepção dos entrevistados, a aplicação de práticas, métodos e ferramentas ágeis atende o quesito de gestão visual, melhor interação entre as equipes de trabalho, democratização da informação relativa à tomada de decisão e ferramentas alinhadas com a proposição ágil. / The use of project portfolio management allows companies to adapt quickly to the turbulence arising from the internal and external environment and with that, can rearrange the projects so that they are aligned with the organization's strategy. However, the traditional portfolio management model has procedures that do not necessarily follow this characteristic of agility and adaptation. Most of the time the procedures are barely visible, extensive and are rarely interactive or disseminated by all hierarchical levels of organizations. In this way, the purpose of this work is the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools in project portfolio management. For this, a systematic review of the literature, the critical analysis of the traditional model by 7 specialists of the area and the development of a model based on the analysis of the answers of the interviews by three specialists were carried out, being 2 of the academic area and 1 professional of the area. The main results show that there is a shortage of work related to the use of agile tools in project portfolio management and the perception of the interviewees, the incorporation of agile practices, methods and tools attends to the question of visual management, better interaction between work teams, democratization of decision-making information and tools aligned with the agile proposition.

<p>Under sent 1990-tal började utvecklare att bli mer och mer missnöjda med rådande arbetsformer i projekt. Utvecklarna upplevde att modeller som vattenfallsmodellen inte längre speglade verkligheten för utvecklingen. Detta missnöje resulterade i att en mängd nya arbetsmodeller uppstod och 2001 samlades de under Agile Manifesto. Agile lägger tyngdpunkten på individfokus, fungerande mjukvara, kundsamarbete och föränderlighet. Scrum är just nu ett av de mest populära ramverken inom agile.Tieto har använt sig av agile och då främst Scrum i sina projekt sedan tidigt 2000-tal och haft lyckat resultat. Projekten som använt Scrum har levererat i tid och haft nöjda kunder. Dock har Tieto inte utrett vilka konsekvenser Scrum får för ett projekt. Denna studies fokus låg på att undersöka konsekvenserna av att använda Scrum i ett projekt. Detta gjordes med hjälp av intervjuer, observationer och en enkät där arbetet för ett antal Scrum-projekt studerades. Resultatet jämfördes sedan med rådande litteratur inom ämnet samt studier från The Standish group, VersionOne och Yahoo!.Rapportens slutsats är att Scrum påverkar mer än bara arbetssättet och att dessa effekter måste betänkas. Många positiva konsekvenser av användandet av Scrum kunde ses men även ett antal risker upptäcktes. För ett lyckat Scrum-projekt behövs en delaktig produktägare, en engagerad ScrumMaster och ett team som tycker om att ta eget ansvar.</p> / <p>During the late 1990s, developers became more and more dissatisfied with the current way of working in the projects. Developers felt that models such as the waterfall model did not reflect the reality of how software development works in practice. This dissatisfaction led to the development of new models and in 2001 they gathered under the same name in the Agile Manifesto. Agile focuses on working software, customer collaboration and variability. Scrum is currently one of the most popular frameworks in agile.Tieto has implemented agile and particularly Scrum in their projects since early 2000 and have had success. The projects that used Scrum delivered on time and had satisfied customers. However Tieto has not investigated the impact Scrum has on projects. This study focus was on examining the consequences of using Scrum in a project. This was done through interviews, observations and a survey in which the work of a number of Scrum projects were studied. The result was then compared with the current literature in the subject, and studies by The Standish Group, VersionOne and Yahoo!.The report concludes that Scrum affects more than just the way of working and that these effects must be taken under consideration. Many positive consequences of the use of Scrum could be seen but also a number of risks were detected. For a successful Scrum project one needs an involved product owner, a committed ScrumMaster and a team that likes to take responsibility.</p>

Purpose – Agile manufacturing concept was first coined by Iacocca institute in 1991 as a new manufacturing paradigm in order to provide and ensure competitiveness in the emerging global manufacturing order. Afterward, a considerable number of studies have been conducted in this area. Reviewing these studies reveals that they mostly focus on agile manufacturing drivers, definition and characteristics but few of them propose practical solutions to achieve it. Moreover, among proposed approaches toward agility, the impact of product design has been less studied. However, the substantial impacts of product design on manufacturing firms are widely accepted. To fill this gap, this research aims to analyse how the product design affects the potential of being agile in a manufacturing firm. In this research the main focus is on the architecture of product as a part of its design. Methodology – Since this research requires synthesizing and bridging two separate fields, agile manufacturing and product architecture, the “literature review” method is adopted. Findings – Agile manufacturing has four main dimensions: drivers, capabilities, strategies and providers. To become an agile competitor, a manufacturing firm should concentrate on enriching a set of appropriate agility capabilities. Moreover, product architecture allocates functions to physical chunks (major building blocks of a product) and determines interfaces among chunks. The analysis of reviewed literature exhibits that product architecture has strong implications for agility capabilities. These implications might have both positive or negative effects which result in various trade-offs. Additionally, these trade-offs disclose this fact that there is not a superior architecture. Thus, a manufacturing firm is able to adopt suitable product architecture by considering the product architecture impacts on agility capabilities and related trade-offs. Value – This study organized and summarized a considerable number of researches’ outcomes in the product architecture area. In addition, it covers the lack of attention to product architecture in agile manufacturing literature. Also, it exhibits how product architecture may contribute to manufacturers which are moving toward agility. This report raises managers and practitioners’ awareness regarding product architecture potential and probable consequences of different choices that they make.

Title: A Multiple Case Study on Contradictions and Pre-conditions for Outsourcing Agile Software Development ProjectsAuthor: Maksim Buslovič &amp; Samson DeribeSupervisor: Jonas SöderlundDate: May 30th, 2012Background: In today’s turbulent business environment organizational success depends on its ability to embrace change and adapt quickly. The ability to satisfy customer is core to profitability; thus being agile is a prominent factor, because customer expectations are never static. One of the project management methods which is quite popular in the software development are is Agile Method. Agile methods depart from the classical project approach as it emphasizes more on interaction among participant, short iteration and continuous feedback to embrace the continuously evolving customer requirements. However, implementing Agile methods in a distributed project work seems to be challenging, thus limiting projects to optimize form their distributed resource as well as external parties.Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to understand how Agile methods contradict with the Outsourcing practice, which ultimately lead to identifying the possibilities to successfully outsource project work based on Agile methods. In addition, the study aims in providing a good ground for future study in ‘Outsourcing within Agile Methods’ to fill the big theoretical gap identified in the area.Methodology: The thesis used a qualitative approach that intends to build theory through iteration by waving back and forth between data and literatures in an inductive manner. The research design was based on multiple case study that used five interviews and one direct observation as an instrument to collect primary data along with secondary data; all three together ensure proper triangulation resulting in higher research validity. Open coding system was used to analyze data; and findings were presented by tables, figures, models and direct quotations.Results: The study shows that values and principles of agile software development which gives much emphasis on proximity in order to have a daily stand-up meetings, visualizations, constant contact with customers and other team members, knowledge sharing and fun disappear when the project is involved in outsourcing partly the development process; because the need use more plans &amp; documentation, clear contracts and less interaction implying a contradiction in both ‘Agile methods’ and ‘Outsourcing’ practices. However, the study identified preconditions that must be considered while involving in outsourcing part of Agile software development: Outsource only if the part to be outsourced is not related to core product; Put a complete team in a co-located manner; Minimize interdependence among distributed teams; and there should be enough time before delivering product to customers.

The changing role of manufacturing has ushered in an increasing number of initiatives aimed at improving operations. Specifically, various themes in operations have evolved over time, from forecasting and planning in the 1950s and 1960s through productivity and quality in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, to adaptability and responsiveness in the 1990s. Even though the emergence of agile paradigm had spurred a large stream of research by scholars, yet most of the research had been at the manufacturing level. Very few researches have gone beyond the manufacturing level to the larger supply chain level. And there are even fewer researches discussing about the combination of lean thinking and agile thinking in supply chain level. Based on the above statement, the purpose of this study is as follows: 1. To identify the definition and characteristics of ¡§Lean¡¨ and ¡§Agile¡¨. 2. To explore the relationship of the two kinds of thinking. 3. To prove the practicability of the findings. This research is organized as follows. Chapter 2 clearly describes the origin, definition and characteristics of lean thinking and agile thinking, and comparison of the two kind of thinking. Chapter 3 introduces the major combination factors of these- material decoupling point, information decoupling point, and postponement. Followed by introduction of three practical ways to combine the lean thinking and agile thinking.

Techn. Fachhochschule, Diplomarbeit--Zugl.: Berlin, 2006. / Lt. Vorwort basiert dieses Buch auf der Diplomarbeit der beiden Autoren, als überarbeitete und aktual. Fassung.

Greitas internetinių svetainių skaičiaus padidėjimas per paskutinius keletą metų rodo informacijos, pasiekiamos internetu, svarbą. Daug įmonių kuria internetines svetaines, bet jie susiduria su problemomis, susijusiomis su reikalavimų pasikeitimais kūrimo eigoje. Šiame darbe nagrinėjama Agile požiūrio pritaikymo galimybės internetinėms svetainėms kurti. Darbe atlikta jau esamų metodų analizė, kuri parodė, kad internetinių svetainių kūrimui nėra visiškai tinkamo metodo, todėl darbo uždavinys - sukurti metodą, paremtą Scrum ir FDD savybėmis internetinių svetainių kūrimui. / A fast increase in the number of web sites the last years, shows the importance of information existing in web sites giving the possibility for users to have access to it. Many companies create websites, but they face problems related with requirements changing until the developing process completes. In this work you will find analysis of software development methods. Agile approach allows changing requirements even in last phase of the developing process. Creating a web site does not follow one single path and there is no ideal method creating a web site. In this dissertation will be analyzed a method for web sites development based on Agile approach.

Bakgrund: Företagens villkor utifrån ett konkurrensperspektiv ändras idag fortare än någonsin och möjligheterna att nå framgång bygger i högre grad på en förmåga att förutse, anpassa sig till och agera på omvärldens snabbt föränderliga krav. Flertalet forskare redogör för att företags lednings- och styrkoncept måste förändras för att tillgodose de behov som den moderna globala marknadens dynamik ställer. De senaste decennierna har Lean och Agile trätt fram som två lednings- och styrkoncept som vunnit i popularitet och anammats av många företag som önskar effektivisera sin verksamhet. Både Lean och Agile använts främst inom produktion och det finns relativt lite forskning kring hur dessa två lednings- och styrmodeller appliceras inom andra verksamhetsområden samt hur de kan kombineras. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur ledningsgrupper inom en global IT- organisation använder sig av och kombinerar Lean och Agile, samt hur ledningsgrupperna upplever att detta påverkar deras arbetssätt och leveransförmåga. Metod: Studien är genomförd i form av en kvalitativ fallstudie av företaget Volvo IT. Insamling av data har skett via intervjuer med representanter för olika ledningsgrupper inom Volvo IT samt genom att sitta med vid möten och föra anteckningar och via insamlad dokumentation från websidor och intern företagsinformation. Slutsats: Resultaten visar på att Lean och agila arbetssätt tycks fungera bra ihop och kompletterar varandra väl. Ledningsgrupperna uppfattar Lean främst som ett övergripande ledningskoncept och styrmodell för att effektivisera interna processer och skapa ordning och reda genom att eliminera slöseri i verksamheten. Det agila arbetssättet används av ledningsgrupperna för att ge möjlighet till att agera flexibelt och anpassa sig vad gäller kundernas och omvärldens snabbt skiftande krav och behov. / Background: Today the business environment, from a competition perspective, is changing faster than ever before and the possibilities of achieving success is to a higher degree based on the ability to anticipate, adapt to and act on the rapidly changing requirements in world around us. Several researchers describe that corporate management and control concept must change to meet the changing needs of the modern dynamic global market. In recent decades, Lean and Agile emerged as two management and control concept which gained in popularity and has been embraced by many companies wishing to streamline their operations. Both Lean and Agile has been used primarily in the production and there is relatively little research on how these two management and control concepts have been applied in other areas, and how they can be combined. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how management teams within a global IT organization use and combine Lean and Agile practices, and the impact this has for management teams’ ability to deliver. Method: The study was conducted as a qualitative case study of the company Volvo IT. Data collection was achieved through interviews with representatives of various management teams at Volvo IT, and by attending meetings and taking notes and also by using the collected documentation from websites and internal company information Conclusion: The results show that Lean and Agile practices seem to work well together and complement each other well. The management teams perceive Lean primarily as an overall management concept and management model to streamline internal processes and create order by eliminating waste in operations. The agile way of working is perceived by the management teams as allowing great flexibility and adaptability to the rapidly changing needs and requirements of customers and business environment.