During a discussion with the head of the software infrastructure team about the need for software architecture practices at Temple-Inland Company, the manager responded by noting since the company is not a software development company “there are no real benefits to implementing software development practices in the company”. This is an approach taken by many companies whose software development activity is primarily undertaken to support business activities such as the case with manufacturing or financial companies. This paper examines the process of implementing software architectural practices into an organization. The information contained here should be useful to small startup software companies who might assume that it is too costly to incorporate software architectural practices into their current development process. This paper should also benefit large organizations who primarily view software as solutions for short term immediate support and not in terms longer term strategic goals. Software development teams with projects that suffer from cost overruns, scheduling problems and user dissatisfaction should also find this information useful. / text

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 133 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-90).

In response to the intense business competition, rapid changes in the response to be non-stop demand for and use information systems to support business operations. Information systems development life cycle, requirements analysis phase is the most difficult to plan with the audit steps, so the effective demand analysis software project outputs will be the key to success. This study for the business information systems requirements analysis and validation process improvement studies to the case company information systems requirements analysis approach for analysis. To explore the requirements process often face the problem of the current situation and to cause analysis, and choose to CMMI Requirements Development and Requirements Management flow field as a guide, the recommended reference to CMMI specific goals and specific implementation method is proposed for the case company information system requirements process improvement recommendations aimed at improving the information system needs of the case company to work quality and output of current problems, and to provide general enterprise information system requirements into CMMI process improvement reference. For enterprises want to import the CMMI, but also needs to provide their requirements management process development and implementation of the field of reference.

Abstract Ever since the early 90¡¦s the global software market has been growing at a rapid speed, even faster than that of the hardware market. Along with the development of Internet and e-commerce, the demands for software have been continuously on the rise. The Taiwan software industry has to improve the quality of its software products in order to compete in the international IT arena. The present best option is for the Taiwanese software firms to achieve the Software Engineering Institute¡¦s Capability Maturity Model certification. This study shows that the obstacles Taiwanese software firms in adopting Capability Maturity Model can be categorized into three main factors: human resources, environment, and technology. Therefore, the software industry must start solving these issues to improve quality and Subsequently attain international standard.

Increasing public awareness on the environmental and social growth has promoted the application of sustainable development in construction. The triple bottom line, namely economy, society and environment is generally recognised as significant dimensions for measuring the performance of sustainability. However, most research often puts their focus on environmental issues, rather than the whole sustainability concept. The implementation of sustainable construction also differs greatly from one practice to another, since its definition and principles are still highly debatable. Additionally, it appears that various standards and certifications in the market do not embrace three pillars – environmental, social and economic sustainability in their assessments either. To incorporate the best value of sustainable construction, it is crucial to determine the gap between stakeholders’ expectations and actual deliverables of sustainable construction. Therefore, this research aims to explore and determine the maturity status of sustainable development implementation in the current construction industry. The Sustainable Construction Maturity Model (SCMM) is developed to assist construction stakeholders in gaining a richer understanding on the practices of sustainable construction. Pilot interviews were conducted to determine the appropriateness of research methods as well as to validate the SCMM. The research employed in-depth interviews and case studies as principal research methods to develop deeper insights of the development of sustainable construction, by triangulating data sources. A supplement questionnaire survey was also used to have a meta-analysis on the results obtained. The empirical evidence implies that sustainable construction could be practised at two extremes – exceptionally high and low maturity, regardless of sectors. This large gap suggests that the development of sustainable construction are rather diverged and fragmented in the industry. Although social and economic sustainability may not be absolutely excluded, current sustainable practices tend to put more effort on environmental sustainability. A loss of balance in achieving the three pillars may undermine the full potential of realising sustainable construction. Additionally, the research also found that good coordination between stakeholders is required not only during the design and construction stages but also in the post occupancy stage. Building a good sustainability culture could always bring more significant implications on the maturity status of sustainable construction, rather than the built-in high technology facilities in the built environment. To transform the built environment into a holistic sustainable development world, striking a balance of the triple bottom line is required. This research can steer the construction community to improve their performance in attaining the goals of sustainable construction. The SCMM can also provide an objective and consistent assessment tool to manage sustainable capability and capacity and to position the current performance level. By having a better understanding of the overall development of sustainable construction, practitioners can shape their future directions and strategies better and, in turn move sustainability performance in construction to a higher level of maturity. Since sustainable construction emphasises long terms development, continual efforts shall be made to achieve sustainability. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Ever since the early 90¡¦s the global software market has been growing at a rapid speed. Along with the development of Internet and electronic commerce, the demands for software have been increased dramatically and Taiwanese software firms are encountered serious global competition too. To stay competitive, the Taiwan software industry has to improve the quality of its software products in order to compete in the international IT arena. The present best option is for the Taiwanese software firms to achieve the Software Engineering Institute¡¦s Capability Maturity Model certification. This study compares the major differences on the requirement management process between CMMI level II and level III. The differences include key process¡¦s purpose, activity, and artifact. Two real-word cases were used to illustrate the example and concept. These results provide a practical bases and better understanding for the Taiwanese software firms when they implement CMMI level II or III.

ABSTRACT The Capability Maturity Model Integration, (CMMI) has been officially announced in 2002 by the Carnegie Mellon® Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The SEI¡¦s core purpose is to help organizations continuously carry on to improve their flow of software engineering capabilities and to appraise the maturity rank of contractor's organization. CMMI has provided an elastic framework to practice for the software project and to ensure the software quality. Due to CMMI does not limit the method of practice, but only defines the goal which must be achieved. Therefore, the different technique, organization, and work domain all may according to their characteristics to adjust their flow to comply with the CMMI requirement. Meanwhile it has already been generally valued and adopted by both of domestic and foreign companies. At present, there are 24 domestic companies have obtained the CMMI authentication. At the same time, the Government wants to promote the competitiveness of domestic software industry to the global information service market. During CMMI¡¦s promotion, she has aggressively offered all kind of policies and estimates to invest about seventy millions new Taiwan Dollars every year with the expectation to impel 50 third level of authentication in 2007; to achieve 100 third level in 2010 as well as 5 fifth level to encourage the domestic software organization to obtain the CMMI authentication. Obviously the software quality is now one of the key impetus of Taiwan industry and more over the most important development tendency and the critical technology to increase international competitive strength of Taiwan software industry in the future. The software flow improvement is the enterprise to guarantee the quality of their provided service/product. It is an important investment of competitiveness promotion which will involve the interference of the transformation of organization, the resistance of inside and outside staff etc., hence the organization must to have the commitment of policy, the intense attempt and the motive to invest the essential resources to determine the execution of software flow improvement, thus to guarantee the success of the software flow improvement. By analyzing the implemented benefits and the various difficulties of initial stages and common bitter experience in each domain flow of the 24 domestic CMMI certificated companies to make the case study of CMMI implementation to offer the reference templates of domestic enterprises which are now complying with CMMI or those plan to induct CMMI in the future. This research analyzed the substantive benefits of the domestic 24 CMMI certified companies from the six performances, such as customer, finance, the quality, the flow, the organization and the staff after carry out CMMI. We found the mostly positive confirmation after CMMI implemented. Yet comparing the performance of finance and the staff, with approximately 50% thought it revealed less distinguished deviation in either enhancing "the capability of commercial negotiation of project taken¡¨ or decreasing the bustle of team member after CMMI carry out. This article referred to the lesson learn of domestic enterprises which got the CMMI authentication inducting A + technology which was inducting CMMI and the local consultancy companies to collect the 35 usual problems of the 4 aspects of in the staff, the force team, the inside and outside resources, and the environment of organization. Also to procure 18 bitter experiences of domain flow of both maturity second level (ML2) and third level (ML 3) in specific tasks with the common troubles in general practices of A+ technology, as well as the difficulties in particular tasks under execution, then to analyze the change tendency of the various stages of CMMI to accumulate the valuable experience assets of the domestic enterprises to implement CMMI. In this research integrated the motives; the purpose; the flow and invested resources; the key successful factors; the frequent troubles and the solution, including the concrete effectiveness and the future plan of the 3 examples to be the important reference model for those enterprises are to conduct CMMI authentication and to effectively create the systemized software development / maintain flow to promote the project productivity, the competitiveness of organization and software quality. Keywords : CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration); The Improvement of Software Flow; Benefit appraisal

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 66 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-44).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 86 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 84).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Missouri University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Degree granted by Missouri University of Science and Technology, formerly known as the University of Missouri-Rolla. Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed April 29, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-111).