Tesi sul tema "Software development methodologies"

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-158).
As the software industry evolves, various software development methodologies have become widely used in the industry. Most commonly used methodologies are Waterfall and Agile, along with less known alternatives, such as spiral and hybrid methodologies. When deciding on the methodologies, program managers tend to choose one based on the team preference or historical pattern. However, each software project is unique in its own way and has characteristics that are distinct from the previous projects the team has worked on. For each project, it is crucial to adopt a suitable methodology that help teams to produce the software that meets customer needs within schedule and budget constraints. Therefore, a practical question for every program manager is "How to find a suitable methodology for a specific project?" This thesis is aimed to help program managers answer this question.
We first explore how to evaluate each software development methodology based on the two-level decomposition of software development methodology, then analyze the project characteristics based on the situational inputs in three categories: scope, schedule and budget. Thereafter, the thesis proposes a framework to match software development methodology with a specific project. This thesis extends West's work in [1] by introducing a systems approach to assess a software project and a framework to determine the degree of compatibility between a methodology and a software project. The benefits of leveraging the systems approach are: ** The decomposition of methodologies highlights which elements in a methodology play key roles of providing the advantageous ilities over other methodologies. ** The decomposition of a project enables a program manager to evaluate the input elements of a project and gain a systems view on the project characteristics.
The framework allows program managers to compare several candidate methodologies and choose the most compatible one using the mismatch scores, weighted summations that indicate the incompatibilities between the candidate methodologies and the project based on the ilities ranking decided by the program managers. To demonstrate how to use this framework for a real world project, an example project is given. The detailed steps of calculating the mismatch scores between three methodologies and the project are shown. The proposed framework can be used as a guideline for program managers to find methodologies for different projects with the information gathered from project stakeholders. This framework has some limitations. A major one is that, since the framework is quantitative based, induvial experience is used to evaluate the elements of methodologies and factors of projects.
Further work can be done to improve the objectivity of the evaluation through the surveys of industrial experts and members of teams adopting this framework.
by Yuqing Ke.
S.M. in Engineering and Management
S.M.inEngineeringandManagement Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program

Lean Software Development is a new approach to provide a quality philosophy in software development companies. Lean offers a set of principles that helps companies to identify inefficient processes and waste. Therefore, by applying these principles, we can reduce costs, by shorting development time, incrementing productivity.In this study a software company with seven employees is analyzed. The company develops software and wants to increase its maturity and the quality of its processes. Currently, it has few documented processes. Furthermore, the company want a common way of working for every project. The challenge relies in adapting the set of principles provided by Lean to this particular case of study.We seek to analyze the current situation of the company to find out about the problems and limitations of the current way of working. After that we will state recommendations about the use of Lean combined with Agile practices such as Scrum and XP.As a result we present a proposal for implementation adapted from these philosophies to the needs and characteristics of the company.We have found that there are several ways in which the company can benefit from the implementation of Lean practices in combination with Scrum and XP. The result is a new framework that can be applied for other small software development companies in a similar situation.

Development of a game in the form of software for game-based learning poses significant technical challenges for educators, researchers, game designers, and software engineers. The game development consists of a set of complex processes requiring multi-faceted knowledge in multiple disciplines such as digital graphic design, education, gaming, instructional design, modeling and simulation, psychology, software engineering, visual arts, and the learning subject area. Planning and managing such a complex multidisciplinary development project require unifying methodologies for development and software quality evaluation and should not be performed in an ad hoc manner. This dissertation presents such methodologies named: GAMED (diGital educAtional gaMe dEvelopment methoDology) and IDEALLY (dIgital eDucational gamE softwAre quaLity evaLuation methodologY). GAMED consists of a body of methods, rules, and postulates and is embedded within a digital educational game life cycle. The life cycle describes a framework for organization of the phases, processes, work products, quality assurance activities, and project management activities required to develop, use, maintain, and evolve a digital educational game from birth to retirement. GAMED provides a modular structured approach for overcoming the development complexity and guides the developers throughout the entire life cycle. IDEALLY provides a hierarchy of 111 indicators consisting of 21 branch and 90 leaf indicators in the form of an acyclic graph for the measurement and evaluation of digital educational game software quality. We developed the GAMED and IDEALLY methodologies based on the experiences and knowledge we have gained in creating and publishing four digital educational games that run on the iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) mobile devices: CandyFactory, CandySpan, CandyDepot, and CandyBot. The two methodologies provide a quality-centered structured approach for development of digital educational games and are essential for accomplishing demanding goals of game-based learning. Moreover, classifications provided in the literature are inadequate for the game designers, engineers and practitioners. To that end, we present a taxonomy of games that focuses on the characterization of games.
Ph. D.

For many years, most IT departments used the same software development methodology called waterfall. This methodology outlines distinct phases for project completion; each phase needing to be completed prior to the start of the next. The primary accounting standard for allocating costs for software development is written in the language of waterfall. Costs are either capitalized or expensed depending on the type of activity that was performed. IT departments have been moving toward a new group of software development methodologies called agile. These methodologies do not follow the phases of waterfall. This makes the current accounting standard for software development difficult to interpret and determine the appropriate transaction. This further hinders IT organizations attempts to better quantify business value of software projects. To examine this issue, a new construct called accounting clarity is introduced in this research. Accounting clarity is an agreement between IT and accounting regarding the treatment of software development costs. This study shows that it is essential for both IT and accounting to work together to determine a solution. The accounting clarity construct is developed from the “ilities” of software quality models and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Level 3 key process area (KPA) of intergroup coordination. Intergroup coordination provides the concepts for accounting clarity as the two groups must coordinate to determine the appropriate accounting treatment. The “ilities” are characteristics that should be followed and measured throughout a software development project to ensure long term maintainability of software. This study proposes that accounting clarity should be one of the "ilities" in the software quality model. A portion of the study of accounting clarity examines the relationship between accounting clarity and project control, proposing a positive relationship between the two variables. Then the study examines factors that help to increase accounting clarity. These factors were derived from teamwork and coordination literature. To test the hypothesized relationships, a survey methodology was used. Individuals working on agile software development projects were participants in the survey. This study contributes to both the IT and accounting literature. The research provides a framework to examine other contexts in which the current accounting standards are unclear. As changes happen more frequently in business, this is more likely to occur on a frequent basis. The study has practical implication for software development as it highlights the importance of understanding the accounting implications prior to the project and continuously throughout the lifespan of the software. Adding accounting clarity to the “ilities” of software quality helps software development teams include this in project plans with any software development methodology.

The purpose of this qualitative, multi-case study was to explain Tuckman’s attributes within software development when using a collocated software designed methodology in a non-collocated setting. Agile is a software development methodology that is intended for use in a collocated setting; however, organizations are using it in a non-collocated setting, which is increasing the software errors in the final software product. The New Agile Process for Distributed Projects (NAPDiP) was developed to fix these software errors that arise when using Agile in a non-collocated setting but have not been effective. This research utilized Tuckman's team theory to explore the disparity related to why these errors still occur. The research question asked is how software development programmers explain Tuckman's attributes (i.e., forming, storming, norming, performing) on software development projects. The study adopted a qualitative model using nomothetic major and minor themes in the exploration of shared expressions of sentiments from participants. The study’s population came from seven participants located in the United States and India who met the requirement of using the Agile development methodology and work for organizations on teams with a size of at least thirty individuals from various organizations. A total of seven participants reached saturation in this multi-case study supporting the research question explored. The findings of the research demonstrated that development teams do not meet all stages and attributes of Tuckman’s team development. Future research should explore additional ways that software development teams satisfy a more significant number of Tuckman’s team development stages.

Startups are newly created companies with little or no operating history and with limited resources and markets. Software startup are aiming to develop cutting edge software products under highly uncertain conditions, overcoming fast-growing markets under multiple influences. The significance of startups for economic development is growing in software business due to their ability to quickly create innovative technologies and their potential to scale to a wide market. The objective of this thesis is to identify and analyze existing scientific literature regarding software development methodologies and practices used in startup companies published between Jan 2006 and Dec 2016. A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the previous research on software development methods and practices in startups. A review protocol was developed and used as a procedure to conduct the review. The data was collected from three databases i.e. IEEE Xplore, Scopus, ISI Web of Science. This research identified 30 relevant primary studies out of a total 1249 papers to answer defined research questions. The result show that agile and Lean Startup methodologies are the most used methodologies across startup companies. Due to the flexible nature of startups, tailoring specific methodology is a common practice among startup companies. Additionally, a total of 95 software development work practices are extracted from primary studies. This thesis concludes that software development methodologies in startups are informal, customized, and highly dependent on the experience of project managers. It is also noted that principles related to these development methodologies are not strictly followed due to limited resources and uncertainty in the market. Furthermore, the results shows that software startups choose development methodologies and practices which are flexible, light-weight and allow rapid changes.

This thesis presents a procedural approach to evaluating software development methodologies. The evaluation procedure adopts a unique approach based on the fundamental assumption that the requirements govern the process by which software is constructed. To begin with, this research partitions desirable software characteristics into three categories, viz., objectives, principles and attributes. The thesis claims (claims are substantiated with literature references) that there exist definitive relationships (or linkages) among the software objectives, principles and attributes. These linkages form the foundation of the evaluation procedure. The procedure constitutes two processes, top-down process and bottom-up process. These processes are used to assess the software product and the employed software development methodology. The top-down process begins by identifying the objectives and travels down through principles and product attributes; thus, evaluating the adequacy of the methodology. The bottom-up process, on the other hand, starts at the attribute level and goes up through principles and objectives. The bottom-up process highlights the effectiveness of the methodology. Attributes are identified in the product via properties. This research establishes several properties (called factors in the report) for each attribute. A measurement approach is also presented to help assess the extent to which attributes are present. The feasibility and validity of the evaluation procedure are illustrated through the analysis of two real life methodologies.
M.S.

The purpose of this study was to describe the software development industry in South Africa by determining the current and future trends in adopting software development methodologies. The main objective was to determine which factors influence the selection of software development methodologies and whether they are effective in delivering projects successfully within the South African context. This study found that the Agile method is the most dominant methodology adopted in the software development industry in South Africa and is also the preferred methodology to be used in the future. It is common practice for companies to adopt more than one software development methodology and the Waterfall method is the next methodology most widely used. There is little adoption of CMMI. All identified factors influence the selection of software development methodologies, however, the distinguishing factors influencing the selection of Agile methods over the Waterfall method in the South African context is team size of between one and five members, project duration of less than three months, iteration length of between two and four weeks and the use of new technology. The most important measurement of project success within the South African context is the delivery of projects on time. The majority of respondents believe that their current dominant methodology is effective in delivering projects successfully. Copyright
Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011.
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
unrestricted

Software projects are known for their failure rate, where many are being delivered late, over budget or being canceled while in development. The reason to it is changing requirements and intangibility of the software. Being so abstract it is difficult to imaging all the aspects of the software at the requirements stage. Also technology is playing a major role since processing power, storage space, and data transfer speeds are improving from year to year. Agile methodologies are addressing projects with unclear requirements making process of implementing new specifications along the project much easier and less costly. However the success rate of the software projects did not improve much since the introduction of Agile methodologies. This thesis is looking at what type of projects fit different methodologies and what are factors which practitioners should take into account when selecting methodology for a particular project, The thesis opens up with introduction which sets the research question and provides a brief background to the research topic. In subsequent chapter literature review is conducted to find out what does literature and other researchers have said on the same topic. Third chapter discusses underlying research philosophy and discusses the data collection tools. Next chapter discusses the findings of the research. Interviews has been conducted with project management professionals from Sweden, US, UK and Canada. It was identified through the analysis of patters that Agile methodologies are not well suited for projects involving databases, embedded development and computationally complex projects. Through the analysis of the questionnaire several project characteristics were identified which suit Agile methodologies better than traditional ones: unclear requirements, high risk of failure etc… In the last chapter the thesis concludes the findings and its theoretical and practical implications.

Context. In recent years there has been observed a significant shift from plan-driven development towards agile, which is considered as a vast improvement to processes. However, it has also been spotted that agile methodologies are hardly ever applied in their pure form. Moreover, hybrid processes as combinations of plan-driven and agile practices emerge. In addition, agile adoption has been reported to result in both: benefits and limitations. Objectives. In this study the following matters are investigated: 1) the commonness of plan driven and agile practices usage, 2) common practices combinations, 3) patterns for agile adoption over time, 4) hybrid development models and 5) the actual effects of agile adoption in terms of benefits and limitations as perceived by practitioners. Methods. The thesis presents an empirical investigation of software development organizations. The objectives are achieved through a targeted survey based on existing evidence and a multidimensional data analysis. The mean for obtaining data is a web-based questionnaire with an interactive board with practices and time indication sliders (to capture applied development models and practices adoption strategies) and hierarchical cumulative voting (to measure the relative significance of benefits and limitations). The data analysis is supported by hierarchical cluster analysis and an extended hierarchical voting analysis framework (EHV-F). Results. In total, 45 practitioners have been successfully surveyed. The commonness of 7 plan-driven and 14 agile practices usage was investigated. The relative significance of agile adoption benefits (32 factors in 10 categories) and limitations (23 factors in 7 categories) was measured with respect to global view (all respondents and perspectives), different agile adoption strategies as well as distinguished development models. Conclusions. It is concluded that agile practices dominate over plan-driven, however, hybrid approaches, being combinations of plan-driven and agile practices, are frequently applied. It is also concluded that some practices are commonly used together since they facilitate each other (e.g. continuous integration with testing which facilitate short iterations and releases). Some agile practices are still unsuccessfully applied and eventually abandoned (e.g. pair programming), what should be further investigated by researchers. Incremental agile adoption strategy was found to be the most beneficial approach. It is also concluded that agile adoption leads first of all to improved quality of working life, increased knowledge transfer and improved verification and validation processes. On the other hand, agile adoption is very demanding since it requires high professional skills from development teams as well as managers. Hence, more resources should be devoted to training on agile for all the parties involved in development. Agile is still commonly considered to be poorly scalable. Moreover, the quality of design with agile methods is not considered as a benefit at all. These areas should be further investigated by researchers.

Mathematical models have been used to capture the behaviour of biological systems, from low-level biochemical reactions to multi-scale whole-organ models. Models are typically based on experimentally-derived data, attempting to reproduce the observed behaviour through mathematical constructs, e.g. using Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) for spatially-homogeneous systems. These models are developed and published as mathematical equations, yet are of such complexity that they necessitate computational simulation. This computational model development is often performed in an ad hoc fashion by modellers who lack extensive software engineering experience, resulting in brittle, inefficient model code that is hard to extend and reuse. Several Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) exist to aid capturing such biological models, including CellML and SBML; however these DSLs are designed to facilitate model curation rather than simplify model development. We present research into the application of techniques from software engineering to this domain; starting with the design, development and implementation of a DSL, termed Ode, to aid the creation of ODE-based biological models. This introduces features beneficial to model development, such as model verification and reproducible results. We compare and contrast model development to large-scale software development, focussing on extensibility and reuse. This work results in a module system that enables the independent construction and combination of model components. We further investigate the use of software engineering processes and patterns to develop complex modular cardiac models. Model simulation is increasingly computationally demanding, thus models are often created in complex low-level languages such as C/C++. We introduce a highly-efficient, optimising native-code compiler for Ode that generates custom, model-specific simulation code and allows use of our structured modelling features without degrading performance. Finally, in certain contexts the stochastic nature of biological systems becomes relevant. We introduce stochastic constructs to the Ode DSL that enable models to use Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs), the Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (SSA), and hybrid methods. These use our native-code implementation and demonstrate highly-efficient stochastic simulation, beneficial as stochastic simulation is highly computationally intensive. We introduce a further DSL to model ion channels declaratively, demonstrating the benefits of DSLs in the biological domain. This thesis demonstrates the application of software engineering methodologies, and in particular DSLs, to facilitate the development of both deterministic and stochastic biological models. We demonstrate their benefits with several features that enable the construction of large-scale, reusable and extensible models. This is accomplished whilst providing efficient simulation, creating new opportunities for biological model development, investigation and experimentation.

Model-Based Software Engineering (MBSE) a été proposé comme une méthodologie prometteuse de développement de logiciels pour surmonter les limites de la méthodologie traditionnelle basée sur la programmation pour faire face à la complexité des systèmes embarqués. MBSE favorise l’utilisation de langages de modélisation pour décrire les systèmes d’une manière abstraite et fournit des moyens pour générer automatiquement de différents artefacts de développement, p.ex. code et documentation, à partir de modèles. Le développement d’un système complexe implique souvent de multiples intervenants qui utilisent différents outils pour modifier les artefacts de développement, le modèle et le code en particulier dans cette thèse. Les modifications apportées aux artefacts évoquent le problème de cohérence qui nécessite un processus de synchronisation pour propager les modifications apportées dans l’un artefact aux autres artefacts. Dans cette étude, le problème de la synchronisation des modèles d’architecture basés sur les éléments UML composite structure (UML-CS) et UML state machine (UML-SM) du langage de l’Unified Modeling Language (UML), et le code orienté objet est présenté. UML-CSs sont utilisés pour décrire l’architecture du logiciel basée sur les composants et UML-SMs pour les comportements discrets liés aux événements des systèmes réactifs. Le premier défi est de permettre une collaboration entre les architectes de logiciels et les programmeurs produisant de modèle et de code, en utilisant différents outils. Il soulève le problème de synchronisation où il existe de modifications simultanées des artefacts. En fait, il existe un écart de perception entre les langages à base de diagramme (langages de modélisation) et les langages textuels (langages de programmation). D’une part, les programmeurs préfèrent souvent utiliser la combinaison familière d’un langage de programmation et d’un environnement de développement intégré. D’autre part, les architectes logiciels, travaillant à des niveaux d’abstraction plus élevés, favorisent l’utilisation des modèles et préfèrent donc les langages à base de diagramme pour décrire l’architecture du système. Le deuxième défi est qu’il existe un écart d’abstraction significatif entre les éléments du modèle et les éléments du code: les éléments UML-CS et UML-SM sont au niveau d’abstraction plus élevé que les éléments du code. L’écart rend la difficulté pour les approches de synchronisation actuelles car il n’y a pas de façon facile de réflecter les modifications du code au modèle. Cette thèse propose une approche automatisée de synchronisation composée de deux principales contributions corrélées. Pour aborder le premier défi, on propose un patron méthodologique générique de synchronisation entre modèle et code. Il consiste en des définitions des fonctionnalités nécessaires et plusieurs processus qui synchronisent le modèle et le code en fonction de plusieurs scénarios définis où les développeurs utilisent différents outils pour modifier le modèle et le code. Cette contribution est indépendante de UML-CSs et UML-SMs. La deuxième contribution traite du deuxième défi et est basée sur les résultats de la première contribution. Dans la deuxième contribution, un mapping bidirectionnel est présentée pour réduire l’écart d’abstraction entre le modèle et le code. Le mapping est un ensemble de correspondances entre les éléments de modèle et ceux de code. Il est utilisé comme entrée principale du patron méthodologique générique de synchronisation entre modèle et code. Plus important, l’utilisation du mapping fournit les fonctionnalités définies dans la première contribution et facilite la synchronisation des éléments de UML-CS et UML-SM et du code. L’approche est évaluée au moyen de multiples simulations et d’une étude de cas
Model-Based Software Engineering (MBSE) has been proposed as a promising software development methodology to overcome limitations of traditional programming-based methodology in dealing with the complexity of embedded systems. MBSE promotes the use of modeling languages for describing systems in an abstract way and provides means for automatically generating different development artifacts, e.g. code and documentation, from models. The development of a complex system often involves multiple stakeholders who use different tools to modify the development artifacts, model and code in particular in this thesis. Artifact modifications must be kept consistent: a synchronization process needs to propagate modifications made in one artifact to the other artifacts. In this study, the problem of synchronizing Unified Modeling Language (UML)-based architecture models, specified by UML composite structure (UML-CS) and UML state machine (UML-SM) elements, and object-oriented code is presented. UML-CSs are used for describing the component-based software architecture and UML-SMs for discrete event-driven behaviors of reactive systems. The first challenge is to enable a collaboration between software architects and programmers producing model and code by using different tools. This raises the synchronization problem of concurrent artifact modifications. In fact, there is a perception gap between diagram-based languages (modeling languages) and text-based languages (programming languages). On the one hand, programmers often prefer to use the more familiar combination of a programming language and an Integrated Development Environment. On the other hand, software architects, working at higher levels of abstraction, tend to favor the use of models, and therefore prefer diagram-based languages for describing the architecture of the system. The second challenge is that there is a significant abstraction gap between the model elements and the code elements: UML-CS andUML-SM elements are at higher level of abstraction than code elements. The gap makes current synchronization approaches hard to be applied since there is no easy way to reflect modifications in code back to model. This thesis proposes an automated synchronization approach that is composed of two main correlated contributions. To address the first challenge, a generic model-code synchronization methodological pattern is proposed. It consists of definitions of necessary functionalities and multiple processes that synchronize model and code based on several defined scenarios where the developers use different tools to modify model and code. This contribution is independent of UML-CSs and UML-SMs. The second contribution deals with the second challenge and is based on the results from the first contribution. In the second contribution, a bidirectional mapping is presented for reducing the abstraction gap between model and code. The mapping is a set of correspondences between model elements and code elements. It is used as main input of the generic model-code synchronization methodological pattern. More importantly, the usage of the mapping provides the functionalities defined in the first contribution and eases the synchronization of UML-CS and UML-SM elements and code. The approach is evaluated by means of multiple simulations and a case study

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-90).
Before organisations adopt agile methods, they need to ensure that they are prepared for the change. They also need to understand the problems they are trying to address by adopting agile methods. Agile methods deviate substantially from traditional methods of systems development (Tolfo & Wazlawick, 2008). This, therefore, makes it difficult for organisations to adopt agile methods even though they might see them attractive, as the adoption of such methods has an effect on organisational culture. If the culture cannot accommodate an agile approach, then the organisation will not be able to adopt agile (Lindvall, Basisli, Boehm, Costa, Dangle, Shull, Teseriero, Williams & Zelkowitz, 2002). Having a culture that is conducive to the adoption of agile methods is almost unanimously perceived by agile experts to be a necessary factor for the introduction of agile methodologies (eWorkshop, 2002). It is also important to understand the phases organisations go through during the process of adopting agile methods.

Abstract Management of product development activities has become increasingly important, as cycle times of product development have shortened. Smaller product development projects are often conducted rapidly at companies based on customer or sales requests to answer the need for faster cycle times. However, this is often done without fully realizing the impact of the new projects on the larger project portfolio or organizational effectiveness. The main objective of this dissertation is to increase knowledge on the use of agile development methods in small, rapid product development projects, and on the implementation of a rapid product development model. The dissertation is formulated as a qualitative, inductive study based on the research results of four original publications and a summary combining the results. The results of the dissertation show that it is beneficial to separate a rapid product development process for certain types of customer- or sales-initiated projects. A new rapid development model with principles and guidelines is introduced to help organizations facilitate this separation. The implementation of the model can be supported with agile development practices, of which self-managing teams are studied in more detail. There is significant overlap between case companies’ perceived success factors for rapid development and self-management. The results imply that a functional rapid development model can be utilized as a strategic asset at companies. The results also provide empirical evidence that agile development practices can be utilized in product development. In addition to providing empirical evidence in scientific discussion about combining product development and agile software development practices, the results can be used to create better definitions of product development processes in general
Tiivistelmä Tuotekehityksen johtamisesta ja hallinnasta on tullut entistä haastavampaa ja tärkeämpää, kun tuotekehitysprojektien läpimenoajat ovat lyhentyneet. Yritykset tekevät kasvamassa määrin lyhyitä tuotekehitysprojekteja asiakaspyyntöjen tai myynnin aloitteesta vastatakseen markkinoiden vaatimuksiin nopeasta kehityksestä. Tällaisten nopeiden tuotekehitysprojektien käynnistäminen ja toteutus tehdään usein ymmärtämättä yksittäisen projektin vaikutusta koko projektiportfolioon tai organisaation tehokkuuteen. Tämän väitöskirjan päätavoitteena on tutkia ohjelmistokehityksestä tunnettujen ketterien kehitysmenetelmien käyttöä nopeissa tuotekehitysprojekteissa ja uudenlaisen nopean tuotekehityksen mallin käyttöönotossa. Tutkimus on tehty laadullisena ja induktiivisena tutkimuksena perustuen neljään itsenäiseen tutkimusartikkeliin ja näiden tulokset kokoavaan kokoelmaosaan. Tutkimus osoittaa, että yrityksille on hyödyllistä erottaa erillinen prosessi tietyntyyppisille nopeille tuotekehitysprojekteille. Tutkimuksen tuloksena esitellään malli, joka tukee tätä erottamista periaatteiden ja ohjeiden avulla. Tätä mallia pystytään tukemaan ketterillä kehitysmenetelmillä, joihin liittyen on erityisesti tutkittu itseohjautuvia kehitystiimejä. Case-yritysten havainnoimilla nopean tuotekehityksen menestystekijöillä ja itseohjautuvien tiimien ominaisuuksilla on havaittavissa suurta päällekkäisyyttä. Tulokset osoittavat, että hyvin käytetty ja määritetty nopean tuotekehityksen malli voi olla strateginen kilpailuetu yrityksille. Tulokset lisäävät myös empiiristä tietoa ketterien menetelmien käytöstä tuotekehityksessä ja hyödyntävät siten ajankohtaista tieteellistä keskustelua. Tuloksia voidaan myös hyödyntää muiden tuotekehitysprosessien käyttötarkoituksen tarkempaan määrittämiseen

This study aims to identify the ways in which mobile telecommunications software systems are developed in practice in South Africa. The main objectives are to identify the systems development methodologies used, if any, during development, to highlight certain key aspects of mobile telecommunication software development and identify a list of necessities a systems development methodology should contain when used to develop mobile telecommunications software. In the highly competitive market of mobile telecommunications, it is extremely important that mobile telecommunications systems are developed in minimal time. with minimal cost while still ensuring quality and usability. As stated by Fitzgerald (1996), a big factor that could have a positive impact on the development process is the use of a systems development methodology. Because of the importance of systems development methodologies, this study identifies and discusses different types of systems development methodologies from the available literature and also three systems development methodologies designed specifically for developing mobile telecommunication systems. To determine how mobile telecommunication systems arc developed in practice. a qualitative research method was used. Case studies were done at three different mobile telecommunications software development companies in South Africa. Data were collected by conducting semi structured interviews with developers or project managers at each of the companies. Coding of the data was done with the help of ATLAS.ti and analysed by means of cross-case content analysis. It was found that mobile telecommunications software development companies in South Africa tended to make use of in-house developed systems development methodologies, focusing on flexibility and speed of development. This was driven by the constant interaction of software with other telecommunications systems and the speed at which mobile telecommunication software need to be developed. Key aspects of these in-house systems development methodologies were identified as well as a list of necessities which should be addressed during mobile telecommunication system development
Thesis (M.Sc. (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Diplomová práca sa zaoberá porovnaním metodiky použitej na projekte vývoja software a metodiky SCRUM. V rámci práce sú zmapované všetky role, udalosti a artefakty projektu u ktorých sú následne identifikované ich odlišnosti od definície metodiky SCRUM. Práca ďalej obsahuje návrh toho, čo je potrebné upraviť, alebo zmeniť, aby sa dosiahla správna aplikácia metodiky SCRUM a tým pádom aj optimalizácia vývojového procesu.

Context: Over the recent years, ‘Lean Software Development’ (LSD) has been emerging as a significant practice in the Software Industry. The inherent nature of ‘Lean’ to efficiently handle frequently changing customer needs by minimizing ‘Waste’ is a major success factor in practicing it in the context of ‘Software Engineering’. In simple words, Lean Software Development is the true translation of Lean Manufacturing and Lean IT principles to Software Engineering. This work presents an in-depth analysis on the implication of lean methodologies from both ‘State of Art’ and ‘State of Practice’ in the context of Software Engineering. Objectives: The prime objective of the study is to investigate what methodologies were considered & adopted under lean philosophy and to present relevant evidence on the implication of lean methodologies in reference to what defines ‘lean’ in Software Engineering. An extensive literature review was aimed to find the existing challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects and the respective lean mitigation methodologies that were employed by various software organizations to appease their negative impact. Industrial interviews were conducted by interviewing lean experts, with a motive to find the current state of lean implementation in software industry. The outcomes from the systematic literature review (State of Art) and the industry (State of Practice) are comparatively analysed to explore the similarities and differences on the state of lean implication. Finally, a set of guidelines are recommended that would benefit an Industrial Practitioner/Stakeholder/Academic Researcher in practicing the appropriate lean methodology in the context of software engineering. Methods: We conducted a ‘Systematic literature review’ (SLR) by systematically analyzing relevant studies and then interviewed industrial experts to validate our findings. The systematic literature review was conducted according to the guidelines proposed by Dr. Barbara Kitchenham stated in ‘Guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews’ article. The thorough review helped us in identifying various challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects and the respective lean mitigation methodologies that were practiced in the context of software engineering. The associated benefits of practicing the lean methodologies are also presented. The extensive review included peer reviewed articles from electronic databases such as IEEE Explore, Inspec, Scopus and ISI. In addition to this, we conducted snowball sampling on the references of the selected articles to avoid the potential risk of losing relevant and valuable information. Also, other potential sources of information such as books, theses/dissertations, white papers and website/blog articles are included as a part of Grey Literature. In this study, the articles related to the implication of lean methodologies in the context of software engineering were considered. The review included 72 primary studies published between 1993 and 2012. The primary studies were selected based on the following criteria: If they presented the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects. If they depicted the implication of lean mitigation methodologies (Tool/ Technique/ Method/ Process/ Practice/ Principle) that appeased the negative impact of the identified challenging factors that hampered the success of software projects. If they depicted the implication of lean methodologies (Tool/ Technique/ Method/ Process/ Practice/ Principle) in general or for a specific development/ Management/ Maintenance improvement activities that lead to the success of software projects in the context of software engineering. If they presented the benefits of practicing lean methodologies in the context of software engineering. The study quality assessment was done based on the quality criteria defined in the ‘Quality assessment criteria checklist’. The data such as Article ID, Article Title, Literature type (Peer- reviewed, Non-peer reviewed), Context of validation of the lean methodology (Industry/Academia), Subjects considered for the study (Researchers/students, Industrial practitioners), Type of article publication (Conference/ Journal/ Books/ Thesis Reports/ Doctoral dissertations/ Other), Research method used in the study (Case Study/ Experiment/ Experience Report/ Not stated/ Secondary Data Analysis/ Literature Review), Context of conducting the research (Industry/ Academia/ Not stated/ Both), Context of validation of the study (Strong/ Medium/ Weak), Publication date & year, Source of the publication, are extracted as a part of Quantitative analysis. The secondary data analysis for both ‘State of Art’ (Systematic literature review) and ‘State of Practice’ (Industry) was carried by performing a generic data analysis designed to answer our research questions. The more specific data such as the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects, the type of lean contribution presented i.e., the methodology being a Tool, Technique, Practice, Principal, Process or a Method, along with the benefits associated on their implication that helped us to answer our research questions are extracted as a part of qualitative analysis from the selected studies. The industrial interviews were conducted by interviewing potential lean experts who had decent experience in lean software development, to find the current state of lean implication in the software industry. In the end, a comparative analysis was performed to clearly understand the state of convergence and divergence between the results from extensive literature review and the industry with respect to the implication of lean methodologies in the context of software engineering. Results: A total of 72 primary articles were selected for data extraction. 56 articles were selected from the electronic databases that clearly depicted lean implementation in the context of software engineering. 9 articles were selected by conducting snowball sampling i.e. by scrutinizing the references of the selected primary studies and finally the grey literature resulted in 7 articles. Most of the articles discussed about lean implication in the context of software engineering. The depicted lean methodologies were validated in either Industry or Academia. A few articles depicted regarding lean principles and their benefits in the context of software engineering. Most of the selected articles in our study were peer- reviewed. Peer reviewing is a process of evaluating one’s work or performance by an expert in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of work or performance in the particular field. This indicates that the articles considered for data extraction have been reviewed by potential experts in the research domain. Conclusions: This study provided a deeper insight into lean implication in the context of software engineering. The aim of the thesis is to find the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects. A total of 54 challenges were identified from the literature review. The 72 primary articles selected from various resources yielded 53 lean methodologies. The lean methodologies were grouped into Principles, practices, tools and methods. Mapping between the identified challenges and the mitigation lean methodologies is presented. Industrial interviews were conducted to find the current state of lean implication in software engineering. A total of 30 challenges were identified from the industry. A total of 40 lean methodologies were identified from the interviews. Comparative analysis was done to find the common challenges and mitigation lean methodologies between the State of art and State of practice. Based on the analysis a set of guidelines are presented at the end of the document. The guidelines benefit an industrial practitioner in practicing the appropriate lean methodology. Keywords: Lean Methodology, Lean software development, lean software management, lean software engineering, Systematic literature review, literature review.
Context: Over the recent years, ‘Lean Software Development’ (LSD) has been emerging as a significant practice in the Software Industry. The inherent nature of ‘Lean’ to efficiently handle frequently changing customer needs by minimizing ‘Waste’ is a major success factor in practicing it in the context of ‘Software Engineering’. In simple words, Lean Software Development is the true translation of Lean Manufacturing and Lean IT principles to Software Engineering. This work presents an in-depth analysis on the implication of lean methodologies from both ‘State of Art’ and ‘State of Practice’ in the context of Software Engineering. Objectives: The prime objective of the study is to investigate what methodologies were considered & adopted under lean philosophy and to present relevant evidence on the implication of lean methodologies in reference to what defines ‘lean’ in Software Engineering. An extensive literature review was aimed to find the existing challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects and the respective lean mitigation methodologies that were employed by various software organizations to appease their negative impact. Industrial interviews were conducted by interviewing lean experts, with a motive to find the current state of lean implementation in software industry. The outcomes from the systematic literature review (State of Art) and the industry (State of Practice) are comparatively analysed to explore the similarities and differences on the state of lean implication. Finally, a set of guidelines are recommended that would benefit an Industrial Practitioner/Stakeholder/Academic Researcher in practicing the appropriate lean methodology in the context of software engineering. Methods: We conducted a ‘Systematic literature review’ (SLR) by systematically analyzing relevant studies and then interviewed industrial experts to validate our findings. The systematic literature review was conducted according to the guidelines proposed by Dr. Barbara Kitchenham stated in ‘Guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews’ article. The thorough review helped us in identifying various challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects and the respective lean mitigation methodologies that were practiced in the context of software engineering. The associated benefits of practicing the lean methodologies are also presented. The extensive review included peer reviewed articles from electronic databases such as IEEE Explore, Inspec, Scopus and ISI. In addition to this, we conducted snowball sampling on the references of the selected articles to avoid the potential risk of losing relevant and valuable information. Also, other potential sources of information such as books, theses/dissertations, white papers and website/blog articles are included as a part of Grey Literature. In this study, the articles related to the implication of lean methodologies in the context of software engineering were considered. The review included 72 primary studies published between 1993 and 2012. The primary studies were selected based on the following criteria: If they presented the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects. If they depicted the implication of lean mitigation methodologies (Tool/ Technique/ Method/ Process/ Practice/ Principle) that appeased the negative impact of the identified challenging factors that hampered the success of software projects. If they depicted the implication of lean methodologies (Tool/ Technique/ Method/ Process/ Practice/ Principle) in general or for a specific development/ Management/ Maintenance improvement activities that lead to the success of software projects in the context of software engineering. If they presented the benefits of practicing lean methodologies in the context of software engineering. The study quality assessment was done based on the quality criteria defined in the ‘Quality assessment criteria checklist’. The data such as Article ID, Article Title, Literature type (Peer- reviewed, Non-peer reviewed), Context of validation of the lean methodology (Industry/Academia), Subjects considered for the study (Researchers/students, Industrial practitioners), Type of article publication (Conference/ Journal/ Books/ Thesis Reports/ Doctoral dissertations/ Other), Research method used in the study (Case Study/ Experiment/ Experience Report/ Not stated/ Secondary Data Analysis/ Literature Review), Context of conducting the research (Industry/ Academia/ Not stated/ Both), Context of validation of the study (Strong/ Medium/ Weak), Publication date & year, Source of the publication, are extracted as a part of Quantitative analysis. The secondary data analysis for both ‘State of Art’ (Systematic literature review) and ‘State of Practice’ (Industry) was carried by performing a generic data analysis designed to answer our research questions. The more specific data such as the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects, the type of lean contribution presented i.e., the methodology being a Tool, Technique, Practice, Principal, Process or a Method, along with the benefits associated on their implication that helped us to answer our research questions are extracted as a part of qualitative analysis from the selected studies. The industrial interviews were conducted by interviewing potential lean experts who had decent experience in lean software development, to find the current state of lean implication in the software industry. In the end, a comparative analysis was performed to clearly understand the state of convergence and divergence between the results from extensive literature review and the industry with respect to the implication of lean methodologies in the context of software engineering. Results: A total of 72 primary articles were selected for data extraction. 56 articles were selected from the electronic databases that clearly depicted lean implementation in the context of software engineering. 9 articles were selected by conducting snowball sampling i.e. by scrutinizing the references of the selected primary studies and finally the grey literature resulted in 7 articles. Most of the articles discussed about lean implication in the context of software engineering. The depicted lean methodologies were validated in either Industry or Academia. A few articles depicted regarding lean principles and their benefits in the context of software engineering. Most of the selected articles in our study were peer- reviewed. Peer reviewing is a process of evaluating one’s work or performance by an expert in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of work or performance in the particular field. This indicates that the articles considered for data extraction have been reviewed by potential experts in the research domain. Conclusions: This study provided a deeper insight into lean implication in the context of software engineering. The aim of the thesis is to find the challenging factors that negatively influenced the success of software projects. A total of 54 challenges were identified from the literature review. The 72 primary articles selected from various resources yielded 53 lean methodologies. The lean methodologies were grouped into Principles, practices, tools and methods. Mapping between the identified challenges and the mitigation lean methodologies is presented. Industrial interviews were conducted to find the current state of lean implication in software engineering. A total of 30 challenges were identified from the industry. A total of 40 lean methodologies were identified from the interviews. Comparative analysis was done to find the common challenges and mitigation lean methodologies between the State of art and State of practice. Based on the analysis a set of guidelines are presented at the end of the document. The guidelines benefit an industrial practitioner in practicing the appropriate lean methodology. Keywords: Lean Methodology, Lean software development, lean software management, lean software engineering, Systematic literature review, literature review.
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Agile software development methodologies are very popular for their efficiency and flexibility. This thesis focuses on agile software development methodology called Scrum. Basic description and comparison of traditional and agile methodologies is mentioned at first. Attention is paid to methodology Scrum which is shown on an example of usage by a specific company. It is convenient to use some software tool for organization of Scrum methodology. Therefore, an overview of the most common tools and basic comparison of software tools for organizing this methodology is presented. Conclusion of this thesis is recommendation for improvements for the investigated team, based on issues which were identified.

Software development is a process used by engineers and software developers to create and produce software, as a part of the digital transformation of several industries in 2020. Agile methodologies in Software development rose in popularity when the industry shifted from Product offering to Service offering, further stimulating the growth of Software companies. This dissertation presents an example on how to use both Software development and Agile methodologies to develop a Service or Product that explores the thematic of work schedule planning. The tool developed, named SmartShiP aims at automating and improving work schedule planning processes. Due to the incremental nature of SmartShiP, some of its core functionalities such as availability planning, intervention reporting and schedule generation are already implemented and their usage proves to be valuable for its users. The expansion to other teams is planned and further functionalities like multiple projects, different schedule strategies and code quality improvements are in the way; Sumário: Desenvolvimento de Software do SmartShiP O desenvolvimento de software é um processo utilizado por engenheiros e desenvolvedores de software para criar e produzir software. Sendo uma parte da transformação digital de muitas indústrias em 2020. A introdução de metodologias ágeis no desenvolvimento de software, acompanhou mudança da indústria de oferta de produtos para a oferta de serviços, estimulando ainda mais o crescimento das empresas de software. Esta dissertação é um exemplo de como usar desenvolvimento de Software e metodologias ágeis para desenvolver um serviço ou produto que explora a temática do planeamento de horários de trabalho, automatizando e melhorando os processos com recurso a uma ferramenta de Software desenvolvida - o SmartShiP. Devido a natureza incremental do SmartShiP, algumas das suas funcionalidades principais como planeamento de disponibilidade, justificação de intervenções e geração do calendário já estão actualmente implementadas e a sua utilização tem-se provado valiosa para os seus utilizadores. A expansão para outras equipas está planeada assim com mais funcionalidades como multiplos projectos, diferentes estratégias de planeamento e melhorias na qualidade do código, estão a caminho.

Integrated development environment products, called CASE technology by practitioners, are being purchased by enterprises to assist systems analysts with the analysis and design of information systems. This work surveys users of a commercially available CASE product. Ninty-one users from 47 enterprises in the U.S. and Canada responded to the personal computer based survey. This work analyses the perceptions of the respondents in an attempt to determine productivity improvement over manual methods. Using the perceptions of the respondents, the component parts of the CASE product were rank ordered in terms of improved productivity. In addition to this, a psychometric preference scaling method was used to interpret the relatedness of the component parts to each other, again based on the perceptions of the respondents.

Offshoring software projects have been common for a few decades and were once thought to be the savior of software development project issues that plagued in-house software developers. Even with many recent advances in software development and communication, many projects are still compromised in some way. This dissertation analyzes in-house and offshore projects that were conducted using the waterfall methodology to determine the real source of the issues. The main hypothesis here is that by implementing agile, at least in part, at the design/code phase of software development will not only reduce or eliminate issues that were identified using waterfall but prove that development problems are independent of whether a project is developed offshore or in-house. This study also shows that, in addition to agile mitigating project issues at one phase of software development, project stakeholders are more comfortable, if they are in the process of migrating to agile development, by implementing agile initially at only one phase of the process.

Today’s software companies face the challenges of highly distributed development projects and constant changing requirements. To be competitive, the software time to market has to be reduced as much as possible while keeping the expected quality. Development methodologies try to address this challenges by introducing new practices, techniques and methods for communication, requirements management, quality assurance, etc. This thesis proposes the adoption of relevant Free/Libre/Open Source Software practices to improve industrial developments. Many FLOSS projects have proven very successful, producing high quality products with steady frequent releases. The selection of the FLOSS best practices that would benefit industrial developments, and its adaptation for a corporate environment is the aim of this study. To achieve this goal, a framework to compare FLOSS and industrial development methodologies has been created and executed. Three successful FLOSS projects where selected as study targets, as well as two Ericsson’s projects. The framework served to identify FLOSS methodology strengths and compare them with the Ericsson projects. Analysing the significant differences resulting from this comparison, FLOSS best practices were tailored to fit industrial development environments. The final results of the thesis are six adoption opportunities that aim to improve software quality and overall development productivity while increasing practitioners’ motivation and commitment.

Business process management (BPM) is a philosophical approach to organisation-wide management in which the focus is on the processes through which it operates, and in particular the streamlining and optimising of these processes, for which software solutions may be used. CTexT is an intrapreneurial software organisation that has been experiencing problems with software development due to a lack of formal processes relating to customer support, versioning, configuration, quality, risk and project management. The objective of the study is to determine whether the implementation of an electronic BPM system can effectively solve CTexT's development problems and thereby improve its overall software development capacity. More specifically, the focus is on i) the effect of the resulting standardisation on creativity and innovation, and ii) implementation matters, such as the type of processes that can be subjected to an electronic system, and how CTexT can overcome the time and cost constraints of such a system. The study investigates these questions by means of a literature investigation in combination with interviews with knowledgeable respondents from other innovative and software organisations. Interviews with six employees from CTexT determine the relevance of these findings and highlight critical areas for process improvement. Since BPM systems improve organisational efficiencies and are generally employed in larger corporate contexts marked by transactional and repetitive activities where they enforce administrative rules, the conclusion is drawn that a BPM system will not be suitable for an intrapreneurial organisation, and that it is likely to cause more disruption to the creative environment than improve its operations. It is further shown that although a BPM system is theoretically applicable to software development, it generally does not seem to be applied practically in the industry, and the suitability of this process as manageable through a BPM system is seriously questioned. Instead, the research points to improvement through the application of software development methodologies and a holistic approach towards BPM. The investigation at CTexT confirms that its development problems relate to flawed methodologies and that remedies should therefore focus on improving its methodologies and controlling certain aspects of the software development life cycle by means of suitable software tools.
Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007

Agile software development methodologies these days are not used only in small enterprises or startups, they are getting spread around large enterprises as well. An evidence of this fact could be, that Scrum is nowadays the most commonly used approach to software development. So this thesis focuses on usage of agile approaches, Scrum methodology in particular, in large enterprises. Author presents an approach called Behaviour Driven development and proposes how this approach could help dealing with imperfections or barriers of Scrum when used in large enterprises. The major outcome of this thesis is author's own methodology called ScrumFlow, based on Scrum methodology and extended by Behaviour Driven Development approaches. ScrumFlow methodology is published on a website and available for free.

This paper tries to identify and understand the human social obstacles for developing quality software. These include lip-service, cutting corners, deception and effects of internal politics. These obstacles can undermine the good intentions behind the software methodologies. The paper draws from the literature in different disciplines and uses an ethnographic research methodology to create a rich picture of the concerning aspects in the framework of one software development company in India. What stands out among the findings are that internal audits has mainly focused on finding errors in documentation procedures but study of the actual practices has often been shallow. In addition the understanding of business risks by the internal auditors have often been weak. Context. The human based obstacles affecting Software Development Methodology analysed in the context of an ISO 9000 quality system in an Indian Software Development company working mainly with Swedish companies. Objectives. Identifying and increasing the understanding of intrinsic negative social aspects such as lip service, cheating and politics which are affecting the results of Software Development Methodologies and if possible suggest some means to mitigate them. In particular to create a deeper understanding of why people cheat and pay lip service to methodologies and to try to understand the political aspects of methodology and quality systems. There are other positive social aspects, but they are not considered since the objective is about understanding the negative aspects and possibly mitigate them. Methods. Ethnographic research using analysis of ISO 9000 and design artefacts, semi-structured interviews, participation in internal audits, Results. Most focus in audits was on documentation and very less focus on underlying methodologies, some indications of lip-service to process and processes were also mainly managed on a higher level in the organization while the understanding and practices were less well established on lower level. It was hard to get a grip on the internal political aspects since the perception of the subject in the informants view was that it is mainly malicious and therefore embarrassing to speak about. Some conflicts between internal quality goals and customers’ needs were also identified. Conclusions. An ethnographic research methodology gives a rich picture. The analysis gives deeper understanding of the problem areas, but not necessary solutions. The author suggests that at the heart of the problem is a difference in world view. Software professionals generally tend to resolve [technical] problems using a reductionist approach, while these intricate challenges cannot easily be resolved by this approach. A more holistic systemic approach is required and while the software methodology is useful to structure the development it does not resolve these dysfunctions. They have to be resolved on another level. It was also found that further studies is required in particular to better understand Internal politics, the effect of Positive and Negative Incentives, the effect of software metrics on quality performance and subjectivity in customers’ perception and expectation.
Uppsatsen försöker förstå mänskliga sociala hinder för att utveckla programvara med hög kvalitet. Dessa hinder inkluderar "läpparnas bekännelser", ta genvägar, vilseleda och internpolitik. Sådana hinder kan underminera utvecklingsmetoder. Denna uppsats bygger på literatur från olika discipliner och använder etnografisk forskningsmetodik för att skapa en rik bild av dessa oroande aspekter inom ramen för ett IT-företag i Indien. Vad står ut är att intern kvalitetsrevision fokuserar för mycket på att finna fel i dokumentationsprocesser medan revision av hur utvecklingsarbetet faktiskt sker har varit för ytligt. Dessutom har de interna revisorernas förståelse av affärsrisker varit svag.

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between organizational and national culture and the use and effectiveness of systems development methodologies. Various different aspects of both culture and systems development methodologies are analysed. The first aspect studied is the state of systems development methodology use in South Africa. The results indicate that 74% of the organizations that participated in this study use a systems development methodology. Relationships between horizontal use of systems development methodologies and the success of the IS system and the success of the development process are also found. This relationship shows that when the systems development methodology knowledge is used in a bigger proportion of projects and by a bigger proportion of people, then both the development process and the IS system will be more successful. A relationship is also found that exists between organizational culture and system development methodologies. Organizations with a more hierarchical culture have been using SDMs longer than other organizational cultures. Relationships between national culture and systems development methodologies are also studied. The results show that when people prefer to work in a group (low individualism), the systems development methodology knowledge will be used more horizontally in the organization. The results also show relationships between the success of the IS system, the success of development process and the national and organizational cultures. When managers involve people at lower levels in the organizations in the decision making process, the developed IS system is more successful. The results show that organizations with a more developmental culture will have a more successful development system. The more an organization have a rational culture the more successful the IS system is perceived to be.
Thesis (MSc (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Masters of Science
In a world where technology is advancing at a very rapid pace, global competition has significantly increased, and this is putting pressure on software companies to produce quality software. It has therefore become critically important to manage well the implementation of software engineering projects by employing effective methods that ensure the best product is produced. The most popular software project implementation methodologies are the Traditional methods and Agile methods. This research explored these two methodologies by comparing the strength and weakness of both approaches. The research was conducted using a constructionist epistemology with a critical inquiry using the grounded theory methodology, applying both quantitative and qualitative methods to the case studies. Findings were collected through participant observation using a designed questionnaire targeting a selected sample of the study population. This sample of the population consisted of Ecommerce organizations in the Western Cape province of South Africa to establish which of the Traditional or Agile methods would best lead to the successful implementation of Ecommerce software engineering projects. The research results showed that the Agile methodology was the preferred and recommended approach. Very few participants of the research supported the Traditional approach to still be considered and used for projects with well-known end goals. An Ecommerce website prototype for a local Cape Town business was constructed as following the Agile approach to measure and validate the findings of the research. The prototype was built successfully from conception to the final delivery product and on time confirming the Agile approach as best for Ecommerce software development. In conclusion, the Agile methodology is the choice approach based on reviewed literature, the research results, and the prototype construction. These results will help in critical decision making regarding an appropriate development methodology to follow for the Ecommerce industry in the Western Cape.

Mestrado em Gestão de Projetos
A literatura tem demonstrado que a adoção de metodologias e práticas ágeis tem uma influência positiva na performance dos projectos de desenvolvimento de software, e vários autores referem que a sua implementação está condicionada por vários factores, como a cultura do país, da organização e respectiva maturidade ágil. Este estudo propôs-se a compreender de que forma se relacionam as metodologias e práticas ágeis com a performance dos projectos de desenvolvimento de software em Portugal. Através do método snowball, obteve-se uma amostra de 108 indivíduos que responderam a um inquérito, cujos dados foram estatisticamente analisados, inclusive recorrendo a testes de correlações e de comparação de médias. Dos resultados obtidos, destacou-se uma forte adoção em exclusividade de Scrum pelas organizações. Foi demonstrado neste estudo a existência de uma correlação positiva entre a forte adoção de metologias ágeis e a performance do individuo, influenciando assim a performance geral da gestão dos projectos de software. Destacam-se ainda as equipas de dimensão fora do intervalo recomendado na literatura e que poderá condicionar a agilidade na gestão dos projectos. Discutem-se os contributos e as limitações do estudo, apresentando sugestões para futuras investigações.
The literature has shown that agile methodologies and practices have a positive impact on the performance of software development projects. Simultaneously, authors suggest that agile implementation is conditioned by several factors such as culture of the country and organization, and its agile maturity. This study aimed to understand how the adoption of agile methodologies and practices relate with the performance of software development projects in Portugal. Applying the snowball method, we obtained a sample of 108 individuals who participated in a survey. The results were statistically analyzed, including correlation and mean comparison tests. From this study, we stand out to the strong exclusive adoption of Scrum by organizations, and also demonstrated that there is a positive correlation between the adoption of agile practices and the performance of the individual, which influence the overall performance of the software project management. Our analysis also has shown the existence of teams with dimensions outside the recommended range that may be affecting the project management agility. We discuss the contributions and limitations of the study, suggesting future investigations.

Computer science in general and software engineering in specific is changing very fast. Software engineers are constantly using more innovative and more efficient ways to develop new software than in the past. This continuous evolution of software development methodologies has a great impact on both the software developed and the environment that the developers work-in. Agile software development methodologies are used to overcome many issues in the software development processes. One of the issues which still exists and needs to be addressed is the preparation of proper documentation along with the software. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on software documentation. The work starts by a thorough literature review which focuses on different aspects of software documentation and different agile methodologies. The thesis focuses on finding out the challenges that the developers faces during their development process. Two major questions addressed in the thesis. First one is to find the motivation to document in agile envirionment, whih is based on the hypothesis that there do exist a motivation. The second question is that how should documentation be produced such that we could avoid maximum possible potential problems. These questions are addressed with the help of different perspectives of the stockholders (i.e. developers and users) and the existing methods for documentation. A questionnaire was developed based on the nine categories of documentation, like user documents and system documents etc.. It included different questions related to the types of documents created in software development processes, the software development stage at which the documents are created and the importance of the documents. Questions from this questionnaire are then posted on agile specific discussion forums. Where many experienced and fresh practitioners participated in the discussion. We had a detailed discussion on every component of documentation and problems were identified by the practitioners. The questionnaire was also sent to different companies practicing agile methodology. we received about 14 responses as it was detailed questionnaire with about 34 questions. The responses of the discussion forum and survey are then analyzed and conclusions were drawn. The conclusions include that all the participants consider software documentation very important to the success of a software development project. the question of motivation is answered from the literature and opinions we received from experienced practitioners. While seven factor are identified that affect your documentation, to help solve the question of how should documentation be done.

The nature of software development has changed in last decade. Waterfall or traditional command and control methods have been replaced by Agile methodologies. Agile came as a “solution” to the disadvantages of the waterfall methodology, but using Agile has its own challenges. Due to the attractive characteristics of Agile such as flexibility and short time-to-market, Agile development has been increasingly popular and the number of organisations which have started to move to Agile is growing every day. Implementing new methodologies in any organisation is always a big challenge, especially for large-scale organisations due to their complexity, many different interacting interfaces, strong organisational culture, etc. The nature of these challenges and obstacles changes from different perspectives within an organisation, and each of these perspectives needs to be studied and investigated to ensure a successful transition from traditional approaches to Agile. In this thesis we focus on the project manager and project governance perspectives. We aim to define the success and failure factors that play a key role in moving from traditional approaches to Agile approaches in large-scale organisations. To address these challenges we conducted literature reviews on the latest research in implementing Agile methodologies. To collect our data we used a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. We explored both IT project manager and Chief project manager opinions and experiences of the organisations by conducting interviews and questionnaires in our research. The results reveals the difficulty to find proper product owners in the Agile projects. It is challenging to set a product owner who has Agile knowledge and is expert in the project domain. Specialized training and coaching for product owners is mentioned as one of the solutions that could be provided for this challenge. “Distributed teams”, “Lack of focus on the business side” and “Weak coaching and support” are some of the other critical areas which have been presented by the participants in the interviews and survey in this study. The main conclusion is that in order to have a successful transition to Agile approaches, the Agile mind-set should be set in all different part in an organizations, not only the development side and also that everyone have to understand “Why” Agile is beneficial. Also the communication of lessons learnt and feedback should be strong and effective in order to avoid repetition of the same mistakes. In addition, specialized training and coaching for different roles within the period of the development is necessary to ensure the successful adoption of Agile.
Synen på mjukvaruutveckling har förändrats under det senaste decenniet; Vattenfalls- eller traditionella kommando- och styrmetoder har ersatts av Agila metoder. Agila utvecklingsmetoder kom som en "lösning" till nackdelarna med vattenfalls metodiken, men användning av Agila metoder har sina egna utmaningar. På grund av Agila metoders attraktiva egenskaper såsom flexibilitet och kort tid till marknaden, har denna typ av utveckling blivit alltmer populärt och antalet organisationer som har börjat flytta till Agila metoder växer varje dag. Att genomföra nya metoder i en organisation är alltid en stor utmaning. Särskilt för stora organisationer på grund av deras komplexitet, med tanke på många olika samverkande gränssnitt, stark organisationskultur, etc. Karaktären på dessa utmaningar och hinder ändras från olika perspektiv inom en organisation, och vart och ett av dessa perspektiv behöver studeras och undersökas för att säkerställa en framgångsrik övergång från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder. I denna avhandling fokuserar vi på projektledare och projektförvaltningsperspektiv. Vi strävar efter att definiera framgångs- och misslyckande faktorer som spelar en nyckelroll i att flytta från traditionella metoder till Agila metoder i storskaliga organisationer. För att möta dessa utmaningar genomfört vi dessutom en litteraturstudie av den senaste forskningen om införande av Agila metoder. För att samla våra data vi använt en kombination av kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder. Vi utforskade både projektledare för IT och chefs-projektledare sidor av organisationer genom intervjuer och enkäter i vår forskning. Resultaten visar den kritiska roll produktägare utgör i Agila projekt. Det är en utmaning att tillsätta en korrekt produktägaren som har Agile kunskap och är expert i projektet domänen. Specialiserad utbildning och coaching för produktägare nämns som en av de möjliga lösningar som finns för denna utmaning. "distribuerade team", "brist på fokus på affärssidan" och "Svag coachning och support" är några av de andra viktiga områden som har lagts fram av deltagarna i intervjuerna och undersökning i denna studie. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är att för att få en lyckad övergång till Agila metoder bör Agilt tänkande tillämpas i alla delar i en organisations, inte bara utvecklingssidan, utan alla måste förstå "varför" Agila metoder är fördelaktigt. Även överföring av lärdomar och återkoppling bör vara stark och effektiv för att undvika återkommande samma misstag. Dessutom, specialiserad utbildning och coaching för olika roller och inom den tidsfrist för utvecklingen är nödvändig för att säkerställa ett framgångsrikt antagande av Agila arbetsmetoder.

The need for information systems has increased to a point where virtually all business environments require some sort of software to aid in its daily operations. This study will address the need for quality information systems by examining techniques which can potentially aid in producing consistent high-quality information systems. Two techniques in particular, namely Process Maturity Models (PMMs) and Systems Development Methodologies (SDMs) are examined. Process Maturity Models such as the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) as well as the ISO-9000 standards aid in standardising and improving an organisation’s information systems development processes. These Process Maturity Models often require either the use of certain Systems Development Methodologies or at the very least techniques used within some Systems Development Methodologies. Systems Development Methodologies refer to a set of development processes, tools, techniques etc. which can be used during software development to standardise the entire development process by offering the use of modelling techniques, tools to analyse requirements, illustration of processes etc. These techniques differ from one Systems Development Methodology to the next. This study aims to identify the relationship between Process Maturity Models and Systems Development Methodologies. During the research process a questionnaire was sent out to people within the information technology business environment. The questionnaire contained questions used to determine and measure the usage of Systems Development Methodologies and how projects were affected. The questionnaire was also used to do an informal assessment of each respondent’s Capability Maturity Model level. Furthermore the data retrieved was statistically analysed and the results were interpreted. The results indicate that a relationship exists between the use of SDMs and the success of the respondent’s development processes and developed products. A total of 73% of respondents indicated that they do use SDMs to some extent, the most common being the Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC). The majority of organizations implementing SDMs have been doing so for three years or more. Results also show that most of the respondents are not certified in some formal Process Maturity Model; however, they do implement some of the processes required by models such as the CMMI. An informal assessment performed indicated that 65% of respondents can be grouped into a perceived CMMI level 2 category. Project outcome was measured and the relationship between PMM implementation as well as SDM use was measured. Results show no statistical evidence which indicates that an organisation’s perceived CMMI level is influenced by SDM use, both vertically and horizontally. Results do, however, indicate that organizations which have been implementing SDMs for a longer period of time are more likely to apply CMMI level 4 activities. Results also indicate that the horizontal use (number of projects/people which implement SDM knowledge) of SDMs have a significant effect on the development process- and the developed product success. Lastly the results indicated that organizations which satisfy more of the CMMI’s level 4 activities experience a higher quality development process which leads to a more successful development process.
Thesis (MSc (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Diplomová práce se zaměřuje na zefektivnění procesu řízení ve vývoji softwaru, a to integrováním agilní metodiky Scrum do projektu. Navrhnuté řešení obsahuje stěžejní principy a součásti metodologie a jejich konkrétní doporučenou aplikaci v projekte ABC v soulade s jeho specifikami.

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.

Business-IT alignment has been a top research topic for three decades now and consistently ranks high on CIO priorities and concerns. In spite of its seeming advantages, sustainable business-IT alignment remains elusive in practice. This can be attributed to the language and knowledge gaps which impede mutual understanding between business and IT stakeholders. It can also be attributed to the limitations imposed by approaching alignment solely from a strategic perspective. This thesis argues for an ontology-based framework that bridges the language and knowledge gaps through closer interaction between business and IT stakeholders throughout the software development and project management lifecycles, especially at the requirements engineering stage. Attempts at achieving sustainable business-IT alignment predominantly focus on strategic alignment and have not been successful for various reasons. Firstly, driving down alignment initiatives to the operational and tactical levels is challenging. Secondly, it is difficult to operationalize the metrics used for evaluating alignment maturity at strategic levels. These limitations are less pronounced at the functional levels of an organization. It is at these levels that business strategies are executed and interaction between business and IT personnel is most frequent. The interaction between business and IT stakeholders in the execution of IT projects presents an opportunity that can be leveraged to drive alignment maturity. The proposed framework is discussed in terms of its underpinning hypotheses, workflows, tool design and implementation, its use with a third party framework and tool. Antecedents to operational and tactical alignment such as quality, reuse, communication, learning, and shared understanding, are proposed as a practical means of achieving sustainable alignment maturity. The framework is applied to real world, business-critical projects in a top global financial services organization and validated using descriptive statistical analysis and structural equation modelling techniques. Contributions made through the study are highlighted. This includes the Alignment Forces Model which unifies the proposed framework and its support tool within software development and project management lifecycles. The Alignment Forces model and how it can be applied in practice is presented. Results of the quantitative data analyses indicate support for the arguments for the framework towards improving business-IT alignment, however with some limitations. Results also indicate support for the hypotheses for the antecedents to sustainable alignment maturity at lower organizational levels put forward. Finally, suggestions on furthering the study, addressing its limitations, and refining the framework and tool are articulated.

Theme of this thesis is how to choose between agile methodologies of software development. Several agile methodologies, such as SCRUM, Kanban and eXtreme programming are described and also methods of choosing between methodologies or management techniques are discussed. New method of multi-criteria decision process on how to choose between Agile methodologies based on multi-dimensionality is presented with option of improving agile experience by adopting additional techniques. Diploma thesis can serve as managers' hand-book for those who want to change their current software development methodologies or are searching for ways of improving their agile adoption.

[ES] El ruido de rodadura es un fenómeno producido debido a la interacción entre la rueda y el carril e inducido por las pequeñas irregularidades existentes en la superficie de ambos. Dichas irregularidades, conocidas como "rugosidad", provocan que se genere una vibración tanto en la rueda como el carril cuando el tren circula a una cierta velocidad, lo que consecuentemente lleva a la aparición de radiación acústica. Esto conforma una de las fuentes de molestias más relevantes y principal origen de la contaminación acústica producida por los trenes al circular por regiones urbanas densamente pobladas. Así, el objetivo de esta Tesis es el desarrollo de una metodología integral para la obtención de diseños de rueda viables mediante el uso de Algoritmos Genéticos (AG) con la finalidad de minimizar el ruido de rodadura asociado. Al desarrollar los mencionados algoritmos de optimización, el Método de Elementos Finitos (MEF) se combina con la parametrización geométrica de las diferentes tipologías de diseño de rueda analizadas, descritas en función de aquellos parámetros más relevantes para la presente investigación. Se hace uso de modelos linealizados en el dominio de la frecuencia, capaces de resolver la dinámica completa del sistema a partir de las correspondientes mallas de la sección transversal. La obtención de la potencia acústica radiada se lleva a cabo mediante el empleo de una formulación semi-analítica para el cálculo de la eficiencia acústica de la rueda y al uso de un Modelo de Fuentes Equivalentes (MFE) en el carril. El desarrollo teórico, además, es validado con el software comercial de referencia en el campo de investigación, TWINS, en el cual se basa. A lo largo de los procedimientos de optimización, se realiza un análisis de fatiga en cada diseño de rueda considerado con el fin de asegurar su viabilidad estructural, lo que actúa como una restricción de "pena de muerte" en el algoritmo. Además, se desarrolla un procedimiento de identificación modal que permite caracterizar los modos de vibración y clasificarlos según su número de diámetros y circunferencias nodales. Seguidamente, se exploran dos formulaciones diferentes de la función objetivo: una centrada en reducir directamente el ruido radiado, llamada LA;W -min; i otra centrada en disminuir el ruido de rodadura maximizando la media de las frecuencias naturales de los modos de vibración, conocida como NF-max. En la metodología LA;W -min, se minimiza la suma en energía del nivel de potencia acústica expresado en dB(A). Para el caso de NF-max, se desplazan las frecuencias naturales a regiones de frecuencia donde la amplitud de rugosidad es menor. Se consideran diversas aproximaciones: la inclusión de esquemas de perforación y la modificación de la forma de su sección transversal. Además, también se ha estudiado la influencia en el ruido de la variación de las propiedades geométricas del carril y viscoelásticas de la vía. Como resultado de esta Tesis se han conseguido diversos modelos más silenciosos de rueda ferroviaria, con reducciones en el ruido de rodadura de hasta 5 dB(A). Cuando se considera el sistema ferroviario completo,se siguen consiguiendo mejoras en la potencia acústica radiada con los diseños de rueda resultantes. Además, se analizan las correlaciones entre la maximización de las frecuencias naturales y la atenuación del nivel de potencia acústica, estableciendo NF-max como una metodología adecuada para los casos en que se priorice la eficiencia computacional. La sensibilidad del problema a los espacios de diseño seleccionados y la adecuación del uso de AG se estudian también con la obtención de Superficies de Respuesta. Adicionalmente, se han establecido relaciones entre la variación de los parámetros geométricos y la disminución en la radiación acústica asociada, así como se ha propuesto la reubicación de los modos de vibración a lo largo del espectro en frecuencia com
[CA] El soroll de rodament és un fenomen causat per la interacció entre la roda i el carril i induït per les xicotetes irregularitats presents a les seues superfícies. Aquestes irregularitats, conegudes amb el nom de "rugositat", provoquen que es genere una vibració tant a la roda com al carril en circular el tren a una certa velocitat, el que conseqüentment du a l'aparició de radiació acústica. Açò conforma una de les fonts de molèsties més rellevants i el principal origen de la contaminació acústica generada pels trens al seu pas per regions urbanes densament poblades. Així, l'objectiu d'aquesta Tesi és el desenvolupament d'una metodologia integral per a l'obtenció de dissenys de roda viables mitjançant l'ús d'Algoritmes Genètics (AG) amb la inalitat de minimitzar el soroll de rodament associat. Al desenvolupar els esmentats algoritmes d'optimització, el Mètode d'Elements Finits (MEF) es combina amb la parametrització geomètrica de les diferents tipologies de disseny de roda analitzades, descrites en funció d'aquells paràmetres més rellevants per a aquesta investigació. Es fa ús de models linealitzats en el domini de la freqüència, capaços de resoldre la dinàmica completa del sistema a partir les corresponents malles de secció transversal. La obtenció de la potència acústica radiada es du a terme mitjançant la utilització d'una formulació semi-analítica per al càlcul de l'eficiència acústica de la roda i l'ús d'un Model de Fonts Equivalents (MFE) amb el carril. El desenvolupament teòric s'ha validat amb el software comercial de referència al camp d'investigació, TWINS, en el qual es basa. Al llarg dels procediments d'optimització, es realitza una anàlisi de fatiga a cada disseny de roda considerat amb la finalitat d'assegurar la seua viabilitat estructural. S'ha desenvolupat un procediment d'identificació modal que permet caracteritzar els modes de vibració i classificar-los d'acord al seu número de diàmetres i circumferències nodals. També, s'exploren dos formulacions diferents de la funció objectiu: una centrada en reduir directament el soroll radiat, anomenada LA;W -min; i altra centrada en disminuir el soroll de rodament maximitzant la mitja de les freqüències naturals dels modes de vibració, coneguda com NF-max. D'aquesta manera, en la metodologia LA;W -min, es minimitza la suma en energia del nivell de potència acústica expressat en dB(A). Per al cas de NF-max, es desplacen les freqüències naturals a regions de freqüència on l'amplitud de rugositat és menor. Es consideren diverses aproximacions: la inclusió d'esquemes de perforació i la modificació de la forma de la seua secció transversal, establint el radi com un valor fixe en un cas i utilitzant-lo com un paràmetre d'optimització més en l'altre. A més a més, s'ha estudiat la influència en el soroll de la variació de les propietats geomètriques del carril i viscoelàstiques de la via. Com a resultat d'aquesta Tesi s'han aconseguit diversos models de roda ferroviària més silenciosos, amb reduccions en el soroll de rodament de fins a 5 dB(A). Quan es considera el sistema ferroviari complet amb tots els seus components, es segueixen aconseguint millores en la potencia acústica radiada amb els dissenys de roda resultants. A més a més, 'analitzen les correlacions entre la maximització de les freqüències naturals i l'atenuació del nivell de potencia acústica, establint NF-max com una metodologia adequada pels casos en que es prioritza l'eficiència computacional. La sensibilitat del problema als espais de disseny escollits i l'adequació de l'ús de AG s'estudia també mitjançant l'obtenció de Superfícies de Resposta (SRs) per als paràmetres geomètrics utilitzats. Addicionalment, s'han establert relacions entre la variació dels paràmetres geomètrics i la disminució en la radiació acústica associada, així com s'ha proposat la reubicació dels modes de vibració al voltant de
[EN] Rolling noise phenomenon is produced due to the wheel/track interaction and induced by the small unevenness present in their surfaces. Such unevenness, known as "roughness", causes that vibrations arise in both the wheel and track when the train passes by with a certain speed, that consequently leads to the appearance of acoustic radiation. This kind of noise is one of the most relevant sources of annoyance and the principal focus of the railway acoustic pollution produced by trains operating through highly populated urban regions. Thus, the main goal of the present Thesis is the development of a comprehensive methodology to achieve suitable railway wheel designs through the use of Genetic Algorithms (GAs) with the aim of minimizing the associated rolling noise. When developing the aforementioned optimization algorithms, the Finite Element Method (FEM) is combined with the geometric parametrization of the different wheel design typologies analysed, described as a function of those parameters most relevant for the current research. In order to describe the dynamic behaviour of each component involved in the wheel/track interaction, use is made of linearised models in the frequency domain capable of solving the whole coupled dynamic response from the corresponding cross-section meshes. Subsequent derivation of the radiated sound power from the dynamic information is carried out by applying a semi-analytical formulation that allows for the wheel acoustic efficiency computation, on one hand, and by making use of an Equivalent Sources Model (ESM) in the track, on the other hand. Besides, such theoretical development is validated with the reference commercial software in the field, TWINS, on which it is based. Throughout the optimization procedures, a fatigue analysis is performed on every wheel design considered to assure structural feasibility, that acts as a "death penalty" constraint in the algorithm. Furthermore, a modal identification procedure is developed, which allows to characterize modeshapes and to classify them according to their number of nodal diameters and circumferences. Then, two different formulations of the objective function are explored: one focused on directly reducing radiated noise, named LA;W-min; and another centred on decreasing rolling noise by maximizing the average natural frequency of the modeshapes, called NF-max. Hence, in the LA;W -min methodology, the sum in energy of the wheel Sound poWer Level (SWL) expressed in dB(A) is minimized. For the NF-max case, natural frequencies are shifted to frequency regions where the roughness amplitude content is lower. Different approaches are considered: the inclusion of perforation schemes in the wheel and the variation of its cross-sectional shape, setting the radius as a constant value in one case and using it as an optimization parameter in another. Moreover, the influence on the noise of changing the rail geometric and track viscoelastic properties is also studied. As a result of the present Thesis, several quieter models of railway wheels have been achieved, with rolling noise reductions of up to 5 dB(A). When the whole railway system with all the components is considered, improvements in the radiated sound power remain achieved with the resulting wheel designs. Besides, correlations between maximization of natural frequencies and SWL mitigation are analysed, establishing the NF-max as a suitable methodology for cases when computational efficiency is prioritized. The sensitivity of the problem to selected design domains and the suitability of the use of GAs are also studied with the obtention of Response Surfaces (RSs) for the geometric parameters used. Additionally, correlations are established between the variation of the geometric parameters and the decrease in the associated acoustic radiation, while the shifting of the modeshapes along the frequency domain is proposed as a physical mechanism responsible of the observed sound power decrease.
This thesis has been supported by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación and the European Regional Development Fund (projects TRA2013-45596-C2-1-R and TRA2017-84701-R).
Garcia Andrés, X. (2021). Development of innovative methodologies to reduce railway rolling noise through Genetic Algorithm-based shape optimization techniques [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/164194
TESIS

In this thesis, implementations of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems are studied with a broader view. Pre-implementation preparations and post-implementation developments play key roles in the success of the ERP utilization of the companies. To find out how the success can be achieved, various concepts in ERP implementation are analyzed. Using analogies with the basic software development models, common application methodologies are studied. The study is completed with the analysis of an interesting and challenging ERP implementation experience, focusing on the important decision points.

This study has   focused on system development approaches and system development   methodologies. The purpose of the study has been to present a view on the   current situation of different development approaches (agile, traditional,   iterative and hybrid) and methodologies by highlighting the situation from a   number of perspectives. Questions that are answered are: which system   development approaches and methodologies that can be said to be most   frequently used based on the respondents, if the mentioned approaches can be   given certain characteristics based on a selection of factors and the   respondents' attitude towards the approach they practice. The study has been   conducted as a survey where the answers have been obtained via social media.   The result shows that agile methodologies dominate and that they are often   included in various forms of hybrid and agile approaches. Furthermore, it has   not been possible to create an in-depth knowledge of the approaches based on   the selected factors. Finally, it is noted that project members who practice   an agile approach have a great confidence in the approach and have a strong   conviction that it contributes to increase the quality of the software.

The integration and interoperability of autonomous and heterogeneous electronic government (e-government) systems of government departments and agencies for a seamless services delivery to citizens through one-stop e-government portals remain challenging issues in egovernment development. In recent years, Semantic Web technologies have emerged as promising solutions to these problems. Semantic Web technologies base on ontology allow the description and specification of electronic services (e-services), making it easy to compose, match, map and merge e-services and facilitate their semantic integration and interoperability. However, a unified and comprehensive methodology that provides structured guidelines for the semantic-driven planning and implementation of e-government systems does not exist yet. This study presents a methodology framework for the semantic-driven development of future e-government systems. The features of maturity models, software engineering and Semantic Web domains are investigated and employed to draw and specify the methodology framework. Thereafter, the semantic content of the methodology framework is further specified using ontology building methodology and Semantic Web ontology languages and platforms. The study would be useful to e-government developers, particularly those of developing countries where there is little or no practice of semantic content development in e-government processes as well as where little progress has been made towards the development of one-stop e-government portals for seamless services delivery to citizens. Part of the study would also be of interest to novice Semantic Web developers who might use it as a starting point for further investigations.
Thesis (Ph.D. (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012