Alinhamento de expectativas e desempenho organizacional: um estudo sobre os métodos ágeis de gestão.

A adoção dos métodos ágeis de gestão do desenvolvimento de software tem sido uma tendência mundial, considerando-se as empresas do setor de tecnologia. Empresas brasileiras atuando neste mercado não estão apartadas deste quadro, uma vez que o objetivo desses métodos é endereçar um cenário comum a qualquer uma dessas organizações: lidar com a dificuldade de modelar adequadamente os problemas usualmente complexos que são objetivo da construção de um software e com a mudança constante de requisitos que esta situação representa, potencializada ainda mais pela dinâmica frenética da disseminação da informação no século XXI, além de modificar um quadro crônico de fracassos e falhas no setor, visando entregar produtos de qualidade aos seus clientes com o máximo de velocidade. Aspectos internos como o aumento de produtividade e a redução de retrabalho também fazem parte dos objetivos de adoção destas metodologias. O presente estudo visa avaliar os aspectos humanos e culturais envolvidos e identificar a convergência entre as expectativas da empresa e dos empregados quando da adoção de métodos ágeis de gestão, a partir de pesquisa de campo que capturou as reações de um grupo de entrevistados à implantação desses métodos na Módulo Security Solutions, empresa brasileira de tecnologia e serviços, após dois anos de uso interno abrangente. Os resultados apontam para o sucesso da implantação, com reação positiva dos empregados, a despeito da necessidade de endereçamento de aspectos humanos para ajuste do modelo e do impacto negativo da cultura local e organizacional terem sido amplamente percebidos.

Planejamento e prototipagem de uma rede social de gastronomia convergente com programas de TV e mídias sociais

Pós-graduação em Televisão Digital: Informação e Conhecimento - FAAC

Riskmática: Una tecnología educativa desarrollada con Unity

Historically, teachers have always searched for a connection with their students to make education interesting and a vital experience. In the 19th century, pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi taught children how to sum using wood blocks. His successors have followed his legacy and today they use a wide variety of media, including board games, in order to reach out to their students. These methods are denominated educational technologies, which are defined as the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. With the advent of the information technologies, teachers have at their disposal new media with which they can increase the interest of their students. This technologic revolution is changing the present educational model. The objective of this dissertation is to develop an educational videogame in order to help students learn mathematics. To reach this goal, the videogame has been developed with the game engine Unity as the main tool. Additionally, agile software development methodologies as well as other software engineering techniques have also been used. The result is Riskmatica, an educational videogame based on geographical domination in which knowledge is the best weapon. The players must conquer enemy teritories answering correctly a mathecatical question. Moreover the videogame has the functionality required to configure a new game and input new questions. To conclude, this project has created an educational technology which greatly appeals to students and that can be used by the educators to improve their lessons in mathematics.---RESUMEN---A lo largo de la historia, los educadores siempre han buscado conectar con los alumnos para poder captar su interés y hacer que la educación se convierta en una experiencia vital. El pedagogo Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi conseguía esto en el siglo XIX, enseñando a niños a contar con bloques de madera. Sus sucesores han seguido su legado y hoy en día utilizan variedad de medios con los que motivar a sus alumnos, en algunos casos los juegos de mesa. Estos métodos son denominados tecnologías educativas, que se definen como los estudios y prácticas éticas que facilitan y mejoran la enseñanza, mediante la creación, el uso y el empleo de procesos y recursos tecnológicos. Con el advenimiento de las tecnologías de la información, los educadores tienen a su disposición un nuevo medio con el que llegar al alumnado. Esta revolución tecnológica está cambiando el modelo educativo actual. El objetivo de este proyecto es el de crear un videojuego educativo que ayude a los alumnos a estudiar matemáticas. Para lograrlo se ha utilizado el popular motor de videojuego Unity como herramienta principal. También se han empleado metodologías ágiles de desarrollo además de otras técnicas de ingeniería del software. El resultado es Riskmática, un videojuego educativo de dominación geográfica en el que el arma más eficaz es el conocimiento. Los jugadores deberán conquistar territorios a sus adversarios mediante la respuesta de preguntas de carácter matemático. Además el videojuego cuenta con la funcionalidad necesaria para configurar una partida e introducir nuevas preguntas. Como conlusión, este proyecto ha logrado crear una tecnología educativa muy atractiva para los alumnos con la que los profesores pueden mejorar la enseñanza de las matemáticas.

Integrating service user and practitioner expertise within a web-based system for collaborative mental-health risk and safety management

Objectives: To develop a decision support system (DSS), myGRaCE, that integrates service user (SU) and practitioner expertise about mental health and associated risks of suicide, self-harm, harm to others, self-neglect, and vulnerability. The intention is to help SUs assess and manage their own mental health collaboratively with practitioners. Methods: An iterative process involving interviews, focus groups, and agile software development with 115 SUs, to elicit and implement myGRaCE requirements. Results: Findings highlight shared understanding of mental health risk between SUs and practitioners that can be integrated within a single model. However, important differences were revealed in SUs' preferred process of assessing risks and safety, which are reflected in the distinctive interface, navigation, tool functionality and language developed for myGRaCE. A challenge was how to provide flexible access without overwhelming and confusing users. Conclusion: The methods show that practitioner expertise can be reformulated in a format that simultaneously captures SU expertise, to provide a tool highly valued by SUs. A stepped process adds necessary structure to the assessment, each step with its own feedback and guidance. Practice Implications: The GRiST web-based DSS (www.egrist.org) links and integrates myGRaCE self-assessments with GRiST practitioner assessments for supporting collaborative and self-managed healthcare.

Problematiken med estimering i projekt inom agil systemutveckling : Analys och undersökning av agil systemutveckling hos SDC

In today’s society, IT-Companies often have a hard time estimating changed requirements. This leads to that the clients’ confidence is negatively affected and is one of the main reasons why this has to be improved. The goal with this study was to find out what the most common problems regarding this issue are in IT-companies that works with agile software development. By analyzing one IT-company through a SWOT- and pareto-analysis the most common problems have been ascertained. The SWOT analysis have been created through interviews with selected employees to get a better understanding of the problems that the IT-company is facing. Furthermore was the pareto-analysis based on a survey that was sent out to many different employees to prioritize the problems. The reason why the survey was sent to different employees was to get a more objective input. The study showed that there was many different problems that needed attention. The most important problems was that the communication towards the client regarding requirements needed to be improved, better communication internally between different departments needed to be established, a method to quickly adapt and estimate change in requirements needed to be implemented and finally a method regarding witch key employees whom need to attend the planning of the program backlog. These problems have then been studied through interviews with other IT-companies and through a literature study. The conclusions that where drawn was that the client needs to be involved and updated through the whole project. Constant monitoring and communication regarding changed requirements needs to be processed and mediated. High standards needs to be set early towards the client in order to obtain as clear an image of the requirements as possible. Many different parties need to attend to the planning process for the program backlog before the start of the project. The client needs to be aware of that changed requirements will arise and that this will lead to that the first estimation may not necessarily be absolute. As long as the client is held up to date as well as participant through the whole project and problems are detected and mediated early, change in requirements should not be a huge problem. This is after all the purpose of being agile.

Samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt : Vilka mänskliga faktorer påverkar samarbetets effektivitet?

Mänskliga faktorer som till exempel kommunikation och tillit påverkar hur människor interagerar med varandra. I agil systemutveckling ingår relationer, samspel och samarbete mellan människor och dessa påverkar om systemutvecklingsprojektet anses framgångsrikt eller ej. Men ofta i systemutvecklingsprojekt så läggs det mer tid på själva tekniken än de sociala aspekterna, där de mänskliga faktorerna i många fall är en avgörande faktor för projektets slutresultat. Syftet med det nuvarande arbetet är att beskriva vilka mänskliga faktorer som är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt, samt att beskriva hur agil systemutveckling på Trafikverket utförs. Trafikverket ville ha studien genomförd för att resultatet av studien skulle hjälpa till att minska antalet mindre framgångsrika systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket. Huvudfrågan i arbetet är: Vilka mänskliga faktorer är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt? En fallstudie utfördes vid Trafikverket genom sju semistrukturerade intervjuer som följdes upp av enkäter och dokumentstudier. Det sammanlagda resultatet tyder på att för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket krävs fokus på följande fem mänskliga faktorer: kommunikation, tillit, ledarskap, kunskap och motivation.

Samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt : Vilka mänskliga faktorer påverkar samarbetets effektivitet?

Mänskliga faktorer som till exempel kommunikation och tillit påverkar hur människor interagerar med varandra. I agil systemutveckling ingår relationer, samspel och samarbete mellan människor och dessa påverkar om systemutvecklingsprojektet anses framgångsrikt eller ej. Men ofta i systemutvecklingsprojekt så läggs det mer tid på själva tekniken än de sociala aspekterna, där de mänskliga faktorerna i många fall är en avgörande faktor för projektets slutresultat. Syftet med det nuvarande arbetet är att beskriva vilka mänskliga faktorer som är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt, samt att beskriva hur agil systemutveckling på Trafikverket utförs. Trafikverket ville ha studien genomförd för att resultatet av studien skulle hjälpa till att minska antalet mindre framgångsrika systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket. Huvudfrågan i arbetet är: Vilka mänskliga faktorer är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt? En fallstudie utfördes vid Trafikverket genom sju semistrukturerade intervjuer som följdes upp av enkäter och dokumentstudier. Det sammanlagda resultatet tyder på att för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket krävs fokus på följande fem mänskliga faktorer: kommunikation, tillit, ledarskap, kunskap och motivation.

Ketterän ohjelmistokehittämisen hyödyntäminen käyttöliittymäkehityksessä asiakkaiden todellisen tarpeen ymmärtämiseksi

Työn tavoitteena oli toimintatutkimuksen kautta tutkia ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen keinoin toteutetun käyttöliittymäkehityksen kykyä vastata asiakkaiden todellisiin tarpeisiin. Työssä haettiin tapaustutkimusyritykselle olemassa olevan työkalun uuden version käyttöliittymän toteutusvaihtoehtoja ja toteutettiin korkean tarkkuuden prototyyppejä näitä hyödyntäen. Ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen arvot ja periaatteet soveltuivat kehitysprosessissa käytettäviksi erinomaisesti. Iteratiivinen lähestymistapa kehitykseen ja läheinen yhteistyö tapaustutkimusyrityksen ja kandidaatintyöntekijän kanssa mahdollistivat yrityksen odotusten täyttämisen. Työkalun käyttöliittymä saatettiin tasolle, joka mahdollistaa jatkokehittämisen aloituksen. Kattavamman testauttamisen sisällyttäminen kehitysprosessiin olisi edesauttanut vielä paremman lopputuloksen saavuttamista.

Multi-objective ant colony optimization for requirements selection

The selection of a set of requirements between all the requirements previously defined by customers is an important process, repeated at the beginning of each development step when an incremental or agile software development approach is adopted. The set of selected requirements will be developed during the actual iteration. This selection problem can be reformulated as a search problem, allowing its treatment with metaheuristic optimization techniques. This paper studies how to apply Ant Colony Optimization algorithms to select requirements. First, we describe this problem formally extending an earlier version of the problem, and introduce a method based on Ant Colony System to find a variety of efficient solutions. The performance achieved by the Ant Colony System is compared with that of Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm, by means of computational experiments carried out on two instances of the problem constructed from data provided by the experts.

Embedding sustainability into the new computer science curriculum for English schools

The primary goals of this study are to: embed sustainable concepts of energy consumption into certain part of existing Computer Science curriculum for English schools; investigate how to motivate 7-to-11 years old kids to learn these concepts; promote responsive ICT (Information and Communications Technology) use by these kids in their daily life; raise their awareness of today’s ecological challenges. Sustainability-related ICT lessons developed aim to provoke computational thinking and creativity to foster understanding of environmental impact of ICT and positive environmental impact of small changes in user energy consumption behaviour. The importance of including sustainability into the Computer Science curriculum is due to the fact that ICT is both a solution and one of the causes of current world ecological problems. This research follows Agile software development methodology. In order to achieve the aforementioned goals, sustainability requirements, curriculum requirements and technical requirements are firstly analysed. Secondly, the web-based user interface is designed. In parallel, a set of three online lessons (video, slideshow and game) is created for the website GreenICTKids.com taking into account several green design patterns. Finally, the evaluation phase involves the collection of adults’ and kids’ feedback on the following: user interface; contents; user interaction; impacts on the kids’ sustainability awareness and on the kids’ behaviour with technologies. In conclusion, a list of research outcomes is as follows: 92% of the adults learnt more about energy consumption; 80% of the kids are motivated to learn about energy consumption and found the website easy to use; 100% of the kids understood the contents and liked website’s visual aspect; 100% of the kids will try to apply in their daily life what they learnt through the online lessons.

Metodología ágil para equipos pequeños usando plataformas Microsoft

Con el objetivo de mejorar el rendimiento de los equipos de desarrollo de software se han definido muchas metodologías de desarrollo, entre las que se encuentran las prescriptivas y las ágiles. Pese a esto, los equipos no suelen emplear ninguna por no encontrarlas ajustadas a su contexto particular, y se van directamente a la tarea de programar. En este artículo se propone una metodología de desarrollo de software ligera y adaptada a un contexto preciso y bien definido, que alinea Microsoft Solutions Framework for Agile Software Development (MSF4ASD) con los lineamientos de gestión de proyectos presentados en la Guía del PMBOK. Además, se brindan elementos para la implementación de una plataforma Microsoft de desarrollo de software en equipo para soportarla.

Samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt : Vilka mänskliga faktorer påverkar samarbetets effektivitet?

Mänskliga faktorer som till exempel kommunikation och tillit påverkar hur människor interagerar med varandra. I agil systemutveckling ingår relationer, samspel och samarbete mellan människor och dessa påverkar om systemutvecklingsprojektet anses framgångsrikt eller ej. Men ofta i systemutvecklingsprojekt så läggs det mer tid på själva tekniken än de sociala aspekterna, där de mänskliga faktorerna i många fall är en avgörande faktor för projektets slutresultat. Syftet med det nuvarande arbetet är att beskriva vilka mänskliga faktorer som är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbete i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt, samt att beskriva hur agil systemutveckling på Trafikverket utförs. Trafikverket ville ha studien genomförd för att resultatet av studien skulle hjälpa till att minska antalet mindre framgångsrika systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket. Huvudfrågan i arbetet är: Vilka mänskliga faktorer är viktiga för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt? En fallstudie utfördes vid Trafikverket genom sju semistrukturerade intervjuer som följdes upp av enkäter och dokumentstudier. Det sammanlagda resultatet tyder på att för att effektivisera samarbetet mellan verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare i agila systemutvecklingsprojekt på Trafikverket krävs fokus på följande fem mänskliga faktorer: kommunikation, tillit, ledarskap, kunskap och motivation.

Towards optimal software engineering: learning from agile practice

In essence, optimal software engineering means creating the right product, through the right process, to the overall satisfaction of everyone involved. Adopting the agile approach to software development appears to have helped many companies make substantial progress towards that goal. The purpose of this paper is to clarify that contribution from comparative survey information gathered in 2010 and 2012. The surveys were undertaken in software development companies across Northern Ireland. The paper describes the design of the surveys and discusses optimality in relation to the results obtained. Both surveys aimed to achieve comprehensive coverage of a single region rather than rely on a voluntary sample. The main outcome from the work is a collection of insights into the nature and advantages of agile development, suggesting how further progress towards optimality might be achieved.

Agile approaches to software maintenance : an exploratory study of practitioner views

Whilst there has been some research into the application of agile approaches to the world of software maintenance, in this paper it is argued that there has not been a coherent investiga-tion that focuses on the collection and analysis of the views and perceptions of agile software maintenance approaches held by experienced software maintenance professionals. In this paper, we report such an exploratory investigation, which has seeded the development of a simple framework for classifying collected views and perceptions. Specifically, a matrix framework has been introduced, to facilitate comparison of the levels of understanding of the issues affecting an agile adoption decision, and the extent to which an agile approach has been implemented. Examples of organizations operating in all four cells of this matrix have been presented.

A critical realist examination of the inhibitors of double loop learning in an agile adoption

The original solution to the high failure rate of software development projects was the imposition of an engineering approach to software development, with processes aimed at providing a repeatable structure to maintain a consistency in the ‘production process’. Despite these attempts at addressing the crisis in software development, others have argued that the rigid processes of an engineering approach did not provide the solution. The Agile approach to software development strives to change how software is developed. It does this primarily by relying on empowered teams of developers who are trusted to manage the necessary tasks, and who accept that change is a necessary part of a development project. The use of, and interest in, Agile methods in software development projects has expanded greatly, yet this has been predominantly practitioner driven. There is a paucity of scientific research on Agile methods and how they are adopted and managed. This study aims at addressing this paucity by examining the adoption of Agile through a theoretical lens. The lens used in this research is that of double loop learning theory. The behaviours required in an Agile team are the same behaviours required in double loop learning; therefore, a transition to double loop learning is required for a successful Agile adoption. The theory of triple loop learning highlights that power factors (or power mechanisms in this research) can inhibit the attainment of double loop learning. This study identifies the negative behaviours - potential power mechanisms - that can inhibit the double loop learning inherent in an Agile adoption, to determine how the Agile processes and behaviours can create these power mechanisms, and how these power mechanisms impact on double loop learning and the Agile adoption. This is a critical realist study, which acknowledges that the real world is a complex one, hierarchically structured into layers. An a priori framework is created to represent these layers, which are categorised as: the Agile context, the power mechanisms, and double loop learning. The aim of the framework is to explain how the Agile processes and behaviours, through the teams of developers and project managers, can ultimately impact on the double loop learning behaviours required in an Agile adoption. Four case studies provide further refinement to the framework, with changes required due to observations which were often different to what existing literature would have predicted. The study concludes by explaining how the teams of developers, the individual developers, and the project managers, working with the Agile processes and required behaviours, can inhibit the double loop learning required in an Agile adoption. A solution is then proposed to mitigate these negative impacts. Additionally, two new research processes are introduced to add to the Information Systems research toolkit.