Anna Grimán

Critical success factors for a customer relationship management strategy

Most organizations have perceived the customer relationship management (CRM) concept as a technological solution for problems in individual areas, accompanied by a great deal of uncoordinated initiatives. Nevertheless, CRM must be conceived as a strategy, due to its human, technological, and processes implications, at the time an organization decides to implement it. On this basis, the main goal stated in this research is to propose, justify, and validate a model based on critical success factors (CSFs) that will constitute a guide for companies in the implementation and diagnosis of a CRM strategy. The model is conformed by a set of 13 CSFs with their 55 corresponding metrics, which will serve as a guide for organizations wishing to apply this type of strategy. These factors cover the three key aspects of every CRM strategy (human factor, processes, and technology); giving a global focus and propitiating success in the implementation of a CRM strategy. These CSFs - and their metrics - were evaluated by a group of internationally experts allowing determining guidelines for a CRM implementation as well as the probable causes of the deficiencies in past projects.

Developing search strategies for detecting relevant experiments

Our goal is to analyze the optimality of search strategies for use in systematic reviews of software engineering experiments. Studies retrieval is an important problem in any evidence-based discipline. This question has not been examined for evidence-based software engineering as yet. We have run several searches exercising different terms denoting experiments to evaluate their recall and precision. Based on our evaluation, we propose using a high recall strategy when there are plenty of resources or the results need to be exhaustive. For any other case, we propose optimal, or even acceptable, search strategies. As a secondary goal, we have analysed trends and weaknesses in terminology used in articles reporting software engineering experiments. We have found that it is impossible for a search strategy to retrieve 100% of the experiments of interest (as happens in other experimental disciplines), because of the shortage of reporting standards in the community.

Critical Success Factors for Managing Systems Integration

Abstract System integration is a complex technological task, and an infrastructure decision that seems right today might well be obsolete tomorrow. This article proposes a framework of critical success factors (CSFs) that can be used to manage IS integration projects, according to a firms current stage of IT integration maturity and other IS infrastructure characteristics. To demonstrate the potential utility of this CSF framework, the authors analyze case studies at two firms using 86 metrics for 20 CSFs developed by the authors.

Quality in Development Process for Software Factories According to ISO 15504

Currently the concept of Software Factories (SF), where reuse plays a leading role, is being adopted. Due to the different approaches in this area, and although SF concept is not new in Software Engineering, it is still not mature enough to clearly identify the treatment of certain variables within the process. One of these variables is Quality. Therefore, this paper presents a historical review of the SF concept, proposes an ontology based on the most recent definitions and establishes a relationship between these concepts and the ISO 15504 standard, with the purpose of specifying the systemic quality in software developer companies that decide to implement an SF strategy.

Feature analysis for architectural evaluation methods

Given the complexity of todays software systems, Software Architecture is a topic that has recently increased in significance. It is consider as a key element in the design and development of systems and has the ability to promote/punish some quality characteristics. Quality is related mainly to the non-functional requirements expected of the system. Using appropriate methods for Architectural Evaluation can help to reduce the risk of low quality Architecture. The objective of this research is to conduct a Features Analysis for three Architectural Evaluation Methods applied to a single case. This resulted in two significant contributions; the aspects which must be present in an architectural evaluation method which is translated in a set of 49 metrics, grouped into features and sub-features to enable the evaluation of a particular method. Different methods can be compared on the basis of these features; however, the choice of method will depend largely on the requirements of the evaluating team. The second contribution pinpoints the strengths of the methods evaluated. The methods studied were: Design and Use of Software Architectures, Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method, and Architectural Evaluation Method. The evaluation method employed for this research was Features Analysis Case Study.

Evaluation of environments for portals development: A case study

Abstract With the growing application of the Internet, business portal software is becoming increasingly complex given the wide variety of technologies it must integrate. It is therefore most important to have development environments that enable this type of software to be built efficiently. This justifies the need to evaluate the quality of business portal development environments. The objective of this article is to propose the definition of a quality model for business portal development environments, based on ISO/IEC 9126, with the appropriate metrics for estimating quality. the estimation model was evaluated through a case study using a commercial business portal development environment. the rational unified process (RUP) methodology was chosen to build a business portal prototype.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING A KMS: A CASE STUDY

This article describes the construction of a Knowledge Management System (KMS) by applying fundamental concepts and principles of Software Engineering, such as process, models, methodology, technology and architectures, among others. They are applied to the field of Knowledge Management as a means of improving the process of developing applications in this domain, in an endeavor to increase its effectiveness. This paper’s main contribution is a methodological approach progressing from knowledge processes to a set of appropriate systems. The use of modeling techniques and technologies that may prove helpful to the Software Engineer are suggested as part of this approach, while the technological, social and organizational aspects to be considered are highlighted. This proposal was evaluated through the development of a Knowledge Management System for a Venezuelan organization – a research center. The evaluation proved the effectiveness of the methodological aspects proposed. These may be of use as inputs for some Learning Software Organizations dedicated to the development of this type of system.

Ontology Proposal for Quality Oriented Reuse

Quality and productivity improvement are some advantages of reuse in the software development process. Although the reuse concept is not new, there is not a rigorous representation of related reuse concepts and quality. In this paper, we present a historical review of the reuse concepts, and ontology based on reuse definitions and its relation with quality assurance processes. This ontology is part of a research in progress that promotes reuse from the beginning of the software development process in a specific domain, focusing in quality criteria

Architectural Quality in Development Processes: A Case Study

Software quality is expressed through various attributes, many of them are architectural. So, an architecture-focused development process, with an integrated self-evaluation, must be selected. The purpose of this research is to present the incorporation of Architectural Tradeoff Analysis Method in the Rational Unified Process which emphasizes the definition of the software architecture through its 4+1 architectural views. The improved RUP was applied to a case study: a Knowledge Management System (KMS), and the most important quality attributes for it were selected during the elaboration phase (Maintainability, Reliability and Efficiency), candidates architectures were proposed and the most suitable architecture was gotten.

Simulation-based architectural evaluation for collaborative systems

Software quality can be expressed through various attributes, many of which depend on the architecture by nature. Therefore an architecture-focused development process, with an integrated self-evaluation, must be selected. Since there is no known process covering these attributes, a method capable of evaluating the architecture must be built into the development process. The purpose of this research is presenting the incorporation of Boschs (2000) architectural design method, formulated to a standard software development process, emphasizing on the definition of the software architecture through its quality attributes. The improved development process was applied to the knowledge management system (KMS) case study, in the domain of collaborative systems. The most important quality attributes for the KMS were selected, candidate architectures were proposed for it and the most suitable architecture selected using a simulation technique. A result of this research was the specification of the critical quality attributes for the collaborative systems domain.