Elaine Venson

Knowledge Transfer in a Management Process for Outsourced Agile Software Development

The outsourcing of IT services is a reality in the Brazilian Government administration. One of the critical aspects of outsourcing software development services is the transfer of knowledge. The purpose of this work was to define procedures for knowledge transfer in an outsourced software development process based on the Scrum framework. This is a descriptive research, in which elements for knowledge transfer were identified from a systematic review of the literature, eSCM practices, agile software development services contracts, and the Brazilian normative. The definition of procedures involved activities, tasks and artifacts, based on the SECI model and bibliographic and documentary research. The main contribution of this paper is showing how these knowledge transfer elements can be introduced in an outsourced agile development process, through the application of the SECI model.

Academy-industry collaboration and the effects of the involvement of undergraduate students in real world activities

As stated by the IEEE Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering, elements outside the classroom such as field trips, visits to industry and technical presentations can affect students preparation for professional practice. This work describes a framework of academy-industry collaboration where students develop practical and academic activities in a real world scenario. It is a methodological research, in which a case study was conducted with a Government Agency that has a close collaboration with a University. This joint project led to the proposition of new software processes for the organization and produced research and capstone project papers. Results demonstrate that students have acquired experience in solving real world problems in the industry; they received recognition in the academic community through the acceptance of papers in international conferences; and also, the projects executed with the students produced outcomes that brought benefits to the government agency, under study.

Technical Debt Management in the Brazilian Federal Administration

Technical Debt (TD) is a metaphor to refer to events that bring quality loss in the code. A large volume of Technical Debt in an application may bring losses for the organisation that keeps it. For those organisations that outsource software development, monitoring TD in the influx of development packages may be an efficient strategy to ensure the quality of the product acquired. This works bring an account on the search for a TD management model, to allow a given Brazilian Federal Administration body to inspect how much debt an application has, as acquired in an outsourced way.

Instrumento de Governança de TI para o Modelo de Desenvolvimento Descentralizado de Sistemas num Órgão Público Federal

O modelo de desenvolvimento descentralizado de sistemas (MDDS) tem se mostrado uma grande estrategica para as areas de Tecnologia da Informacao (TI) do servico publico federal brasileiro. Neste trabalho, apresenta-se o estudo de caso de um orgao publico, pioneiro na implantacao deste modelo. O MDDS tem proporcionado ao orgao um aumento significativo da capacidade de atendimento da TI, contudo, carece de indicadores de governanca de TI (GTI). O objetivo deste trabalho foi a criacao de indicadores para o MDDS alinhados a governanca. Foram realizadas reunioes em formato de grupo focal com as pessoas chave do processo a fim de captar suas percepcoes sobre o tema. Buscou-se, com o levantamento, descobrir quais as principais perguntas de GTI para as quais nao ha respostas objetivas. Como resultados, foram definidos nove indicadores, com enfoque em questoes de alinhamento estrategico, aderencia aos padroes, qualidade, disponibilidade, satisfacao geral e tempestividade. Como trabalho futuro preve-se a aplicacao dessas medicoes para avaliar a eficiencia do MDDS no Orgao. Full Paper PDF: http://www.contecsi.fea.usp.br/envio/11contecsi-files/papers/532/submission/director/532-2355-1-DR.pdf

TBL as an active learning-teaching methodology for software engineering courses

The software industry has requested professionals with skills for collaborative teamwork, data analysis and problem solving, increasing the challenge of undergraduate teachers in Software Engineering (SE). The adoption of active learning methodologies, such as Team Based Learning (TBL), has been one of the teaching strategies. This study presents an experience report from professors of an undergraduate program in Software Engineering of the University of Brasília (UnB), who have adopted TBL in SE courses. The TBL approach in subjects such as Requirements, Measurement and Analysis, and Software Verification and Validation, demonstrated increased student engagement. The adoption of TBL was under the framework of the IDEAL approach, in evolutionary cycles, which allowed to follow up and refine the process of adopting the methodology. The results from the perceptions of students and teachers are favorable to the continuity of the use of TBL and provide inputs for reflections on opportunities for improvement. It was detected a lack of tool support for some specific features of the TBL methodology, leading to the specification of a customized tool for the context and teaching environment. We expect that this experience in TBL sessions helps to facilitate and motive the adoption of the TBL methodology among SE teachers.

Inventorying Systems: An Action Research.

Maintainability, characterized by ease of understanding, is strongly related to the availability of correct and update information about the system and the ease of maintenance staff in understanding it. The Brazilian public administration has many legacy systems in maintenance whose documentation is non-existent or incomplete. The main purpose of this work was to identify the inventorying attributes that have to be recorded to support systems maintenance. The methodology applied was action research whose cycles allowed identifying the attributes required by each one of the stakeholders, civil servants and providers to inventory the systems, as well as how to register and access their attributes. As a result, the set of attributes produced by the interaction between researchers and stakeholders was considered essential to the infrastructure and systems areas, managers, and providers.

Knowledge Transfer in IT Service Provider Transition.

Although outsourcing Information Technology (IT) services brings benefits, it might cause loss of knowledge and dependency of the contractor in relation to the service providers. When a transition occurs between providers, knowledge sharing is essential for the contractor and to the new contracted. This paper presents the proposal, execution and evaluation of a knowledge transfer process to the transition phase of a contract. A case study was conducted in a Brazilian Federal Government Organization during a contractual transition. Data collected from two projects allowed the evaluation of the proposed process. It was observed that the training activities performed, and the granting of access to process information and to the services to be transferred were essential to an effective knowledge transfer. Although this work is a study of a single case, it was observed that the process could be generalized to service provider transitions involving contracting organizations of IT services.

Storytelling on the implementation of a Decentralized Model for Software Development in a Brazilian Government Body

The ability to learn is one of the great challenges faced by organizations. The choice of data and information elements in a process of learning is vital for the process that will build the communication and formation of knowledge. The purpose of the article was to write a learning history about the creation and implementation of a Decentralized Model of Software Development and the incorporation of derived tools of this model in the portfolio solutions of a public organization, in order to increase the level of maturity of IT governance. A case study was used as a research method with mixed techniques, such as bibliographic review, documentary review, interviews, application of questionnaires, and participant observation. A story was written from the account of a group of people involved in the implementation of a Decentralized Development Model at the TCU. As results from project implementation it was possible to observe: an increase in the rate of satisfaction of IT clients with the attention given to their demands; an increase in the response capacity of the IT area; a standardization of the development environment for departmental applications; a reduction of costs for application development; and an increase in security of storage of business information. Also, the production of the story allowed the recording and dissemination, both internally and externally, of the organizational experience, promoting organizational learning.

Transferência de Conhecimento em Projetos de Desenvolvimento de Software no Contexto de Contratação

O conhecimento tem sido considerado o principal ativo das organizacoes inovadoras. Contudo, poucos estudos tem sido conduzidos com relacao a transferencia de conhecimento no desenvolvimento de sistemas em ambiente de contratacoes (terceirizacao), principalmente em relacao aos conceitos-chave que interferem nesse processo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar e organizar em conceitos-chave os elementos que influenciam a transferencia de conhecimento em processos de desenvolvimento de software no contexto de contratacoes. Realizou-se uma revisao sistematica de literatura, aplicando a estrategia de busca Quasi-Gold . Foram identificados os elementos de influencia na transferencia de conhecimento e sua derivacao em conceitos-chave, em: a natureza do conhecimento; a relacao entre cliente e fornecedor; os aspectos humanos; os modelos e frameworks aplicaveis; e ferramentas de apoio. Conclui-se que ha baixo volume de trabalhos no tema e que transferir conhecimento nao e algo deterministico, visto que esta associado a crencas e valores pessoais, variando de pessoa para pessoa e em suas capacidades e competencias.