Hanna-Miina Sihvonen

Employees’ Motivation for SPI: Case Study in a Small Finnish Software Company

In small software companies the resources available for SPI are often limited. With limited resources, the motivation of the employees becomes one of the key factors for SPI. In this article, the motivational factors affecting a small company’s SPI efforts are discussed. In the research, we carried out interviews and a survey in a small Finnish software company considering the motivation towards SPI. The results are presented here and compared with earlier motivation research. There were differences revealed while comparing the motivating factors of smaller companies to those of larger ones. In large companies the focus seems to be on the business related motivators and in small ones the motivators related to comfortability of work are emphasized. Motivation survey and the interviews proved to be useful tools in planning the future SPI strategy. A lot of valuable information was discovered for planning and implementing the next steps of SPI.

LAPPI: A light‐weight technique to practical process modeling and improvement target identification

Understanding the current state of the software processes and their problem points is important. Without this understanding, software process improvement (SPI) resources may be allocated to less meaningful targets. SPI work can be challenging to initiate especially in small companies where resources and knowledge of SPI are often limited. The aim of the developed technique, LAPPI (A Light‐weight Technique to Practical Process Modeling and Improvement Target Identification), is to provide an easy to use, lightweight tool for process modeling and improvement target identification. The technique provides a suitable method that integrates with various SPI initiatives. The method used in the development of LAPPI is a nonformal variation of constructive research. LAPPI has been incrementally developed in multiple academia‐industry collaboration projects and by industry actors themselves. Our evaluation of the LAPPI technique in 42 studies conducted in 31 companies indicates that the technique is suitable for modeling the current process and identifying the points of improvement in the process. Practical experience shows that LAPPI provides a cost‐effective technique for process modeling and improvement target identification especially in small and medium‐sized enterprises. It is most useful in the diagnosing phase of SPI. It helps the company to understand the current processes and the organizational interactions, and to create a process description baseline. Copyright

SPI with lightweight software process modeling in a small software company

In small growing software companies, it is important to pay attention to software process improvement (SPI) in order to be successful and competitive in both domestic and foreign markets. However, limited resources and lack of knowledge about process culture may hinder the improvement efforts in small companies. In this paper, we present development activities done in a small growing software company in order to establish basis for SPI. Familiarizing to processes and SPI is done by modeling companys processes using a lightweight software process modeling technique. The modeling combined with external consulting provides the company with capability to visualize their processes and to identify the problems in the processes. The improvement activities have been triggered by pointing out the problems. In the presented case, the company has independently implemented quite significant improvements for identified problems by acquiring needed knowledge and by implementing new tools to support workflows.

Improving Release and Patch Management Processes: An Empirical Case Study on Process Challenges

An original source- and load-pull topology based on a passive technique is presented in this paper. The proposed system consists of passive tuners and loop structures. The use of a passive loop structure in cascade with a passive tuner allows for synthesis of reflection coefficients in the order of 0.97 magnitudes at the device under tests access plane. The measurement and characterization results of a 1W GaAs MESFET device show an improvement of 0.9 dB in the gain and 6% in the power-added efficiency when the proposed impedance synthesis techniques are used.Implementing release management and patch management processes effectively are challenges for both IT companies and IT customer organizations. Patch management is an essential sub process of release management within overall software maintenance. The research problem in this study is what types of challenges are related to release management and patch management processes and how the common pitfalls could be avoided. Data for the case study were collected from an information technology (IT) company and an IT department of IT customer organization, which apply IT Infrastructure Library framework (ITIL). The main contribution of the paper is to describe the real-world challenges regarding the release and patch management processes and present the lessons learned with proposed improvements.

Three case-studies on common software process problems in software company acquisitions

In this article three cases of small or medium sized software companies acquiring companies of the same or smaller size are analyzed from the software process point of view. The analysis shows that the problems in those acquisitions are fairly common and the types of those problems are fairly similar in different cases. Although those acquisitions have the potential to satisfy their goals of complementing or improving the product portfolio or the customer base of the companies, the actual success of the acquisitions may not be as good as expected. The main reasons for the relative unsuccessfulness of the analyzed cases seem to be the lack of proper planning for the merger and communication problems which hinder effective and high-quality work in the new post-acquisition organization.

How things should not be done: a real-world horror story of software engineering process improvement

In this article a real-world story of a 2.5 year period is told. The story is told mostly from the point of view of an individual software engineer with several organizational aspects included. The story illustrates some of the common problems encountered in software process improvement efforts. The story is instructive in the way that many of the strange things and problems encountered in it are something to be avoided. Both engineers and managers should note the problems, their reasons, and make sure that those problems will not be encountered in their own organizations.

Responsibility and decision making transfer in public safety and security emergencies - A case study of school shootings

The purpose of this study is to increase the knowledge of responsibility and decision making transfer in public safety and security emergencies. The vast amount of literature dealing with emergencies includes surprisingly little empirically grounded knowledge of responsibility and decision making transfer in emergency management. The article is based on the case study method in the context of school shootings. The contribution of this article relates to the following findings. Firstly, most of the decision making in an emergency examined is ad hoc and situation driven. Secondly, effective operation requires that the on-scene-commanders of different authorities and organizations share the same on-scene-command post or the same situational awareness -preferably as real time as possible. Thirdly, the first authority (or the first law enforcement patrol etc.) reaching the scene in a time-critical emergency, usually have a paramount role in developing and implementing a solution to the situation. Several management approaches are suggested related to these three findings in order to make responsibility and decision making transfer more efficient and effective in emergency management.

The Impact of Decision-Making on Information System Dependability

As information technology has spread into all kinds of systems, vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure have increased. Reasons for failing systems vary from the technical issues of new technology to the human aspects. Developing dependable complex and interconnected systems requires cooperation, rationality and analytical methods. Software development is mainly brainwork, and thus decision-making presumably has a great affect to software quality. In this research we studied types of information system failures and the state of decision-making in software industry. We found out that vulnerabilities in systems are partly caused by incompetent decision-making.