Mauro de Mesquita Spinola

Contribuição dos modelos de qualidade e maturidade na melhoria dos processos de software

Many software development companies have developed their own work method. Due to the fast software market growth, the competition focuses more on cost than on differentiation. To achieve competitive advantage, software developer organizations must continually update their technology, reach high level process maturity and eliminate all the operational inefficiency. These procedures involve people, processes and the whole organization. The aim of the paper is to discuss software process improvement implementation according to the most important quality and maturity models. Based on a Multiple Case Study, it is verified that the software process improvement needs firstly individual improvement and, later, it involves the developer teams and the whole organization. The research concludes that the quality and maturity models must be used as improvement process drivers.

Customizing the Technology Roadmapping Technique for Software Companies

Software importance keeps growing fast and consistently for many organizations. The growth of software functionality in manufactured products and the emergence of digital media, convergent spaces including digital content, software, and multi-channels to the market, are recent examples of organizational changes where software assumed a central position for the corporate strategy. This paper analyzes the alignment between strategic objectives and software development processes at software companies and proposes a methodology to ensure that development processes are aligned with the corporate capabilities required to exploit future market opportunities. The methodology includes the categorization of different software companies according to their core capabilities and the customization of the technology roadmapping technique for software companies. The research process included the realization of case studies and a survey

Software de balanced scorecard: proposta de um roteiro de implantação

Since 1992, when Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed the concepts of Balanced Scorecard (BSC), many companies that adopted these concepts and survived in a higher competitive environment charicterized of high number of mergers, purchases and shutdowns increased the volume of information in their database. So, in consequence of the adoption of BSC, there is the needed for implementing a computerized control system, due to the work with the BSC and the management of a great volume of information. In this context, when the companies decide to implement a BSC software, they faced two problems: how to choose the BSC software? How to implement the selected software? This study proposes to develop a guideline for the BSC software introduction based on a case study in a telecommunication company and the experience from the practice on implementing other systems.

Alignment between the business strategy and the software processes improvement: A roadmap for the implementation

The actions for the improvement of the software products and processes, for a better achievement of the organization business objectives, must be related to competitive market strategies. This paper describes the process of developing a roadmap for the support planning and implementation of the strategies of software companies. The roadmap allows to interpret of strategic objectives and to analyze the investments in software processes. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and the Practical Software Measurement (PSM) are the basis of roadmap proposed in this paper. Based on these grounds the roadmap basis was developed. This roadmap has been evaluated and improved through action research, developed in a specialized software company in financial segment. The implementation of the methodological stages resulted in the definition of strategic map and its development studied in the organization. The management requirements training has been prioritized as an action-plan to minimize the lack of scope definition identified in the process. The final outcome of this study is a roadmap which allows the implementation of strategic alignment of business and the improvement of processes in software companies. The proposed study showed that the investment in management requirements training leaded directly to the increase of the organization billing.

Uma proposta de processo de produção de aplicações Web

This paper analyzes typical aspects of Web based software production. A case study is carried out to identify how Web applications with high user interactivity and complex functionality must be produced. The results of the case study are confronted with literature’s identified aspects, resulting in a process model which shows the need of the integrated multidisciplinary development and intensive user participation. Finally, limitations of this model are discussed in relation to differents Web application domains.

Alinhamento entre estratégia de negócios e melhoria de processos de software: um roteiro de implementação

Abstract The actions of the software products and processes improvement, for a better attendance of the business objectives of an organization, must be associated to the competitive market strategies. This paper describes a roadmap that translates the strategic objectives of the software organizations in managed process pointers. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and the Practical Software Measurement (PSM) are the basis of the proposed roadmap. This study is based on the concepts a bibliographical research and the research-action application. The research-action strategy gives refinement to the roadmap, enables the participants to learn and improves the method application. The execution of the methodological stages resulted in the definition of the strategic map and its development in the studied software organization. The final result is a roadmap that allows the implementation of an alignment between the business strategy and the processes improvement in software companies. Keywords Service business strategy. Software processes improvement. BSC. PSM.

Adoção, seleção e implantação de um ERP livre

In the 1990s, ERP systems achieved widespread use, despite the lack of free ERP software. Interest in free software dates from the first developments in computing in the 1960s and 1970s until the present days. The problem of this research is determining how to adopt, select and deploy an ERP that is freely available. The contributions of this work begin with the proposition of a preliminary model of the ERP life cycle, considering no distinctions between a proprietary and a free ERP. This model was refined using the action research method in a field study focused on the adoption, selection and deployment of a free ERP in a Brazilian company. The main result of this paper is a final model with modifications to the adoption and selection process to use free and proprietary ERP’s; one deployment was found not to present process differences.

Production planning and control in small engineer-to-order companies: Understanding difficulties and pragmatic approach

Globalization and advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are changing the business and manufacturing processes. The new model for manufacturing systems, even for mass production industry, is demanding more flexibility and agility in manufacturing installations. Although ICT and Automation Technology (AT) provide most of these features, the manufacturing installation cannot dismiss physical hardware, which comprises machines, tools and special bespoke devices. In this context, tooling companies produce customized hardware in Engineer-to-Order (ETO) environment, for these mass production companies. While most of mass production companies have improved their efficiency to handle these market demands through ERP systems, tooling companies, characterized by the diversity of products and their small size, seem to find difficulties in adopting these systems, in particular to integrate the planning and control of the shop floor. This research aims to understand how tooling companies are dealing pragmatically with their Production Planning and Control (PPC) and understand their difficulties about the use of ERP systems for production planning. Expected contribution is to give an insight of how tooling companies are dealing with PPC, providing deeper understanding about the needs and difficulties in adapting the lighter ERP systems for PPC in typical ETO/SME companies.

An Analysis of the Advantages, Challenges and Obstacles of Cloud Computing Adoption to an Academic Control System

The evolution of cloud computing (CC) over the past few years is certainly one of the greatest advancements in the history of computing. However, for this technology to reach its potential there must be a clear understanding of the issues involved in its adoption. The purpose of this exploratory case study is to build an evaluation model that takes into account aspects such as the advantages, challenges and obstacles of adopting CC. To assess the feasibility and usefulness of such model, an Academic Control System (ACS) from an International School was analyzed. Such analysis enabled the development of recommendations, the provision of inputs and the suggestion of actions necessary to launch the ACS as a cloud service. The model revealed challenges regarding governance, human resources (HR) management, project management and organizational culture to deal with innovations and changes. Such challenges shall be taken into account in the cloud strategy. Also, security issues, business models, technical capacity, performance, service level agreements (SLA) are obstacles that organizations willing to provide such services must face. According to the model, the recommendations to overcome such challenges and obstacles include HR management good practices, risk management processes and well-defined decision making instances.

Software development strategic management: A resource-based view approach

Business strategies vary from market analysis to resource capability positioning. In this context, the Resource-Based View approach analyses organizations as a group of resources in order to continually enhance their business results. Software development is a knowledge-intensive activity, demanding specific human resources. So, software organizations would have to intensify their strategic forces in order to preserve and improve their capabilities. Aiming to verify how the relationship between resources and competitive advantage occurs, this paper presents the outcomes of a research that was applied at Brazilian software companies, repeating a similar study performed in Europe in 2004. The variables used in both researches are: (a) value of the resource to organization, (b) rarity to obtain it, (c) imitation by competitors and (d) substitution of resources. Results have been statistically evaluated using contingency tables and chi-square tests and they had shown the same tendency of the previous European study: value and rarity practically exercise the same influence over the competitiveness, while substitution and imitation act in an inverse way. However, this Brazilian research also verified that companies should have their own core competences to obtain competitive advantages and would transform them in the main and most visible competition elements: schedule, cost and quality.