Peter Axel Nielsen

Managing risk in software process improvement: an action research approach

Many software organizations engage in software process improvement (SPI) initiatives to increase their capability to develop quality solutions at a competitive level. Such efforts, however, are complex and very demanding. A variety of risks makes it difficult to develop and implement new processes. We studied SPI in its organizational context through collaborative practice research (CPR), a particular form of action research. The CPR program involved close collaboration between practitioners and researchers over a three-year period to understand and improve SPI initiatives in four Danish software organizations. The problem of understanding and managing risks in SPI teams emerged in one of the participating organizations and led to this research. We draw upon insights from the literature on SPI and software risk management as well as practical lessons learned from managing SPI risks in the participating software organizations. Our research offers two contributions. First, we contribute to knowledge on SPI by proposing an approach to understand and manage risks in SPI teams. This risk management approach consists of a framework for understanding risk areas and risk resolution strategies within SPI and a related process for managing SPI risks. Second, we contribute to knowledge on risk management within the information systems and software engineering disciplines. We propose an approach to tailor risk management to specific contexts. This approach consists of a framework for understanding and choosing between different forms of risk management and a process to tailor risk management to specific contexts.

Competing values in software process improvement: an assumption analysis of CMM from an organizational culture perspective

The capability maturity model (CMM) approach to software process improvement is the most dominant paradigm of organizational change that software organizations implement. While some organizations have achieved various levels of success with the CMM, the vast majority have failed. In this paper, we investigate the assumptions about organizational culture embedded in the CMM models and we discuss their implications for software process improvement (SPI) initiatives. In this paper, we utilize the well-known competing values model to surface and analyze the assumptions underlying the CMM. Our analysis reveals contradictory sets of assumptions about organizational culture in the CMM approach. We believe that an understanding of these contradictions can help researchers address some of the difficulties that have been observed in implementing and institutionalizing SPI programs in organizations. Further, this research can help to open up a much-needed line of research that would examine the organization theory assumptions that underpin CMM. This type of research is important if CMM is to evolve as an effective organizational change paradigm for software organizations.

Understanding the implementation of software process improvement innovations in software organizations

Abstract.  The development of software is a complex task frequently resulting in unfinished projects, project overruns and system failures. Software process improvement (SPI) approaches have been promoted as a promising remedy for this situation. The organizational implementation of such approaches is a crucial issue and attempts to introduce SPI into software organizations often fail. This paper presents a framework to understand, and subsequently successfully perform, the implementation of SPI innovations in software organizations. The framework consists of three perspectives on innovation: an individualist, a structuralist and an interactive process perspective. Applied to SPI, they emphasize different aspects of implementing SPI innovations. While the first focuses on leadership, champions and change agents, the second focuses on organization size, departmental and task differentiation and complexity, and the third perspective views the contents of the innovation, the social context and process of the implementation as related in an interactive process. We demonstrate the frameworks applicability through two cases. We show that the three perspectives supplement each other and together provide a deeper understanding of the implementation process. Such understanding is crucial for the successful uptake of SPI approaches in software organizations.

Back to thinking mode: diaries for the management of information systems development projects

Abstract From a practical point of view, systems development methods are important sources of inspiration for the planning and establishment projects, but only to a limited extent do they support the reflections and actions of the participants. We propose the use of diaries as a supplement to conventional methods of reflection on what actually happens and what could happen during the course of a project, i.e., we propose diaries as a medium for the management of information systems development projects. This idea is based on an exploratory study carried out in co-operation with a bank and a research department, and the idea is supported by theoretical arguments from different fields. In conclusion, some practical advice on how to use diaries is given together with some questions for further investigation.

Four integration patterns: a socio‐technical approach to integration in IS development projects

This paper aims to contribute to a theory of integration within the field of information systems (IS) project management. Integration is a key IS project management issue when new systems are developed and implemented into an increasingly integrated information infrastructure in corporate and governmental organizations. Expanding the perspective of traditional project management research, we draw extensively on central insights from IS research. Building on socio‐technical IS research and software engineering research, we suggest four generic patterns of integration: big bang, stakeholder integration, technical integration and socio‐technical integration. We analyse and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each pattern. The four patterns are ideal types. To explore the forces and challenges in these patterns, three longitudinal case studies were conducted. In particular we investigate the management challenges for each pattern. We find that the patterns are context‐sensitive and describe the different contexts where the patterns are applicable. For IS project management, the four integration patterns are a contribution to the management of integration risks – extending the vocabulary for assessing and mitigating these risks in IS development. For practitioners the four integration patterns represent an analytical framework to be used in planning modern IS development projects.

Interaction and Transformation in SSM

The penetration of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) into information systems (IS) development is—despite several initiatives—rather limited as compared to how innovative and effective SSM has proven as an approach to organizational learning in general. This paper investigates the traditional soft systems concept as a key barrier that needs to be transcended to further develop SSM in the context of IS development.All kinds of human activities are in SSM viewed as transformations from one domain (the input) to another domain (the output). This perspective reflects classical flow-oriented information systems based on batch-processing technology while ignoring the highly interactive nature of contemporary information systems. The paper argues and illustrates that there is a need for a complementary type of soft system in IS development, it offers a specific proposal for how to include interaction systems in SSM, and it outlines the implications of doing so for soft systems thinking and practice. Copyright

Using Organizational Influence Processes to Overcome is Implementation Barriers: Lessons from a Longitudinal Case Study of SPI Implementation

A fundamental tenet of the information systems (IS) discipline holds that: (a) a lack of formal power and influence over the organization targeted for change, (b) weak support from top management, and (c) organizational memories of prior failures are barriers to implementation success. Our research, informed by organization influence, compellingly illustrates that such conditions do not necessarily doom a project to failure. In this paper, we present an analysis of how an IS implementation team designed and enacted a coordinated strategy of organizational influence to achieve implementation success despite these barriers. Our empirical analysis also found that technology implementation and change is largely an organizational influence process (OIP), and thus technical-rational approaches alone are inadequate for achieving success. Our findings offer managers important insights into how they can design and enact OIPs to effectively manage IS implementation. Further, we show how the theory of organizational influence can enhance understanding of IS implementation dynamics and advance the development of a theory of effective IS change agentry.

Implementing software process improvement: two cases of technology transfer

This paper addresses the issue of technology transfer in software development organizations. Common problems for the software industry are still software failures, project overruns, and unfinished projects. To remedy these, knowledge-intensive technologies like quality management and software process improvement (SPI) have been promoted. The organizational implementation of such approaches is an important and problematic matter. Here, two cases of implementing SPI are reported. A framework integrating theories of general innovation with theories on adoption of information technologies is used to present and interpret the cases. The framework consists of three perspectives: an individualist, a structuralist, and an interaction process perspective. The latter comprises the first two and emphasizes the content, context and process of implementation. The framework turned out to be well suited and provided a rich understanding of the interplay of the different elements influencing the implementation process in the two cases. As such, it might be a useful guide for future SPI implementation in organizations.

Mobile Systems Development: A Literature Review

This article reviews 105 representative contributions to the literature on mobile systems development. The contributions are categorized according to a simple conceptual framework. The framework comprises four perspectives: the requirements perspective, the technology perspective, the application perspective, and the business perspective. Our literature review shows that mobile systems development is overlooked in the current debate. From the review, we extend the traditional view on systems development to encompass mobile systems and, based on the identified perspectives, we propose core characteristics for mobile systems. We also extend the traditional focus found in systems development on processes in a development project to encompass the whole of the development company as well as interorganizational linkage between development companies. Finally, we point at research directions emerging from the review that are relevant to the field of mobile systems development.

Is Action Research and Its Criteria

There is little agreement on which criteria should be used in the design and evaluation of IS action research. Much action research is not at all explicit about the applied criteria. This chapter seeks to remedy this by eliciting from twenty odd years of action research six criteria. The epistemology of action research has traces back to pragmatism and with this as background the six criteria are presented and illustrated through a piece of recent action research. The contributions of the chapter are the six criteria, how to model these in their context of research activities and research contributions, and how to understand these criteria in a pragmatist view.