Rodolfo Martínez

Setting SPI practices in Latin America: an exploratory case study in the justice area

Little is understood about which factors affect a software process improvement (SPI) initiative in a governmental organization and how the organizations environment determines these factors. This lack of understanding can inhibit SPI initiatives in organizations that find themselves too small for formal SPI models or standards. The main objective of our project is to investigate whether the recommendations of a Latin American SPI model -- Competi Soft -- would be useful for a middle-ranged governmental organization. In this paper, we introduce a case study, where customer satisfaction is improved. Our preliminary experience indicates that customer satisfaction might be significantly increased by incorporating supporting processes.

Design and implementation of an electronic signature solution in the Justice Area

The real value of electronic signatures is not in their application to software products but in the level of security and trust they provide in a process. They should be able to provide identification of a sender and at the same time, they should be easy to use, and meet all legal and regulatory requirements as indicated by the legislation. It is obvious that electronic signatures offer a wide range of advantages to a government organization; however, their implementation needs to carefully consider what features are best suited to the specific needs of organizations. In this paper, we introduce a case study in the Justice Area where trust and better productivity were the important features to be supported. We draw some recommendations from the case study by addressing previous requirements, as well as social and managerial issues.

Improving Resource Management: Lessons from a Case Study in a Middle-Range Governmental Organization

AbstrAct In BLOCKINorganizational BLOCKINstudies, BLOCKINresource BLOCKINmanagement BLOCKINis BLOCKINthe BLOCKINefficient BLOCKINand BLOCKINeffective BLOCKINdeployment BLOCKINof BLOCKINan BLOCKINorga-nizations BLOCKINresources BLOCKINwhen BLOCKINthey BLOCKINare BLOCKINneeded. BLOCKINSuch BLOCKINresources BLOCKINmay BLOCKINinclude BLOCKINfinancial BLOCKINresources, BLOCKINinventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology. Usually small organizations have to carry out these activities themselves because they cannot yet afford part-or full-time help. However, they should always ensure that policies that conform to current regulations are applied. This is especially true for middle-ranged governmental organizations. In this chapter, we discuss a case study where resource management was addressed through recommendations of a process improvement model called MoProSoft. We illustrate the resource management procedure and we draw some lessons learned from the case study.