Search

New and innovative approaches that support continuous development and planning throughout organisations are needed. Continuity is required in all levels of an organisation, from business strategy and planning to software development and operational deployment, as well as between these levels. Continuous planning is one of these activities. However, continuous planning is not commonly adopted and applied throughout organisations and currently involves only a certain level of planning, e.g., release planning. Based on the current literature, continuous planning is a relatively new and not yet fully studied field of research. To augment the knowledge relating to continuous planning, this paper presents a multiple-case study in which the various levels of planning, along with their timeframes, are explored. The research results point out the key activities, as well as the bottlenecks, of continuous planning.

New and innovative approaches that support continuous development and planning throughout organisations are needed. Continuity is required in all levels of an organisation, from business strategy and planning to software development and operational deployment, as well as between these levels. Continuous planning is one of these activities. However, continuous planning is not commonly adopted and applied throughout organisations and currently involves only a certain level of planning, e.g., release planning. Based on the current literature, continuous planning is a relatively new and not yet fully studied field of research. To augment the knowledge relating to continuous planning, this paper presents a multiple-case study in which the various levels of planning, along with their timeframes, are explored. The research results point out the key activities, as well as the bottlenecks, of continuous planning.

This extended abstract introduces an ongoing research which elaborates the concept of continuous strategy with an aim to better address the contemporary challenges of strategy process within the field of software development. Theoretically the research draws on the strategy process and practice -literature and on the literature of agile and lean software development when conceptualizing continuous strategy. Empirically the research examines the emerging challenges in software companies' strategy process when they are pursuing continuous practices in software development. The tentative analysis revealed that the practices that stem from the more traditional, structured strategy process are not compatible with the more "continuous planning"-oriented organisational practices. Thus, there seems to be pressure for developing more continuous strategy process and practices. Furthermore, in other organisational processes, especially in team level, the practices relating to continuity are more successfully applied, than in strategic level.

This extended abstract introduces an ongoing research which elaborates the concept of continuous strategy with an aim to better address the contemporary challenges of strategy process within the field of software development. Theoretically the research draws on the strategy process and practice -literature and on the literature of agile and lean software development when conceptualizing continuous strategy. Empirically the research examines the emerging challenges in software companies' strategy process when they are pursuing continuous practices in software development. The tentative analysis revealed that the practices that stem from the more traditional, structured strategy process are not compatible with the more "continuous planning"-oriented organisational practices. Thus, there seems to be pressure for developing more continuous strategy process and practices. Furthermore, in other organisational processes, especially in team level, the practices relating to continuity are more successfully applied, than in strategic level.

Process Management Systems (PMSs, aka Workflow Management Systems – WfMSs) are currently more and more used as a supporting tool to coordinate the enactment of processes. In real world scenarios, the environment may change in unexpected ways so as to prevent a process from being successfully carried out. In order to cope with these anomalous situations, a PMS should automatically adapt the process without completely replacing it. In this paper, we propose a technique, based on continuous planning, to automatically cope with unexpected changes, in order to modify only those parts of the process that need to be changed/adapted and keeping other parts stable. We also provide a running example that shows the practical applicability of the approach.