Search

The demand for success in agile projects requires serious attention in addressing its issues and challenges, besides merely implementing suitable agile methods. A comprehensive number of factors have been discussed in the literature, but it does not reflect the crucial challenges confronted by the Information Technology industry. This study utilises a Grounded Theory approach, to capture 38 unique issues and challenges faced by 42 participating industry practitioners, through several rounds of interviews. The issues and challenges, simplified as factors, were grouped into Organisation, People, Process and Technical categories. The proposed mitigation methods were also captured, and mapped into a framework, to be used as a guide to manage agile-hybrid projects. Most factors were related to the process and people categories. Key issues were in the areas of executive support, misalignment of agile methods with the business objectives, deficient understanding of agile principles, lack of teamwork and inadequate skillset of the project stakeholders.

There is no software without systems engineering. Software is always part of a bigger system. Even a simple application interacting with a human user consists of software building blocks, a service delivery, various hardware systems, user experience, energy management, connectivity and many more. Systems engineering or "systems thinking," as it is often called, ensures that products deliver more value than the capabilities of their individual parts. Such value beyond the individual components is what we call a system, or even a system of systems. A system is a set of interacting elements that together achieve a purpose.

The aim of this article is to analyze the challenges and success factors on organizations’ path to agile transformation, as frequently discussed in the literature and encountered in business practice. The research conducted proved that large-scale agile transformations require a dedicated approach with set of tools and best practices in place. The implementation challenges and barriers have been categorized into method-, organization-, culture- and technology-oriented groups. As a result of an in-depth analysis carried on for the purpose of this paper, a dedicated methodology of agile transformation has been proposed to ease the implementation process.

Highly volatile requirements of mobile applications require adaptive software development methods. Several attempts to address challenges in mobile software engineering have found agile methodology to be appropriate for mobile application development. This project report provides a detailed analysis on various challenges involved in mobile software development which are addressed using Agile-SCRUM methodologies. An efficient mobile software development concept derived from Agile-Scrum methodology is designed in this project. A light-weight Android application for secure and incremental backup has been developed using the proposed methodology. An in-depth illustration of the practical experience in developing the application has been discussed. Unlike other prominent languages like Java, the use of Python for Android platform has emerged recently. Hence developing the secure-backup application in Python was a challenge, which has been dealt in this report. We believe our proposed methodology has a potential to help developers deliver improved quality of mobile applications in short time. Keywords: agile, scrum, mobile software engineering, mobile application, android, python, sl4a

As a global pandemic, COVID‐19 impacts work‐related processes, placing strain upon many employees in project teams. Identifying process variables and potential organizational resources can play an important role in addressing employee mental health, both for the current pandemic and future crises. Based on an extension of the job demands–resources model, this paper introduces COVID‐19 demands as distal job demands, examining their influence on emotional exhaustion through proximal unfinished tasks. Furthermore, we suggest that agile project management acts as a buffering job resource in this relationship. In two studies, we drew samples from Germany (N = 168) and the USA (N = 292). Across studies, COVID‐19 demands had an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion, mediated by unfinished tasks. Furthermore, agile project management acts as a buffering job resource for individuals in Germany, attenuating the relationship between COVID‐19 demands, unfinished tasks and subsequent feelings of emotional exhaustion. In contrast, findings from Study 2 revealed that COVID‐19 demands were more strongly related to unfinished tasks and subsequent feelings of emotional exhaustion in the USA when individuals reported higher levels of agile project management. Taken together, our results indicate that project work under COVID‐19 fosters feelings of emotional exhaustion through the accumulation of unfinished tasks.

Managers’ attempts to implement their organization’s strategy often meet with challenges that block the execution as planned and these blockages are not always obvious. This paper presents seven lessons from agile software development that managers can use to avoid and overcome blockages in strategy execution. They are: 1) Define and communicate an agile culture. 2) Define and communicate an end goal with measures and deadlines. 3) Break the end goal into multiple projects with specific objectives and short deadlines and assign them to small teams. 4) Give project teams autonomy, but hold them responsible for achieving their objectives on time. 5) Hold frequent brief meetings to identify problems and coordinate across teams. 6) Frequently consult with the customer or end user. 7) Constantly monitor all teams’ progress and customer needs to look for blockages; pivot quickly when a change is needed to execute the strategic plan. These seven lessons help managers quickly recognize when the path to strategy implementation is blocked and lead their teams to find alternatives and quickly pivot to new implementation plans. The process creates a culture that focuses on results yet empowers teams and employees to use their talents and creativity. As a result, the organization is focused and energized as it implements its strategy.

In this work, we developed a digital communication and social interaction platform for the Civil Society Organization named Engineers Without Borders - Belo Horizonte Center. The organization provides social support in Belo Horizonte and in its surrounding metropolitan area. Since its foundation, it has worked on more than 50 projects, directly benefiting more than 3,500 people. The platform consists of a responsive website and an application for mobile devices. The objective of developing the website was to disseminate institutional information, promote volunteering and enable acceptance of financial donations. On the other hand, the objective of developing the mobile device application was to create a network connecting third sector entities and needy communities. Thus, the mobile device application promotes interaction between service providers and underprivileged population. We conducted the work based on the Scrum methodology for agile development. The justification of our work was the expansion of the organizational presence in the digital environment. Besides, the relevance of our work for the organization and society was the strengthening of institutional communication, improvement of the donation acceptance process, and creation of a solidarity network connecting Civil Society Organizations, communities and citizens in situation of social vulnerability. Thus, our work joined other efforts to combat social inequalities in the region. The result was a platform that follows principles for improving usability and user experience, expanding the organization's capacity for action. The platform helped to promote social and professional development of citizens in the areas assisted by the institution.

This research focused on the development of a cyber-physical robotic platform to assist speech-language pathologists who are related to articulation disorders in education environments. The first goal was the design and development of the system. The second goal was the qualitative initial validation of the platform with robotics and mobile device functionalities drawing on the participation of real patients and speech-language pathologists (SLP). The research method is based on qualitative data. The first phase was the application of engineering requirements and agile techniques to build the robotic system. The second phase was to execute test sessions of the robotic platform with speech-language pathologists supervision and analyzing the experience of real male and female patients collecting data by in-depth interviews and video recordings at Heredia Special Education Center in Costa Rica. The practical approach of the cyber-physical platform has preliminarily support. Testing with SLPs and 3 other older individuals suggests that it may become a useful tool to assist professionals in the treatment of some types of articulation disorders. The time savings and data collection possibilities should be included in future investigations of efficacy.

WhatsApp is currently one of the most widely used communication mediums among students in tertiary education in the form of both personal messages and group messaging chats. Currently, the practice in most Malaysian Universities is that students need to consult the faculty staff or search through the faculty’s website to obtain information related to their academic studies. However, the process of obtaining needed information can take some time ranging from minutes to hours and at times are not consistent as the queries are answered by different staff members. There are WhatsApp chat groups for students to interact with faculty staff, but the chat group can be overwhelmed by questions due to the huge number of group members hence causing important messages to be overlooked. In an attempt to overcome these challenges, we developed a FCSIT (Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology) WhatsApp chatbot to solve these problems by offering a centralized platform of communication for both faculty staff and students to carry out information sharing through WhatsApp messages. Communication is in the form of personalized messages between the chatbot and the user thus solving the problem of overwhelming messages posed by group chats. Agile Kanban methodology was used to develop the system which promotes the use of a Kanban board to visualize the development stages. A questionnaire was distributed to lecturers, faculty staff and students to test the system and to gather opinions and suggestions from targeted users, which is the FCSIT community, in order to assess whether the system fulfils its objectives.

According to the statistics, the majority of IT projects run 50–150 percent over budget, which indicates the importance of managing its cost. In agile methodologies which are widely used in software development, little attention is given to cost management. Lack of specialized cost management tools in agile practices raises the question of the feasibility of adapting traditional project management methods and techniques. The purpose of the research is to improve the quality of IT projects cost control processes by developing a project cost management model using the Agile Earned Value Management method. The paper discusses the EVM techniques which have been adopted to provide the benefits of traditional EVM in Agile projects. There are some misconceptions that EVM techniques are too difficult to perform effectively on projects implemented using agile approaches (i.e. Scrum framework). The challenges are primarily associated with the fact that the EVM method requires creating a complete description of project tasks and a detailed schedule of their execution at the initial stage allowing accurate estimates of the actual data and monitoring the project progress from start to completion. On the other hand, Scrum emphasizes the need for incremental, multi-level planning and discourages planning software projects down to the lowest level of decomposition in the early stages. The reason for this is the high degree of ambiguity inherent in complex software systems, and the high probability of changes that make fully defining the requirements up front nearly impossible. However, upon closer examination of Sprint attributes, such as fixed duration, fixed backlog, cost measurement of sprint tasks, the ultimate goal of delivering a minimum viable product – leads us to the conclusion that Sprint can be considered as a subproject to which the mechanism of the EVM method can be applied using the same metrics. The paper further summarizes the main provisions and guidelines of the AgileEVM method, based on which its process model is developed. The inputs of the model are initial release baseline parameters and data captured at the completion of each Sprint: Planned Sprints (PS); Planned Release Points (PRP); Budget at Complete (BAC); Points Completed (PC), Points Added (PA), and Sprint Cost (SC). The controls are the AgileEVM method guidelines. The mechanisms are project manager and necessary software (MS Excel, MS Project). At the output of the model we obtain forecast indicators: Estimate to Complete (ETC), Estimate at Complete (EAC), Number of Total Sprints (N), and Release Date (RD). The final conclusion of the conducted research is that the application of the Earned Value Management method to projects implemented with Scrum enables the project manager and the project team with a valuable tool to monitor the progress of their work and to take appropriate measures.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is agile attitude control design with the novel three-dimensional (3D) magnetically suspended wheel (MSW) that is the preferred type for agile maneuvering compared to conventional control moment gyro due to frictionless, low vibration and long lifetime. This system does not require a separate steering law for pyramid arrangement to derive tilt angles. It is also conducting an agile maneuver with high accuracy despite the high-frequency disturbances. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, a disturbance observer-based attitude stabilization method is proposed for an agile satellite with a pyramid cluster of the novel 3D magnetically suspended wheel actuator. This strategy includes a disturbance observer and a linear quadratic regulator controller. The rotor shaft deflection of MSW is actively controlled to reduce vibration and producing gyro torque. The deflection angle of the pyramid cluster MSWs considered as control parameters. The closed-loop stability is proved by using the Lyapunov strategy. The efficiency and performance of the offered method verified by numerical simulation via MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Findings According to simulation results, the disturbance observer-based control controller stabilized the system with high accuracy and optimal tilt angles without any extra steering law equation. Hence, the system speed is increased, and the system error is minimized without separate steering law. Practical implications The magnetically suspended wheel is a new kind of inertia actuator for attitude control that has several benefits such as frictionless, high-speed rotor, clean environment and low vibration compared to the traditional wheel. It has complex nonlinear dynamics that cause have complicated controller design. The proposed strategy stabilizes the system and conducting an agile maneuver with high precision despite the high-frequency disturbances. It is applicable for some missions requiring high accuracies, like Earth observation and the solar observation mission that require a very accurate pointing control and a long lifetime. Originality/value This paper is the initial paper to design a pyramid array for magnetically suspended wheels. Compared to other research, this method doesn’t need a separate steering law of the MSWs cluster and presented optimal tilt angles with less computational. Also, it designs a disturbance observer-based controller for this system that proposed high accuracy and agile stabilization.

Radical and global changes in the world and also the fast development of knowledge economy era (Drucker, 1990) affected and forced all profit and non-profit organizations to be radically adaptive to the changes. Pfizer Inc, as one of the biggest pharmaceutical corporation in the world, also aware the needs to be adaptive in the radical change. Led be new CEO, Mr. Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer keeps on enhancing and improving itself by conducting Pfizer transformation since early 2006. For Pfizer People, transformation is not a short cut process of reduction costs and restructurization, but transformation are mainly focused to develop healthier and better environment in the world as stated in Pfizer new motto in 2016: “Working for Healthier WorldTM” In finance division PT Pfizer Indonesia, the improvement and enhancement process are led by conducting Finance Survey in 2006. The survey becomes the basic evaluation and the key indicator as Finance Performance. From some theories on human capital compiled with other theories, references and understanding on knowledge management, change management, culture management, learning organization and agile leadership, I summarize the new concept of agile knowledge worker. I strongly support that the limitation of this new concept can be the new thoughts and ideas of the human capital and knowledge management development and implementation

Technology roadmapping has become an important foresight tool for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy and technology strategy development. There are, however, challenges in translating evidence from foresight into the strategies of STI agencies and the planning of research & technology development (RTD) organizations. While the foresight evaluation literature identifies methodological issues related to evidence granularity, scope, and stakeholder confidence, there is limited guidance on how to ensure roadmapping outputs are strategically relevant, appropriately detailed, and credible. This paper highlights the potential of using structured visual roadmapping frameworks to anticipate potential strategic foresight evidence failures and using the adaptive and iterative nature of roadmapping processes to address them. In this paper, we distinguish between: the roadmapping framework ‘canvas’; the foresight evidence captured on the canvas; the process of generating the evidence; and any final strategic plan developed using that evidence (with goals, milestones, actions, etc). We investigate efforts to use the roadmapping canvas as a research tool and diagnostic to explore emerging technology trajectories and innovation ‘pathways’. We demonstrate that key patterns of evidence distribution on the roadmapping canvas have the potential to reveal where further evidence may need to be gathered, or where further triangulation of stakeholder perspectives may be required. We argue that by adaptively addressing these patterns at key stages within the roadmapping process (and appropriately re-scoping, re-prioritizing, and re-focusing foresight effort and resources), the granularity, coverage, and consensus of the roadmapping evidence can be greatly enhanced. We conclude the paper by summarizing a set of novel principles for adaptive agile roadmapping, reflecting on the implications for foresight more generally, and outlining a future research agenda to test and refine this approach to agile foresight.

Air pollution has been on the rise and poses a severe problem that needs the public’s attention and action. There is an urgency to raise awareness about air pollution among the people. Computer games can be used as a medium to raise awareness about topics of interest, such as air pollution. We have conducted an online preliminary survey among public members through random sampling to study their awareness level on air pollution and general opinion about a computer game. From the survey, we have found that the public has inaccurate knowledge about air pollution, and some of them were not aware that they have directly contributed to air pollution as well. The survey has also revealed that there is a need for role-playing game (RPG) educative games for the public. Thus, an edutainment RPG computer game entitled “AirXorcist” was developed using the Agile methodology to raise awareness about air pollution. We have also employed a story-telling method in the game to educate players about air pollution. Two tests, namely pre-game and post-game tests, were conducted to determine whether the game can raise public awareness about air pollution. From the analysis, we obtained the t-test statistics = -7.072 and p-value = -0.000002. The result shows sufficient evidence to suggest that the AirXorcist game has successfully helped relay information and raise public awareness about air pollution.

The role of software architecture in large-scale Agile development is important because several teams need to work together to release a single software product while helping to maximise teams’ autonomy. Governing and aligning Agile architecture across autonomous squads (i.e., teams), when using the Spotify model, is a challenge because the Spotify model lacks practices for addressing Agile architecture governance. To explore how software architecture can be governed and aligned by scaling the Spotify model, we conducted a longitudinal embedded case study in a multinational FinTech organisation. Then, we developed and evaluated an approach for architectural governance by conducting an embedded case study. The collected data was analysed using Thematic Analysis and informed by selected Grounded Theory techniques such as memoing, open coding, constant comparison, and sorting. Our approach for architectural governance comprises an organisational structure change and an architecture change management process. The benefits reported by the practitioners include devolving architectural decision-making to the operational level (i.e., Architecture Owners), enhancing architectural knowledge sharing among squads, minimising wasted effort in architectural refactoring, and other benefits. The practitioners in our case study realised an improved squad autonomy by the ability to govern and align architectural decisions. We provide two key contributions in this paper. First, we present the characteristics of our proposed architectural governance approach, its evaluation, benefits, and challenges. Second, we present how the novel Heterogeneous Tailoring model was enhanced to accommodate our architectural governance approach.

The COVID-19 pandemic required an agile and quick transformation of services in university libraries in the wake of government health directives. As an evidence-based library, engaging in the colle...

Purpose The COVID-19 outbreak has imposed extensive shocks embracing all stages of the food supply chain (FSC). Although the magnitude is still unfolding, the FSC responds with remarkable speed, to mitigate the disruptive consequences and sustain operations. This paper aims to investigate how operationalising supply chain agility (SCA) practices has occurred amid the COVID-19 crisis and expectations for how those practices could transform the supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Design/methodology/approach Following an exploratory case-based design, this paper examines the various agile responses that three supply chains (meat, fresh vegetables and bread) adopted and elaborate using the dynamic capability (DC) theoretical lens. Findings First, the findings demonstrate how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, each affected case pursued various agile responses through sensing and seizing capabilities. Sensing includes identifying and assessing the relevant opportunities and threats associated with the specific supply chain context. Seizing involves acquiring, combining and modifying the tangible and intangible resources at the firm and supply chain levels. Second, supply chain transformation is likely if firms and their supply chain develop the sustaining capability to ensure that the desirable changes outlast the crisis. Practical implications This study provides an actionable guide for practitioners to develop agile responses to systemic changes in times of crisis and to sustain favourable changes so as to enable their outlasting of the crisis. Originality/value This study provides a novel and unique perspective on the role of SCA in crisis – in this case, the pandemic. This paper synthesises the empirical stories of the agile responses in the FSC and elaborates on the DC framework, to identify theoretical and practical implications. This paper establishes the sustaining capability as the missing DC capability for enabling transformation in the post-COVID-19 era.

Frequency agile radar (FAR) systems have been demonstrated to have outstanding performance in electronic counter‐countermeasures (ECCM). With increased bandwidth in which FAR can switch carrier frequency, the phase errorswill appear at the corresponding frequency point, resulting in the decrease of coherence of the system. To accomplish phase error correction and range and velocity information extraction of the target simultaneously, a joint phase error estimation and sparse scene restoration algorithm based on sparse recovery (JPSA‐SR) is proposed here. To further reduce the computational complexity of the algorithm, a joint phase error estimation and sparse scene restoration algorithm based on alternating direction method of multipliers (JPSA‐ADMM) is also proposed. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

The topicality. The escalation of the pandemic and the oscillating lockdown create depressive moods in the restaurant business: owners balance on the verge of choosing between survival and violation of quarantine conditions, staff are forced to change professions. The realities of further uncertainty require the transformation of the restaurant’s business environment and strengthening the competencies of staff suitable for crisis management. The strategic framework requires effective tactical sessions given the specifics of working in a lockdown: restaurant business adjusts service formats and continues effective communication through distribution systems, distancing services, organizing targeted delivery to customers and sales of restaurant products. Customer-oriented management thus acquires new meaning and flexible forms, where mentoring becomes a flagship in a disoriented economic environment. Therefore, the introduction of mentoring, which is correlated with Agile-management technologies, is an important component of the strategy of restaurant business development and a relevant object of study. Purpose and methods. The purpose of the study is a theoretical analysis of mentoring and the formation of its reference model, which determines the areas of restaurant management improvement in pandemic risks. The inter paradigmatic nature of the research objects determines the use of a set of general scientific methods, such as theoretical analysis and synthesis, modeling, elimination, which provided a thorough consideration of the components of mentoring and Agile-management of business processes in the restaurant, their modeling into a single system of anti-crisis lockdown. Results. An empirical analysis of the definitions of “mentoring” and “Agile” has been made. A reference model of mentoring has been formed and its main components have been investigated. The basic provisions of Agile-control in a restaurant in the conditions of oscillating lockdown have been developed. Recommendations for compiling mentoring and Agile management into an effective model of restaurant tactical development have been developed. Conclusions and discussions. The study showed that the actualization of mentoring and flexible management methods is an urgent scientific task, as it allows studying and scientifically substantiating the recommendation complex for their implementation in the practice of business entities. Further research needs to be deepened to assess the mentoring effectiveness and Agile-management in restaurants in the post-harvest period.

PurposeDespite the trend, managing and maximizing the effectiveness of blended workforce is not well-understood. The purpose of this paper is to institutionalize a blended workforce model in the post-COVID era, that is, a movement from homogenous workforce to heterogenous workforce of full-time employees working in tandem with gig talents connected via digital platforms.Design/methodology/approachThe evolution of gig economy is presented for contextualizing the development of prospective business models in the post-COVID era to establish clarity on the relationship between the employers and the blended workforce. To achieve this conceptual switch, a framework is proposed to support this type of workforce for creating a fair balance.FindingsBy drawing on the concepts of various talent management functions, propositions were made predicting that the alignment of the multilateral activities of the gig workers with permanent workforce will be leveraged in the future to address the needs of short-term specialized skill-sets and scalable operations while creating a fair balance through a flexible and agile workforce.Originality/valueFirst, the paper explores how bridging the gap between the traditional and gig workforce can impact the key antecedents of a blended workforce ensuring a fair trial. Second, on an economical level, the COOKIE framework proposed in the paper is expected to play a crucial role in creating new job opportunities, boosting employee morale while minimizing costs and increasing productivity of the organizations.

The aim of the article is to study the features of the development of cluster systems for the construction of transport vessels and develop on this basis recommendations for the use of agile methodology in the mechanisms of effective management in cluster integrations. The characteristic features of a project-oriented operating system with a matrix organizational structure have been determined. The principles of the agile methodology have been adapted to the management mechanisms of the shipbuilding cluster system. The examples of the use of agile approaches that complement and strengthen the existing matrix management structure in the shipbuilding cluster system are given. The agile approaches are implemented through: maintaining stable links in the supply chain at all stages of the life cycle of the cluster; focusing the cluster system as a whole on customer needs; creation of cross-functional teams for support and development of human resources; creation of a logistics center in accordance with the agile methodology, which is implemented through short feedback cycles and regular adaptation of supply processes; lean production ‒ from design to production at all stages. It is proposed to develop a corporate information system in business processes and supply chains of the shipbuilding cluster. Information flows connect cluster members, functions, supply chain management tasks, as well as different levels of management decision-making. Team cooperation between representatives of project organizations and the project management office of shipbuilding enterprises will ensure the development of the information system as a whole, as well as the integrity and consistency of individual elements. This confirms that the agile methodology provides flexibility in management and operational adaptation to changes in order to achieve the main goal ‒ the competitiveness of cluster integration and its elements.

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is recognised as one of the most commonly applied methods in the multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) literature. In the AHP, encompassing uncertainty feature necessitates using suitable uncertainty theories, since dealing efficiently with uncertainty in subjective judgements is of great importance in real-world decision-making problems. The neutrosophic set (NS) theory and grey systems are two reliable uncertainty theories which can bring considerable benefits to uncertain decision-making. The aim of this study is to improve uncertain decision-making by incorporating advantages of the NS and grey systems theories with the AHP in investigating sustainability through agility readiness evaluation in large manufacturing plants. This study pioneers a combined neutrosophic-grey AHP (NG-AHP) method for uncertain decision-making modelling. The applicability of the hybrid NG-AHP method is shown in an illustrative real-case study for agility evaluations in the Iranian steel industry. The computational results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method in adequately capturing uncertainty in the subjective judgements of decision makers. In addition, the results verify the significance of the research in group decision-making under uncertainty. The practical outcome reveals that, to become a more sustainable agile steel producer in the case country, they should first focus on the “organisation management agility” as the most significant criterion in the assessment followed by “manufacturing process agility,” “product design agility,” “integration of information system,” and “partnership formation capability,” respectively.

Purpose This paper aims to represent an exploration of drivers of workforce agility under the lens of dynamic capabilities to advance the existing workforce literature on agility and strategic human resource management. Design/methodology/approach In-depth qualitative interviews with senior information technology professionals, managers, directors and leadership were conducted. Data coding and analysis followed the Gioia methodology to develop a theoretical framework. Findings The theoretical paradigm of workforce agility is seeing revisions. In the past it was solely connected to resource-based view theory, current literature superficially speaks of the link with dynamic capability but lacks comprehensive and strategic understanding. The research brings in the evolutionary change by viewing workforce agility directly under the lens of dynamic capability theory and recognizes workforce agility as a high-level strategy. Based on the analysis of the qualitative interviews this study has developed a conceptual heuristic of workforce agility drivers, interlinked with dynamic capabilities micro-foundations – “sensing”, “seizing”, and “continual renewal”. This paper conceptualizes workforce agility as a response to high pressures for the dynamic capability of the company, which requires reconfiguration and redeployment of external and internal human resources and an inherent need to bring some stability to the internal resources of the company. Originality/value There is a growing body of literature linking organizational agility with dynamic capabilities, which overlooks workforce agility. This study is theory-based research on workforce agility, which guides practitioners in making human resource processes more agile.

Although extensive research has been conducted on the characteristics of the agile developer, little attention has been given to the features of the software-testing role. This paper explores the human factors of the software testers working in agile projects through a qualitative study focusing on how these factors are perceived. We interviewed 22 agile software practitioners working in three international companies: 14 testers, five developers, and three designers. Additionally, we observed 11 meetings and daily work of 13 participants in one of the companies. Our findings show that the views on the human factors shaping the agile software tester’s role were crystallized into seven traits, which the agile team members saw as central for the software-testing role: the ability to see the whole picture, good communication skills, detail-orientation, structuredness, creativeness, curiosity, and adaptability. The testers spent half their day communicating and learned how to mitigate the fact that they had to bring bad news to other project members. They also facilitated communication between the business side and development. Based on our results, we propose the seven traits as dimensions to consider for organizations recruiting agile software testers, as well as a reference for IT and non-IT professionals considering a software-testing career.

Care systems worldwide regularly undergo reforms and adjustments in the hope of system improvements. In many ways this can align with calls for governments to be more 'adaptive' and 'agile' to changing care demands. However, such continued adaptations can create turbulence for the care sectors in question. In this article, we examine the large-scale reform of the Australia National Disability Insurance Scheme and the impact of a series of adaptations on the disability care sector in Australia. We find that the disability sector in Australia is experiencing turbulence and a lack of clarity about the rules regarding the programme, resulting in increased administrative burden and financial pressures. Such turbulence has flow-on effects on the level of care that is able to be accessed by people with disability in Australia.

PurposeThe concept of workforce agility has become increasingly popular in recent years. However, defining it has sparked much discussion and ambiguity. Recognizing this ambiguity, this paper aims to inductively develop a behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility.Design/methodology/approachThe authors interviewed 36 experts in the field of agility and used concept mapping and the critical incident technique to create a behavioral taxonomy.FindingsThe authors identified a behavioral taxonomy consisting of ten dimensions: (1) accepting changes, (2) decision making, (3) creating transparency, (4) collaboration, (5) reflection, (6) user centricity, (7) iteration, (8) testing, (9) self-organization, and (10) learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ research contributes to the literature in that it offers an inductively developed behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility with ten dimensions. It further adds to the literature by tying the notion of workforce agility to the performance literature.Practical implicationsThe authors’ results suggest that it might be beneficial for companies to take all workforce agility dimensions into account when creating an agile culture, starting agile projects, integrating agility into hiring decisions or evaluating employee performance.Originality/valueThis paper uses an inductive approach to define workforce agility as a set of behavioral dimensions, integrating the scientific as well as the practitioner literature on agility.

Nowadays, information systems such as the Agile model can adapt to the structures and processes of smart organizations, particularly SMEs. The faster an information technology company adopts risk management-based Agile in a work environment, the higher its performance and energy efficiency. To maximize the value generated by agile decision-makers or managers, SMEs must have the capability and willingness to adopt new risk management-based technology models. Additionally, the study identifies a gap in the use of the Agile Model to influence the success of SME projects in the Middle East region's SMEs (, UAE, KSA, Oman, Egypt, Iraq, and Qatar). The study is aimed at SMEs in the electronics and energy sectors, as well as IT businesses and big data projects, with the goal of encouraging them to adopt an Agile model. This study was characterized positively in numerous ways, including the adoption of technology in the workplace to accommodate abrupt changes in energy management schemes and various government policies promoting energy conservation. Additionally, employee training and adaptability in dealing with programs that can affect the process help accomplish the objectives. Restructuring medium and small businesses to improve their energy management and overall performance.

The uncapacitated facility location problem (UFLP) is a popular NP-hard optimization problem that has been traditionally applied to logistics and supply networks, where decisions are difficult to reverse. However, over the years, many new application domains have emerged, in which real-time optimization is needed, such as Internet of Vehicles (IoV), virtual network functions placement, and network controller placement. IoV scenarios take into account the presence of multiple roadside units (RSUs) that should be frequently assigned to operating vehicles. To ensure the desired quality of service level, the allocation process needs to be carried out frequently and efficiently, as vehicles' demands change. In this dynamic environment, the mapping of vehicles to RSUs needs to be reoptimized periodically over time. Thus, this article proposes an agile optimization algorithm, which is tested using existing benchmark instances. The experiments show that it can efficiently generate high-quality and real-time results in dynamic IoV scenarios.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the use of innovation sprints, flash teams, and inter-disciplinary collaboration in sport management programs that reduce the apparent proficiency gaps that exist between the expectations of industry and the college graduate. Companies in a variety of industries are using these tools to solve complex problems as the velocity of change and volume of data are increasing at a rate that makes constant innovation a necessity. However, higher education traditions and curricular silos appear to be causing graduates to fall further behind the needs of industry. Two innovation sprints have shown the ability to provide students with improved skills for industry while enhancing their understanding of sport management competencies through rapid prototyping, human-centered design, and flash teams. One innovation sprint involved a cross-campus collaborative experience. The second focused on a multi-college/university collaboration within sport management. Though both experiences produced better-than-expected results, the inter-disciplinary sprint may have produced a higher level of outputs. Furthermore, faculty and students alike appear to benefit from inter-disciplinary interactions as everyone learns more about each field represented and allows everyone to have an equal voice through a common lens. If sport management programs remain in their designated silo, their graduates may be falling further behind the expectation of employers. Previous literature suggests the benefits of innovative practices significantly enhance learning and drive creative problem-solving. Therefore, sport management programs may want to exploreusing innovation sprints, flash teams, and inter-disciplinary collaboration practices as viable practices to enhance student learning outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the long-standing public health practice of contact tracing into the public spotlight. While contact tracing and case investigation have been carefully designed to protect privacy, the huge volume of tracing which is being carried out as part of the pandemic response in the United States is highlighting potential concerns around privacy, legality, and equity. Contact tracing during the pandemic has gained particular attention for the new use of digital technologies—both on the consumer side in the form of Exposure Notification applications, and for public health agencies as digital case management software systems enable massive scaling of operations. While the consumer application side of digital innovation has dominated the news and academic discourse around privacy, people are likely to interact more intensively with public health agencies and their use of digital case management systems. Effective use of digital case management for contact tracing requires revisiting the existing legal frameworks, privacy protections, and security practices for management of sensitive health data. The scale of these tools and demands of an unprecedented pandemic response are introducing new risks through the collection of huge volumes of data, and expanding requirements for more adept data sharing among jurisdictions. Public health agencies must strengthen their best practices for data collection and protection even in the absence of comprehensive or clear guidance. This requires navigating a difficult balance between rigorous data protection and remaining highly adaptive and agile.

Software development projects have undergone remarkable changes with the arrival of agile development approaches. Many firms are facing a need to use these approaches to manage entities consisting of multiple projects (i.e. programs) simultaneously and efficiently. New technologies such as big data provide a huge power and rich demand for the IT application system of the commercial bank which has the characteristics of multiple sub-projects, strong inter-project correlation, and numerous project participating teams. Hence, taking the IT program management of a bank in China as a case, we explore the methods to solve the problems in multi-project concurrent development practice through integrating the ideas of program and batch management. First, to coordinate the multi-project development process, this paper presents the batch-based agile program management approach that synthesizes concurrent engineering with agile methods. And we compare the application of batch management between software development projects and manufacturing process. Further, we analyze the concurrent multi-project development practice in the batch-based agile program management, including the overlapping between stages, individual project’s activities, and multiple projects based on common resources and environment to stimulate the knowledge transfer. Third, to facilitate the communication and coordination of batch-based program management, we present the double-level responsibility organizational structure of batch management.

PurposeThis paper takes a holistic and process-based view on agility from a Middle Management (MM) perspective. Its purpose is to identify subjective factors of agility emerging from people's interpretations and perceptions and to integrate them into the process of agile strategy-making.Design/methodology/approachTo provide a theoretical foundation, literature was reviewed in the area of agile diversity and strategy-making. A qualitative study based on interviews was conducted to uncover the hidden subjective factors from the personal experiences and perceptions of the participants.FindingsThe study has revealed that individual opinions in terms of agility can originate from three sources: individual understandings, contextual drivers and personal beliefs.Research limitations/implicationsThe research contributes to dynamic capability theory by providing a better understanding of agile diversity at the MM level. The findings can help mid-level executives to cope with the complexities and ambiguities in managing agility by aligning the different understandings and people's perceptions. This is crucial, as missing alignment of team members can lead to poor dynamic capabilities of business entities and thus threatens overall organisational agility.Originality/valueA model was developed to align the subjective factors of agility during the process of agile strategy-making at the MM level. The framework allows a flexible adaptation to the individual demands of organisational units, as well as concentrated measures for effective agile management. It contributes to organisational agility and business success by scaling the dynamic capabilities of MM.

In the context of simulation-based optimisation, this paper reviews recent work related to the role of metaheuristics, matheuristics (combinations of exact optimisation methods with metaheuristics), simheuristics (hybridisation of simulation with metaheuristics), biased-randomised heuristics for ‘agile’ optimisation via parallel computing, and learnheuristics (combination of statistical/machine learning with metaheuristics) to deal with NP-hard and large-scale optimisation problems in areas such as transport and logistics, manufacturing and production, smart cities, telecommunication networks, finance and insurance, sustainable energy consumption, health care, military and defence, e-marketing, or bioinformatics. The manuscript provides the main related concepts and updated references that illustrate the applications of these hybrid optimisation–simulation–learning approaches in solving rich and real-life challenges under dynamic and uncertainty scenarios. A numerical analysis is also included to illustrate the benefits that these approaches can offer across different application fields. Finally, this work concludes by highlighting open research lines on the combination of these methodologies to extend the concept of simulation-based optimisation.

The agile supply chain is focused on speed, responsiveness, cost efficiency, flexibility and an increase in the productivity of goods and services. Since agile companies offer higher service levels with lower inventories, this field is receiving increasing attention over the last two decades in the manufacturing and service industry. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the literature on the agile supply chains in the manufacturing and service industry. It maps previous research in this field, across a gamut of journals, organizations and countries. The analysis demonstrates the evolution of agile supply chain research in the last few decades by employing various methodologies. Highly influential authors, organizations and keywords were analysed with the help of the multiple visualization tools. Important publications, citations and co-citation network clusters were formed. This article would be helpful for researchers and practitioners exploring or interested in this seeking research guidance. Future research could focus on the relationship between agile capabilities and the financial performance of the organizations. Researchers can focus on conducting the in-depth market research on agile implementation in construction management, aerospace and pharmaceutical industry.

The article is devoted to research on agile management practices, including Scrum. Their distribution and the effects of their use by companies under conditions of Agile business transformation in Russia and abroad are considered in detail. The factors influencing the efficiency of using human capital of self-organizing teams were revealed. The main models of human capital assessment from the position of their applicability to Scrum teams were analyzed.

The year 2020 posed many intense and dramatic events that tested everyone’s ability to adapt. Nurse leaders faced the pressure of being agile in leading the evolving challenges impacting health care. These challenges provided opportunities to hone our agility with the added quality of grace. Leading with agility and grace can be learned if we focus on converting chaos into calm. This article identifies some events that occurred in 2020 and offers a perspective of how to enhance personal and professional agility and grace. Increasing our ability to lead in an agile, graceful manner is critical for leading in the unclear situations we are likely to encounter in the future.

The paper aims to provide an overview of human resource management’s characteristic features in agile companies and identify the attributes preferred by Generation Y representatives in everyday work life. Detailed literature review of general agile attributes and specifics of agile HR management has shown that the phenomenon is not sufficiently examined. There is a gap in the literature research related to the agile approach applied to Generation Y. Based on a literature review and primary data analysis, the authors identified the attributes of agile organisations that correspond to Generation Y preferences in the field of working conditions. In this way, the authors have opened a discussion on the possibilities of applying the preferred agile approaches to attract Generation Y representatives, increase their work motivation and satisfaction. The paper’s findings support the information base used by HR professionals and companies to ensure that factors such as flexibility, informality, continuous learning, etc, are known by managers and companies. It realises the importance of agile principles in the working environment created for Generation Y to produce a greater added value. The literary part of the paper provides an introduction to the general agile management approach, specifics of agile HR practices and indicates key factors influencing work and supporting effective cooperation with Generation Y. Key findings of the detailed literature review were applied to empirical findings of the sample of Generation Y representatives in the Czech Republic and used for discussion and recommendations. This article aims to contribute to the debate on agile management approaches with regard to Generation Y and its leadership. The paper contributes to a gap in the literature, as key findings confirm that Generation Y is open to adopting an agile approach and prefers some of the agile factors in corporate and human resource management over traditional systems.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore what agile learning strategies businesses need to develop agile core competencies to respond to the uncertainty of the rapidly changing business environment and sustain their competitive advantage. Technology advances and unexpected crises have created an ever-changing environment in which traditional static corporate training methods have failed to continuously provide employees with the ability to listen to and interpret the rapid changes and respond accordingly. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative exploratory multi-case study was useful to explore what agile learning strategies businesses need to develop agile core competencies to sustain their competitive advantage. Snowball sampling enabled the discovery of 15 participants who represented 10 different industries. Participants represented both management and non-management roles. Data were collected from multiple sources such as interviews, observations, researcher notes and document reviews. A thematic analysis model was used to analyze the collected data. Findings The findings substantiated that organizations are operating in a fast-changing environment where agile learning strategies are vital to surviving. The data also showed that agile learning strategies must include individual learning paths to continuously develop employees’ agile skills to build their organizations’ agile core competencies. Originality/value This study underlined the importance of adopting agile learning strategies to help employees listen and accurately interpret their organizations’ external environments to enable quick responses to changes. Without agile learning strategies, organizational agile core competencies and competitive advantage will progressively decline.

When developing a Learning Management System (LMS) using Scrum, we noticed that it was quite often necessary to redefine some system behaviour scenarios, due to ambiguities in the requirement specifications, or due to misinterpretations of stories reported by the Product Owners (POs). The definition of test suites was also cumbersome, resulting in test suites that were incomplete or did not at all comply with the system requirements. Based on this experience and to deal with these problems, in this paper, we propose the ScrumOntoBDD approach to agile software development, which combines Scrum, ontologies and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). This approach is centred on the concepts and techniques of Scrum and BDD and focuses on the planning and analysis phases of the software life cycle, since the BDD tools currently provide little support to these phases, while most of the problems during the LMS development were found exactly there. We claim that our approach improves the software development practices in this respect. Furthermore, ScrumOntoBDD employs ontologies in order to reduce ambiguities intrinsic to the use of a natural language as a BDD ubiquitous language. In this paper, we illustrate and systematically evaluate our approach, showing that it is beneficial since it improves the communication between members of an agile development team.

PURPOSE: The aim of the article is to illustrate the phenomenon of "green innovation" by econsumers and to analyze the relationship between the intensification of this phenomenon and the development of their agility., DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study was conducted in 2020 on a random sample of 330 enterprises. The respondents were top managers. The methods used in the study were PAPI as well as CAWI. In the first stage of the analysis, a valuation of the level of manifestation of the characteristic features of teal organizations concept was carried out with the use of a 5-point Likert scale. The second stage involved creating a model through which e-consumers create green innovations and implementing it in chosen Polish companies., FINDINGS: An in-depth analysis of the literature on the topic and the studies demonstrate a close correlation between the adoption of agile characteristics by e-consumers and the creation of "green innovations" by them. It was assumed that contemporary businesses exhibit characteristics of Teal organizations that are observable in their activities and management, but the extent of these features depends on a variety of factors., PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: A proprietary model through which e-consumers create green innovations was invented and implemented in a Polish company “Zakład Zieleni i Rekultywacji”. The implementation of the model in other companies may facilitate removing barriers and thus the range of innovation implementation by e-consumers may be extended., ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The model invented is a pioneer attempt to remove the barriers of innovation implementation co-created by consumers. The authors believe that the research conducted may diversify and augment the literature concerning Teal organizations and the role of e-consumers in green innovations as well as may stimulate the cooperation between companies and consumers in the field of innovations implementation., peer-reviewed

The success of applications of physiologically‐based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling in drug development and drug labeling has triggered regulatory agencies to demand rigorous demonstration of the predictive capability of the specific PBPK platform for a particular intended application purpose. The effort needed to comply with such qualification requirements exceeds the costs for any individual PBPK application. Because changes or updates of a PBPK platform would require (re‐)qualification, a reliable and efficient generic qualification framework is needed. We describe the development and implementation of an agile and sustainable technical framework for automatic PBPK platform (re‐)qualification of PK‐Sim® embedded in the open source and open science GitHub landscape of Open Systems Pharmacology. The qualification approach enables the efficient assessment of all aspects relevant to the qualification of a particular purpose and provides transparency and traceability for all stakeholders. As a showcase example for the power and versatility of the qualification framework, we present the qualification of PK‐Sim® for the intended purpose of predicting cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4)–mediated drug–drug interactions (DDIs). Several perpetrator PBPK models featuring various degrees of CYP3A4 modulation and different types of mechanisms (competitive inhibition, mechanism‐based inactivation, and induction) were coupled with a set of PBPK models of sensitive CYP3A4 victim drugs. Simulations were compared to a comprehensive data set of 135 observations from published clinical DDI studies. The platform's overall predictive performance showed reasonable accuracy and precision (geometric mean fold error of 1.4 for both area under the plasma concentration‐time curve ratios and peak plasma concentration ratios with/without perpetrator) and suggests that PK‐Sim® can be applied to quantitatively assess CYP3A4‐mediated DDI in clinically untested scenarios.

Values and principles of agile working emphasize the benefits of personal communication and open team spaces with members sitting in close proximity. This facilitates customer-oriented results and reduces the risk for failures based on misunderstandings. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, most companies reduced office times and encouraged their employees to work from home in order to protect people from infection. Direct face-to-face communication was replaced by online meetings using video conferencing, chats, and cloud-based collaboration. This significantly changed the way of working. While online-based tools for remote collaboration were familiar to many employees before, others were reluctant to use them in the past. The sudden need to utilize these tools in order to be able to participate in business at all opened such tools for people who would not have used them under normal conditions. In this article, the results of a recent study are presented, in which the impact of the pandemic on agile working is examined. Based on these results, a scenario of the future of agile working in a post COVID-19 world is derived. The study was conducted as an online survey in Germany. More than 170 people working in different job positions and from different branches and companies participated. The study reveals that the pandemic significantly changed the way of working. However, people value digital tools and were able to find methods of effective and efficient collaboration in distant work environments.

Academia and startups are powerful pillars of innovation ecosystem. We believe academia and startup enterprises could collaborate as strategic partners to create mutual, long-term benefits through a two-way knowledge transfer. We argue that this can be completed without large corporation involvement, which may hinder the missions of academia and startups—slowing down innovation progress. Startups and academia could foster knowledge transfer in a flexible, agile, and less bureaucratic way, helping both partners to create mutual values through strategic partnerships.

Strategic Agility is seen by many researchers and analysts as an innovative newly developed management paradigm adopted by contemporary organizations to achieve distinction and outperform competitors under conditions of environmental instability and uncertainty. This article is an attempt to introduce the concept of Strategic Agility and to demonstrate its basic characteristics and the importance of adopting it by various organizations to achieve excellence and sustainability. In a competitive environment, characterized by acute turbulence and continual shocks, as in the current environment of COVID-19, strategic agility offers a viable means to harness non-linear scientific and technological breakthroughs with a view to profiting from both the dislocation in the consumer sentiment and behavior and the breakdown in supply chains. Moreover, the article highlights the interaction between strategic agility and firm performance and emphasizes the need to create agile organizations that will thrive in a volatile and uncertain world.

Agile helps teams focus on developing team-oriented goals, reflecting on their work and making needed adaptations at regular intervals and using agile practices to have authentic group interactions which lead to improved team dynamics and fostering innovation (Smith and Sidky, 2009). According to a recent survey (VersionOne, 2019), the top three reasons organizations adopt the agile way of working are to accelerate software delivery (74%), enhance ability to manage changing priorities (62%) and increase productivity (51%). To help mitigate the chaos, stress and anxiety, an agile mindset that welcomes uncertainty, embraces challenges and views failure as a learning opportunity can help us survive, and perhaps even thrive, in our new environment.

Purpose Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have recently gained much attention for Industry 4.0. With the emergence of disruptive technologies, it has become essential to redesign the business for innovations based on blockchain–IoT integrated architecture that helps organizations to improve agility in their operations. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach An industrial pump was Sensorized and IoTized to monitor its operations on real time and take predictive measures for managing these assets with more agility. The developed architecture was further extended for proposing the use of blockchain and how it can benefit the organization. Findings The known features of blockchain such as increasing the capacity of decentralization, trust-less transactions, security and allowing autonomous coordination of the devices along with the boons of IoT will help achieve the motto of improving agility in Industry 4.0. Originality/value This paper gives a new dimension to utilization of blockchain technology. blockchain along with IoT that gives a way forward for industries like manufacturing, oil and gas, engineering and construction, utilities, etc. to re-designing the business organization in a more agile way.

This research aims to provide an overview of the challenges and role of Widyaiswara in the Ministry of Finance in improving ASN competence through adaptation and innovation in the pandemic and new normal era. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, this study found that widyaiswara is required to be able to think creatively and innovatively. The challenge is whether widyaiswara is able to make interesting multimedia teaching materials. Widyaiswara was challenged and required to continue to improve and change. Widyaiswara should be able to utilize technology to open the horizon of thinking and view technology as an opportunity to improve ASN competence in the future. To answer the challenges and demands of change in this pandemic and new normal era, widyaiswara can act as facilitator, motivator, inspiration, innovator, dynamicator and role model through innovation and adaptation in the pandemic era and new normal through its roles in aspects of bureaucracy efficiency, digital literacy, agile organization mindset, public service responsiveness, and integrated and flexible working space.

In a restaurant, a customer waiting to be serviced is a phenomenon. Restaurant owners often overlook this matter which sometimes causes the customers to go to a competitor. There are some important factors to be considered a good restaurant such as taste, ambiance, and service. An establishment will attract a substantial number of customers when these factors are managed carefully. Fast service is one of the most important factors in fast food restaurants to avoid losing customers because of considerable delay on the line. During mealtime, customers rush to fast food restaurants to have a quick meal. This research aimed to develop a mobile ordering application for a fast-food restaurant that offers a series of functionalities wherein a customer can order food using this platform. The system was developed using the Agile Methodology in assuring its proper implementation. A survey was performed to establish the acceptability of the mobile application. Five small fast food and restaurant owners were invited to test and answer the survey and another set of fifty prospective customers undergone the same set. As a result, the expected acceptability rating was attained from the survey conducted. Improvements of the system were recommended that were not implemented in the current version due to time constraints and the non-applicability to the current study

One of the conditions for effective management in a VUCA world is organizational agility. It requires changes in the implementation of the personnel function so it is oriented at agile human capital management. The article aims to present the assumptions as well as two key attributes of Agile HRM: the leadership model and creating an agile mindset. These features create specific consequences for the human capital management process. Due to the multidimensionality of the HRM process, the study of the analysis of changes was limited to two areas: employee acquisition (recruitment) and preformance management. The article is a theoretical reflection, illustrated by the results of secondary research and examples of good practices.