Search

The recent past has witnessed a growing interest in technologies for creating chatbots. Advances in Large Language Models for natural language processing are underpinning rapid progress in chatbot development, and experts predict revolutionary changes in the labour market as many manual tasks are replaced by virtual assistants in a range of business functions. As the new technology becomes more accessible and advanced, more companies are exploring the possibilities of implementing virtual assistants to automate routine tasks and improve service. This article reports on qualitative inductive research undertaken within a chatbot development team operating in a major international enterprise. The findings identify critical success factors for chatbot projects, and a model is developed and validated to support the planning and implementation of chatbot projects. The presented model can serve as an exemplary guide for researchers and practitioners working in this field. It is flexible and applicable in a wide range of business contexts, linking strategic business goals with execution steps. It is particularly applicable for teams with no experience in chatbot implementation, reducing uncertainty and managing decisions and risks throughout the project lifecycle, thereby increasing the likelihood of project success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation in the public sector provides digital services to the citizens aiming at increasing their quality of life, as well as the transparency and accountability of a public administration. Since adaptation to the citizens changing needs is central for its success, Agile methodologies seem best suited for the software development of digital services in that area. However, as well documented by an attempt to use Scrum for an important Public Administration in Italy, substantial modifications to standard Agile were needed, giving rise to a new proposal called improved Agile (in short, iAgile). Another notable example is the Scrum@IMI method developed by the City of Barcelona for the deployment of its digital services. However, given the importance of digital transformation in the public sector and the scarcity of efforts (documented in the scholarly literature) to effectively bring Agile within it, a strategically important contribution that Computer Science can offer is a general paradigm describing how to tailor Agile methodologies and, in particular, Scrum, for such a specific context. Our proposal, called Scrum@PA, addresses this strategic need. Based on it, a public administration has a technically sound avenue to follow to adopt Scrum rather than a generic set of guidelines as in the current state of the art. We show the validity of our proposal by describing how the quite successful Scrum@IMI approach can be derived from Scrum@PA. Although iAgile can also be derived from our paradigm, we have chosen Scrum@IMI as a pilot example since it is publicly available on GitHub. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selection of an appropriate development methodology is a critical strategic decision when managing a New Product Development (NPD) project. However, accurately estimating project duration based on the chosen methodology remains a challenge. This paper addresses the limitations of existing models and proposes a novel NPD project model that allows for testing and evaluation of different product development strategies. The model considers Waterfall, Spiral, Agile, and Hybrid methodologies and provides system engineers and project managers with decision-making tools to determine the optimal strategy and understand associated tradeoffs. The model is validated using real projects from various organizations and methodologies. It incorporates stochastic variables, risk management, and dynamic resource allocation, while addressing both Waterfall and Agile methodologies. The study contributes to the body of knowledge by offering practical tools for system engineers and project managers for choosing development methodology, improving project duration estimation, and identifying critical processes and risks in NPD projects. The research results also provide a basis for further studies and can benefit researchers interested in systems engineering methodologies. The proposed model fills a gap in the literature by providing a validated NPD model to evaluate the impact of different product development methodologies on project duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metrics are key elements that can give us valuable information about the effectiveness of agile software development processes, particularly considering the Scrum environment. This study aims to learn about the metrics adopted to assess agile development processes and explore the impact of how the role performed by each member in Scrum contributed to increasing/reducing the perception of the importance of these metrics. The impact of years of experience in Scrum on this perception was also explored. To this end, a quantitative study was conducted with 191 Scrum professionals in companies based in Portugal. The results show that the Scrum role is not a determining factor, while individuals with more years of experience have a higher perception of the importance of metrics related to team performance. The same conclusion is observed for the business value metric of the product backlog and the percentage of test automation in the testing phase. The findings allow for extending the knowledge about Scrum project management processes and their teams, in addition to offering important insights into the implementation of metrics for software engineering companies that adopt Scrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital information changes the ways in which people and organisations interact. This paper examines the nature of this change in the context of the author's Model for Information (MfI). It investigates the relationship between outcomes and value, selection processes and some attributes of information and explores how this relationship changes in the move from analogue to digital information. Selection processes shape the evolution of information ecosystems in which conventions are established for the ways in which information is used. The conventions determine norms for information friction and information quality as well as the sources of information and channels used. Digital information reduces information friction, often dramatically, and changes information quality. The increasing use of analytics in business increasingly delivers predictive or prescriptive digital information. These changes are happening faster than information ecosystem conventions can change. The relationships established in the paper enable an analysis of, and guide changes to, these conventions enabling a more effective use of digital information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberattacks make the news daily. Systems must be appropriately secured. Cybersecurity risk analyses are more than ever necessary, but... traveling and gathering in a room to discuss the topic has become difficult due to the COVID, whilst having a cybersecurity expert working isolated with an electronic support tool is clearly not the solution. In this article, we describe and illustrate Obérisk, an agile, cross-disciplinary and Obeya-like approach to risk management that equally supports face-to-face or remote risk management brainstorming sessions. The approach has matured for the last three years by using it for training and a wide range of real industrial projects. The overall approach is detailed and illustrated on a naval use case, with extensive feedback from the end-users. We show that Obérisk is really time-efficient and effective at managing risks at the early stages of a project, whilst remaining extremely low-cost. As the project grows or when the system is deployed, it may eventually be necessary to shift to a more comprehensive commercial electronic support tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As agile software development methods are spreading through the industry, they are no longer sufficient in their original design. With the increasing adoption by various types and sizes of organizations, these methods are scaled and tailored. The most popular framework for scaling Agile is the Scaled Agile Framework®, registered trademark of Scaled Agile, Inc. Boulder, USA. Some roles originating from the agile methods, such as Product Owner, are part of the framework and are impacted by scaling and tailoring. A Product Owner role is critical to the success of projects in agile environments. This paper aims to describe and discuss the evolution of and changes in Product Owner activities since Agile started to spread in the industry until the current concept of the Product Owner role in the Scaled Agile Framework. By identifying the activities typical of Product Owners outside of the Scaled Agile Framework context and mapping these activities to the Product Owner role description in Scaled Agile Framework, the changes in Product Owner role with respect to time and role specifics in the Scaled Agile Framework are revealed. It was identified that some of the activities previously described for Product Owner are distributed between various roles in the Scaled Agile Framework. In fact, the Product Owner loses the real product ownership in Scaled Agile Framework. The loss of ownership seems connected with the fact that, in the large environments that the Scaled Agile Framework is designed for, it is impossible to cover all required activities by one role using the hierarchical structures with a top-down approach in the Scaled Agile Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]