How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

Agile software development represents a major departure from traditional, plan-based approaches to software engineering. A systematic review of empirical studies of agile software development up to and including 2005 was conducted. The search strategy identified 1996 studies, of which 36 were identified as empirical studies. The studies were grouped into four themes: introduction and adoption, human and social factors, perceptions on agile methods, and comparative studies. The review investigates what is currently known about the benefits and limitations of, and the strength of evidence for, agile methods. Implications for research and practice are presented. The main implication for research is a need for more and better empirical studies of agile software development within a common research agenda. For the industrial readership, the review provides a map of findings, according to topic, that can be compared for relevance to their own settings and situations.

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Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review

While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.

The Act of Creation

This paper aims to provide a basis for the improvement of software-estimation research through a systematic review of previous work. The review identifies 304 software cost estimation papers in 76 journals and classifies the papers according to research topic, estimation approach, research approach, study context and data set. A Web-based library of these cost estimation papers is provided to ease the identification of relevant estimation research results. The review results combined with other knowledge provide support for recommendations for future software cost estimation research, including: 1) increase the breadth of the search for relevant studies, 2) search manually for relevant papers within a carefully selected set of journals when completeness is essential, 3) conduct more studies on estimation methods commonly used by the software industry, and 4) increase the awareness of how properties of the data sets impact the results when evaluating estimation methods

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A Systematic Review of Software Development Cost Estimation Studies

Organizational issues in the implementation and adoption of health information technology innovations: An interpretative review

In many project-based industries, there has recently been an increased tendency for collaboration and cocreation of value with the customers. However, many existing studies report inherent challenges and complexities related to multipartner collaboration. This article presents a conceptual framework that explains the focal collaboration related elements and their interdependencies in multipartner projects. The elements in the framework and relations between them are derived from the existing empirical studies and theoretical literature on collaboration, knowledge integration, and project success. Based on the conceptual analysis of the extant literature, we identify eight collaboration antecedents and three collaboration outcome elements. The conceptual framework explains how two collaboration mediators, project-collaboration quality and knowledge-integration capability, relate collaboration antecedents with collaboration outcomes. In addition, based on the literature analysis, we identify 15 mechanisms that enhance the project-collaboration quality in multipartner projects. The article provides novel insights on the dynamics of collaboration in multipartner projects by offering the concepts of project-collaboration quality and knowledge-integration capability and explaining their role in collaborative projects.

The Dynamics of collaboration in multipartner projects.

Purpose – Knowledge management (KM) needs a systematic approach to develop capabilities which accelerate the evolution of knowledge into a key organizational resource. This paper aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reports the empirical findings of a case study offering insights into the infrastructure and process capabilities required to provide knowledge support for organizational routines and activities.Findings – It also presents a four‐stage framework that helps to make sense of the development of capabilities during the implementation of KM initiatives.Practical implications – The research moves KM capability development from being a mere concept to being a clearly articulated set of stages, which underpin organizational growth.Originality/value – As above, the research moves KM capability development from being a mere concept to being a clearly articulated set of stages, which underpin organizational growth.

Developing knowledge management capabilities: a structured approach

A variety of life cycle models for software development are generally available. Many of the variations were composed to overcome problems in the classic waterfall model. However, it is generally difficult to compare and contrast the methods and very little literature is available to guide developers and managers in making choices. Moreover, in order to make informed decisions, developers require access to real data that compares the different models and the results associated with the adoption of each model. An experiment in which 15 software teams developed comparable software products, using four different development approaches (V-model, incremental model, evolutionary model, and extreme programming), is described. Extensive measurements were taken to assess the time, quality, size, and development efficiency of each product. The experimental data collected and the conclusions related to the choice of method, its impact on the project and the quality of the results, are presented.

Comparison of software development life cycles: a multiproject experiment

Incremental software development and delivery have been used in software projects in many ways for many years. Justifications for incremental approaches include risk amelioration, the management of evolving requirements, and end-user involvement. Incremental development, including iterative, incremental delivery, has become a norm in many sectors. However, there has been little work on modelling the effort in such development and hence a dearth of comparative analyses of cost models for incremental development/delivery. We attempt to rectify this by proposing a COCOMO-style effort model for incremental development/delivery and explore the relationship between effort and the number of increments, thereby providing new insights into the economic impact of incremental approaches to software projects.

COCOMO-Based Effort Estimation for Iterative and Incremental Software Development

This paper addresses the topic of failures in computer-based systems. It does so in three stages: first it describes failure cases in a single domain, that of computer-based ambulance despatch systems; then it discusses some of the features of those cases; finally it considers the importance of reporting and analysing failures, in order to discover their causes and to learn lessons that will help eliminate those causes of failure in the future. Failure, it is argued, provides a valuable learning opportunity that may lead, when recognized, to better practice and future success. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Darren Dalcher

Papers

The Dynamics of collaboration in multipartner projects.

Developing knowledge management capabilities: a structured approach

Comparison of software development life cycles: a multiproject experiment

COCOMO-Based Effort Estimation for Iterative and Incremental Software Development

Learning from Failures