Benefits Of Agile Research Articles

It Pays to Be Agile

ABSTRACTAgile development approaches emphasize working software, customer collaboration, adaptation, and a strong commitment to achieving business results. In this article, we use the Human Capital Theory as the rationale for why IT professionals possessing agile skills garner salary benefits. We then employ a Human Capital Model to estimate the benefits. Further, we investigate two specific categories of IT job types: software application development professionals and IT professionals at the strategic level of organizations. Our Human Capital Model was fit using a data set from an online survey of IT professionals with 12,893 respondents. Our results confirm the Agile benefits with an overall salary premium of 22.6%. We also specifically discuss the various premiums across application development job titles as well as strategic positions. Based on our findings, we draw practical implications for both IT professionals and management.

The Impact of Cloud Computing on Information Systems Agility

As businesses are encountering frequent harsh economic conditions, concepts such as outsourcing, agile and lean management, change management and cost reduction are constantly gaining more attention. This is because these concepts are all aimed at saving on budgets and facing unexpected changes. Latest technologies like cloud computing promise to turn IT, that has always been viewed as a cost centre, into a source of saving money and driving flexibility and agility to the business. The purpose of this paper is to first compile a set of attributes that govern the agility benefits added to information systems by cloud computing and then develop a survey-based instrument to measure these agility benefits. Our research analysis employs non-probability sampling based on a combination of convenience and judgment. This approach was used to obtain a representative sample of participants from potential companies belonging to various industries such as oil & gas, banking, private, government and semi-governmental organizations. This research will enable decision makers to measure agility enhancements and hence compare the agility of Information Systems before and after deploying cloud computing.

Prioritizing agile benefits and limitations in relation to practice usage

In recent years, there has been significant shift from rigid development (RD) toward agile. However, it has also been spotted that agile methodologies are hardly ever followed in their pure form. Hybrid processes as combinations of RD and agile practices emerge. In addition, agile adoption has been reported to result in both benefits and limitations. This exploratory study (a) identifies development models based on RD and agile practice usage by practitioners; (b) identifies agile practice adoption scenarios based on eliciting practice usage over time; (c) prioritizes agile benefits and limitations in relation to (a) and (b). Practitioners provided answers through a questionnaire. The development models are determined using hierarchical cluster analysis. The use of practices over time is captured through an interactive board with practices and time indication sliders. This study uses the extended hierarchical voting analysis framework to investigate benefit and limitation prioritization. Four types of development models and six adoption scenarios have been identified. Overall, 45 practitioners participated in the prioritization study. A common benefit among all models and adoption patterns is knowledge and learning, while high requirements on professional skills were perceived as the main limitation. Furthermore, significant variances in terms of benefits and limitations have been observed between models and adoption patterns. The most significant internal benefit categories from adopting agile are knowledge and learning, employee satisfaction, social skill development, and feedback and confidence. Professional skill-specific demands, scalability, and lack of suitability for specific product domains are the main limitations of agile practice usage. Having a balanced agile process allows to achieve a high number of benefits. With respect to adoption, a big bang transition from RD to agile leads to poor quality in comparison with the alternatives.

Agility and Responsiveness Managing Fashion Supply Chain

Fashion industry is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in a third. In recent decades, fashion retailers revolutionized the fashion industry by following what has become known as the “fast fashion” strategy. Fast fashion is a business strategy which aims to reduce the processes involved in the buying cycle and lead times for getting new fashion product into stores, in order to satisfy consumer demand at its peak. Fashion markets are synonymous with rapid change and, as a result, commercial success or failure in those markets is largely determined by the organization's flexibility and responsiveness. The purpose of this paper is to disclose strategic implications and benefits of agile and responsive fashion supply chain.

Achieving the Benefits of Agility in Software Architecture-XP

One challenge of XP agile method in software development is this method's underestimation over software quality attribution; these attributes are of main indices of software architecture. In this study, a method is represented for responding this challenge on the bases of probability theory. In this method, firstly, the rating matrix is structured on the bases of quality attributions an architecture solutions. Each element of this matrix shows a rating for every solution and the ratings will be initialized through analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Via quality weight implement on above matrix the rating vector is created whose each element represents the rate of each solution in reaching those quality attributes in rating matrix. Because rating vector follows normal probable distribution, its elements' rating probable density is mostly gathered around the mean. In this study, the probable density of architecture will be defined, the appropriateness of a solution in comparison to other solutions will be evaluatedor and the respond to XP challenge will be done easily in order to reach architecture solutions in the frame of rating vector. A complex of data are gathered and the results are compared in an experimental method in order to investigate the represented method of this paper.

Multinational risk and performance outcomes: Effects of knowledge intensity and industry context

A multinational presence can diversify corporate business activities and provide access to diverse overseas resources. This can enhance operational flexibility and create new business propositions that increase responsiveness to global market changes. Establishing an international corporate structure may also require irreversible investments and impose maintenance and processing costs that contravene the implied resilience and agility benefits. We distinguish between downside risk and upside potential as the relevant outcome measures to assess the implied advantages of multinationality. Consistent with the rationales of the OLI paradigm, we argue that multinational reach particularly in knowledge-based industries can reduce downside risk and enhance upside potential. These results introduce more nuances to the ongoing debate about multinational risk and performance effects. Based on a large cross-sectional dataset, we find that flexibility and responsiveness thrives on a multinational presence among firms operating in information-driven knowledge businesses. In contrast, internationalizing firms in capital-based network services display adverse risk effects.