The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated remote working and working at the office. This hybrid working is an indispensable part of today's life even within Agile Software Development (ASD) teams. Before COVID-19 ASD teams were working closely together in an Agile way at the office. The Agile Manifesto describes 12 principles to make agile working successful. These principles are about working closely together, face-to-face contact and continuously responding to changes. To what extent does hybrid working influence these agile principles that have been indispensable in today's software development since its creation in 2001? Based on a quantitative study within 22 Dutch financial institutions and 106 respondents, the relationship between hybrid working and ASD is investigated. The results of this research show that human factors, such as team spirit, feeling responsible and the ability to learn from each other, are the most decisive for the success of ASD. In addition, the research shows that hybrid working creates a distance between the business organization and the IT department. The findings are valuable for Managers, HR professionals and employees working in the field of ASD as emphasizing and fostering Team Spirit, Learning Ability, and a Sense of Responsibility among team members can bolster the Speed of ASD.
MULTIFILE
Past research on designing for behavioural change mostly concerned linear design processes, whereas in practice, Agile design methods are increasingly popular. This paper evaluates the possibilities and limitations of using Agile design methods in theory-driven design for behavioural change. We performed a design case study, consisting of a student design team working on improving waiting experiences at Schiphol Airport security and check-in. Our study showed that Agile design methods are usable when designing for behavioural change. Moreover, the Behavioural Lenses toolkit used in the design process is beneficial in facilitating theory-driven Agile design. The combination of an Agile design process and tools to evidentially inform the design enabled the design team to formulate viable and interesting concepts for improving waiting-line experiences. However, limitations also occurred: a mismatch between the rate at which the Scream method proceeded and the time and momentum needed to conduct in-depth research.
MULTIFILE
We extend a standard for doing agile scrum teamwork in education that permits individual assessment within teams (IAFOR ECE2020). Since the teacher's bandwidth in education is limited and increasingly under pressure, we focus on course design options that can be used to leverage the bandwidth. One economizing option in courses is to let teams prerecord prototype presentation videos before sprint review takes place. This allocates expensive teacher's time to team interrogation time which enriches interaction and engagement and enables effective sharing between teams to improve communication flow in sparse stakeholder feedback scenarios. We also describe three learning analytic pathways that can be smartly integrated into learning dashboards to monitor student and team progress or into learning recommender systems and chatbots to generate action-directed, just-in-time feedback and advice to students. The first one is for setup that enables control of important team diversity and student inclusion parameters such as demographic, personality and professional traits that are known from the student population in advance and that enables handy attribution of 21st-century skill sets within teams. The second one is the product pathway that builds on a datastream generated from qualitative, quantitative and immersive product features that are known from prototyping. The third one is the process pathway in which information on 21st-century skills is generated that are at play in individual and dynamic team processes. We are convinced that these extensions will further enable effective learning technology that is directed to applying agile scrum in education efficently, both for students as teachers.
In greenhouse horticulture harvesting is a major bottleneck. Using robots for automatic reaping can reduce human workload and increase efficiency. Currently, ‘rigid body’ robotic grippers are used for automated reaping of tomatoes, sweet peppers, etc. However, this kind of robotic grasping and manipulation technique cannot be used for harvesting soft fruit and vegetables as it will cause damage to the crop. Thus, a ‘soft gripper’ needs to be developed. Nature is a source of inspiration for temporary adhesion systems, as many species, e.g., frogs and snails, are able to grip a stem or leave, even upside down, with firm adhesion without leaving any damage. Furthermore, larger animals have paws that are made of highly deformable and soft material with adjustable grip size and place holders. Since many animals solved similar problems of adhesion, friction, contact surface and pinch force, we will use biomimetics for the design and realization of the soft gripper. With this interdisciplinary field of research we aim to model and develop functionality by mimicking biological forms and processes and translating them to the synthesis of materials, synthetic systems or machines. Preliminary interviews with tech companies showed that also in other fields such as manufacturing and medical instruments, adjustable soft and smart grippers will be a huge opportunity in automation, allowing the handling of fragile objects.
In dit project wordt gekeken naar de validatie van een procesverbeteringstool.Doel De belastingdienst heeft een tool ontwikkeld met als doel de samenhang tussen Business en IT te verbeteren en een proces van continu verbeteren op te starten. Deze tool wil de belastingdienst objectief te evalueren. Resultaten Dit project leidt tot de volgende resultaten: Een validatierapport Een verbeterplan Een wetenschappelijk artikel Looptijd 01 oktober 2021 - 31 december 2022 Aanpak Binnen dit onderzoek wordt gebruik gemaakt van de volgende onderzoeksmethoden: Focusgroepen Literatuuronderzoek Workshops Meedoen in dit onderzoek? Als je onderzoek wil doen naar tools in het werkveld van Agile werken, Business IT alignement of continu verbeteren, neem dan contact op met Paul Morsch.
In dit project wordt gekeken naar de validatie van een procesverbeteringstool.Doel De belastingdienst heeft een tool ontwikkeld met als doel de samenhang tussen Business en IT te verbeteren en een proces van continu verbeteren op te starten. Deze tool wil de belastingdienst objectief te evalueren. Resultaten Dit project leidt tot de volgende resultaten: Een validatierapport Een verbeterplan Een wetenschappelijk artikel Looptijd 01 oktober 2021 - 31 december 2022 Aanpak Binnen dit onderzoek wordt gebruik gemaakt van de volgende onderzoeksmethoden: Focusgroepen Literatuuronderzoek Workshops Meedoen in dit onderzoek? Als je onderzoek wil doen naar tools in het werkveld van Agile werken, Business IT alignement of continu verbeteren, neem dan contact op met Paul Morsch.
