Newsletter Volume 27 Issue 8, Aug 2015
From The Editor
In our June article Agile Debate Heats Up Again, industry gurus identifed a number of reasons why organizations will fail with agile. Since then, a new range of Agile advice from Government, industry and academic sources could indicate that Agile is replacing the traditional business model. “Firms that have made the shift to an Agile, customer-focused mode of operating generate consistently better results for their customers through continuous innovation and provide meaningful fulfilling work for those doing the work.” See below, Is Agile Taking Over?
Could there be a connection between the above comment about “continuous innovation and provide meaningful fulfilling work “and the idea that standardized testing hampers creativity?
“According to a new study, when adults are given a set of Legos to solve a well-defined problem, their creativity may suffer when tackling subsequent tasks.” See below, Do Legos, standardized testing, and Googling hamper creativity?
Well, what a surprise! Who would have thought it? New research shows that “software development managers influence the productivity of developers and the quality of the software products.” The study also notes that “the methods of development were found to bring little effect on software quality.” See below, Human and organizational factors influence software quality
Our July article The Anti-Lecture Debate was triggered by the University of Adelaide’s ban on lectures and gave links to various viewpoints from academia on the value of lectures, including the comment “some have even claimed lectures are as bad for learning as smoking is for health.” Since then, an interesting result has been reported from a a re-structuring of the study program at the Faculty of Science – University of Copenhagen, “For us as a university, the big news is obviously that first year students conducted the research. But, we achieved a very significant result in molecular electronics as well…. Our self-assembling electronics are a bit like putting cake layers, custard and frosting in a blender and having it all pop out of the blender as a perfectly formed layer cake.” See below, New Ways of Teaching Lead to 1st Year Students Scientific Breakthrough
Current Issue
Articles in the current Issue cover:
Is Agile Taking Over?
“some of the current efforts to “scale Agile,” such as the Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe, are counterproductive.”
Do Legos, standardized testing, and Googling hamper creativity?
“There are a lot of studies that explore what enhances creativity. Ours is one of the few that considers ways in which creativity may be undermined,”
Human and organizational factors influence software quality
“According to the research the software quality is an information-intensive process whereby organizational structures, mode of operation, and information flow within the company variably affect software quality.”
New Ways of Teaching Lead to 1st Year Students Scientific Breakthrough
“For their first assignment, the students were simply asked to design, conduct and analyse a range of experiments. The new instructional type has shed research results every year since. However, it wasn’t until 2013 that a result was ready to be published.”
Events
ACOSM2015 – The Australian Conference on Software Management
The QESP Australian Conference on Software Management to be held in Sydney on Thursday 19th November 2015 at the Menzies Hotel, with pre and post Conference functions.
Theme: ICT Today: New Opportunities and Threats in Software Management
Morning Forum: The New CIO.
Afternoon Forum: Women in ICT/ Women in Leadership
Further details will be advised closer to the event.
“The World’s most successful Awards Program”
Consensus (www.consensus.com.au) runs a series of Awards Programs that identify the most innovative technology designed and developed in Australia (and some in New Zealand ). Over 400 evaluations of innovation have been conducted by the 130 Judges since the Awards were started in 2000. Recent independent analysis of the Winners of the Awards shows that 9 out of 10 (90%) of the Winners of Consensus Awards have gone on to perform exceptionally well internationally. The same research showed that across the board, the companies have enjoyed over 1200% increase in sales or value since they have won Awards.
Based upon these achievements, Consensus can truly claim to be the World’s Most Successful Awards Program. A Consensus Showcase in late November 2015 will profile over 100 CEOs of previous winners. The value of the companies that will be present is in excess of $8 Billion. At the same event, Consensus will be presenting the Consensus Student Innovation Awards, Consensus IT Professional Awards, Consensus IT Writers Awards and the BigData Innovation Awards. For more information please emailcontact@consensus.com.au
Ted Smillie
QESP Chairman