An Integrative and Evidence-based Framework for Business-IT Alignment in Enterprise Software Implementations

Ronald Batenburg Abstract: This proposal will first of all extend the concept of alignment or organizational fit by constructing an integrated framework for enterprise software implementations. Both the resource based view of the firm and path dependency theory will be applied to enhance the modeling of business-IT alignment, and to derive new critical success factors that are suitable for empirical testing. Specifically, the integrative framework specifies propositions and hypothesis to disentangle the often-neglected multi-actor and dynamic dimensions of enterprise software implementations. The empirical validation of the framework and testing of these hypotheses are realized by two complementary types of research. Related publications: Batenburg, R. & J.Versendaal (2004). Business alignment in the CRM Domain: Predicting CRM performance. In: T. Leino, T. Saarinen & S. Klein (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Information Sytems. Turku: Turku School of economics and business Administration (CD-ROM) [ISBN 951 564 192 6]. Batenburg, R. & F.J. Bongers (2001). The role of GSS in participatory policy analysis; A field experiment. Information & Management, 39(1), Pp. 15-30.

Product Software: Development Methodology and Entrepreneurship

Sjaak Brinkkemper Abstract: Several research projects on product software are being performed at the ICS in Utrecht. The Overture project aims at defining the core concepts of software products, and will draft the research agenda in this area. Based on method engineering principles we are constructing situational methods and knowledge infrastructures for the product software industry. The education of ICT entrepreneurship is performed and investigated in the student incubator Netherware (www.netherware.nl). Related publications: Johan Natt och Dag, Vincenzo Gervasi, Sjaak Brinkkemper, and Bjšrn Regnell. A Linguistic Engineering Approach to Large-Scale Requirements Management. IEEE Software, Vol. 22, nr.1, pp. 32-39, January 2005. Sjaak Brinkkemper. Requirements Engineering Research the Industry Is (and Is Not) Waiting For. Invited Anniversary Keynote. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundation of Software Quality, B. Regnell, E. Kamsties, V. Gervasi (Eds.), Series: Essener Informatik Berichte, Volume: 9, pp. 251-264, ISBN 3-922602-91-6, June 2004

Knowledge Entry Maps: structuring method knowledge in the IT industry

Remko W. Helms Abstract: The paper presents a meta-modeling technique for modeling knowledge structures. The technique is called Knowledge Entry Map and supports the design of knowledge repository systems based on topic maps. To validate the technique it has been applied in two case studies in the professional IT industry, a software developer and a service provider. The case studies demonstrate the applicability of the meta-modeling technique for capturing the structure of method knowledge in IT organizations. Related publications: Helms R.W., Brinkkemper S., Oosterum J. van, Nijs F. de. 'Knowledge Entry Maps: structuring of method knowledge in the IT industry. To appear in: Proceedings of European Japanese Conference on Information Modeling and Knowledge Bases from May 16-20 in Tallinn, Estonia, published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2005 Edgington, T., Choi, B., Henson, K., Raghu, T.S., Vinze, A.. Adopting ontology to facilitate knowledge sharing. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 47, No. 11, 2004. Benjamins, V. R., Fensel, D., Gomez Perez, A.. Knowledge Management Through Ontologies. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management (PAKM'98), Basel, Switzerland, 1998.

Deliver: Ease Software Delivery and Deployment Effort by Managing Software Knowledge

Slinger Jansen Abstract: Product software is constantly evolving through extensions, maintenance, changing requirements, changes in configuration settings, and changing licensing information. Managing evolution of released and deployed product software is a complex and often underestimated problem that has been the cause of many difficulties for both software vendors and customers. This paper presents a process model and typology to characterize techniques that support product software update methods. Also, this paper assesses and surveys a variety of existing techniques against the characterization framework and lists unsolved problems related to software product updaters. Related publications: Slinger Jansen and Sjaak Brinkkemper and Gerco Ballintijn. A Process Framework and Typology for Software Product Updaters. European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reuse (CSMR '05). IEEE. 2005. Slinger Jansen, Gerco Ballintijn, Sjaak Brinkkemper and Arco van Nieuwland. Integrated Development and Maintenance of Software Products to Support Efficient Updating of Customer Configurations: A Case Study in Mass Market ERP Software. 2005

Release definition for software intensive systems in a market-driven environment

Johan Versendaal Abstract: Product management workbench to help product managers in determining the scope of an upcoming release. Through linear programming techniques requirement benefits are optimized against development costs. Managerial steering mechanism, like development deadline extension, allow for what-if analysis. Related publications: Marjan van den Akker, Sjaak Brinkkemper, Guido Diepen, Johan Versendaal (2005). Flexible Release Composition using Integer Linear Programming. Technical Report Utrecht University, UU-CS-2004-063.

Business/IT-aligment

Johan Versendaal and Ronald Batenburg Abstract: IT deployement does not necessarily mean that organizations perform better. Through this research we try to explain the success of IT deployment by the degree to which the IT is aligned with the business. Related publications: Batenburg, R.S. and Versendaal, J.M. (2004). Business alignment in the CRM Domain: Predicting CRM performance. In t leino, t saarinen & s klein (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Information Sytems Turku: Turku School of economics and business Administration.

Overture:Defining a Research Agenda for Product Software

Lai Xu Abstract: This poster shows my two main research interests: "product software" and "multi-party business collaboration and contracting". In the Overture project, we try to figure out the core concepts underlying product software development. We do this from the perspective of the research field of software engineering. In other words, we study in particular the engineering of software as a product. In the multi-party business collaboration and contracting field, we discovert how to model multi-party business collaboration? how to apply multi-party contract models into the web service area for the enactment of complex business processes? and how to pre-calculate violation cost for each contractual partner in agent-mediated e-commerce environments? Related publications: Lai Xu and Sjaak Brinkkemper. Concepts of Product Software: Paving the Road for Urgently Needed Research. To be published In: Proceedings of 1st International Workshop on Philosophical Foundations of Information Systems Engineering (PHISE'05) . Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag, 2005. Lai Xu and Manfred A. Jeusfeld. Detecting Violators of Multi-party Contracts. The 12th International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS), 2004. Also in Lecture Notes of Computer Science, Springer-Verlag. Lai Xu and Manfred A. Jeusfeld.Pro-active Monitoring of Electronic Contracts. The 15th Conference On Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2003), 2003. Also in Lecture Notes of Computer Science, Springer-Verlag.