The Productivity of CNG Sofware Company - Case Study Example

A COMPREHENSIVE REPORT ON A STUDY THAT WAS CONDUCTED REGARDING THE PRODUCTIVITY OF CNG SOFWARE COMPANY: TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 3 INTRODUCTION: 4 Purpose 4 DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES 5 The Measured Elements: 6 Measurement of Productivity: 7 Research design and sampling strategy 7 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: 8 Development of Setting-Specific Concepts of Software Production 9 Identification and Cultivation of Software Productivity Drivers: 9 Development of Symbolic and Qualitative Measures of Software Productivity: 10 Development of Knowledge-Based Systems that can Model Software Production: 11 REFERENCES 11 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This paper presents an overall report on the organizational set-up, and general analysis in terms of operations and productivity of a CNG Software Company. The main objective of this report is to synthesize and discover essential information involving this Software Company so as to persuade the corporate agents to take appropriate actions with regards to the Company’s overall productivity. The main aim is the provision of clear and proper insights on the improvement of the workplace ethics, and service provision. Generally, CNG Software Company is an internet based private limited company that provides online software solutions with a key goal of information technology innovations. This is a Company whereby the off the shelf applications that aid business productivity have been explored to a greater extent but not to the latter. This report also tries to highlight the main guidelines and set-ups that are responsible for this Company’s operations, as well as what the Company should adopt so as to improve on its service delivery in trying to assist in development and implementation of customized software solutions. Various studies on the productivity of software Companies necessitates for extensive data collection before making the final analysis. The diversity and number of most identified variables tend to show clear indication that the aspect of software productivity cannot be easily understood as a proportion of the number of resource code statements that are produced within a specific unit of time. Instead, it was realized that proper understanding of software productivity needs a more logical analysis of various forms of the production measures together with some of their interrelationships. This hence called for a more critical theoretical framework, support tools, and various analytical methods, so as to address all the issues surrounding CNG Company and any other related Software Company. In addressing all these challenges, a number of strategies that should be adopted were formulated. Some of those strategies include the aspect of trying to achieve the best from people, making development stages more efficient and effective, elimination of some development steps, elimination of rework, establishment of simpler products, and recycling of components. These formulated strategies can work towards the development of the Companies processes and activities through value addition to the emerging software mechanism. Most of these strategies have been adopted by various Software Companies. However, there was no clear indication of how these improvement strategies should be gauged so as to ascertain their efficiency and effectiveness. INTRODUCTION: Purpose The major purpose of carrying out this study was to establish a cognitive approach towards the management of the Software Company, with the case study being the CNG Software Company; that provides online software solutions with a key goal of information technology innovations. The study involved various people within the company as well as a number of customers so as to ensure that clear and more appropriate findings were attained. The analysis of such analysis and findings gives room for decision-making and recommendations on the amicable solutions and strategic developments that should be adopted by the Company’s top management so as to improve on the overall management and the level and quality of service delivery. Basically, the findings that were discovered on the study were finally used to come up with clear Company evaluation in terms of its productivity measures. This approach of establishing a knowledge-based productivity in terms of simulation and modeling of this Company’s Software system as described in this report is a radical departure from the conventional approaches towards proper measuring and understanding of software productivity. In this study, the following series of activity schedule were performed so as to establish a good strategy for evaluation of this Company’s utility. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES The overall study on the systems of productivity as well as the levels and forms of management involving CNG Software Company, had to pass through various stages so as to come up with the final results and conclusions. All these stages were critically dwelled upon since they seem inevitable towards each and every study on the productivity of such Software Company. Initiation of comprehensive surveys or comparative case studies within the most recent in-house internet based practices. These studies served a major role of providing the most needed original baseline data regarding software Company products, the processes involved in production, and even the production setting features. The next step was the aspect of cleaning and analysis of the collected data by use of all the available tools and skills that included graphs, charts, among other tools. The main aim of doing this at this point was for the sake of provision of a statement regarding baseline knowledge on the noticeable relationships amongst precise software production variables. Both of these steps tend to correspond to the aspect or element of knowledge acquisition. The subsets of the obtainable software project data-set were then codified through knowledge specification language. This ultimate stage corresponded to the primary identification of the e-knowledge representation and the operational activities of the CNG Company. After this, the results were then demonstrated using the most appropriate computational language and processor. Finally, the software productivity simulation and modeling system was embedded within an advanced environment with the ultimate aim of demonstrating its access, integration and software guidance on LSS establishment and development efforts. The Measured Elements: In this study, the choices on what to generally measure were several and complex. However, it was clear that keeping focus on program result attributes, for instance code or lines, source statements, or even functional segments did not lead to considerable insights on various confounding or contributing impacts of software production setting features and processes of software productivity and vice versa. The previous studies clearly indicated that various LSS product, production setting features and processes collectively and individually impact on software productivity. Based on this survey however, it was realized that some inconsistencies existed in determination of various characteristics influences either decrease or increase in the productivity of this internet based Company. Due to this, an integrated improvement strategy or productivity measurement had to be accountable for the overall features of products, settings and processes so as to delineate the prospective interrelationships. This was very necessary since prediction beforehand that constitutes variables revealed the greatest variance or significance in various computing environments or projects. Similarly, there was an expectation that was structured whereby software products, setting features and processes had to be deliberated by use of a combination of the nominal, ordinal, ratio and interval measures. Measurement of Productivity: Measurement of software productivity in the CNG Company presupposed the ability of constructing a measurement schedule that was comparable to those utilized in experimental designs pertaining behavioral. This was very essential in that the employed measures were reliable, accurate, repeatable and valid in nature. This in turn implied that choices need to be arrived at with regard to the following concerns: Research design and sampling strategy Simply, there are three types of research design choices. These choices include; qualitative case studies, triangulation studies and surveys. Qualitative case studies provided comprehensive descriptive knowledge concerning how internet-based production task occurs, the arising problems and even the exact timelines. Such studies are normally one-time affairs that have very low initiation costs, employs open-ended data collection techniques, requires external analysts, and leads to production of rich, but unnecessarily generalizable findings (Lewis, 2002) Quantitative survey studies on the other hand employed some sort of instrumentation including questionnaire in the process of gathering data in a mode that is well-suited for comprehensive statistical analysis. The sample of the survey had to be carefully and critically defined so as to ensure collection of valid and more reliable statistical results. Unlike qualitative studies the only unclear sense regarding surveys is that they do not normally capture the process phenomena descriptions, hence leading to provision of low-resolution indicators amongst measurable variables. So, this ultimate fact led to massive utilization of qualitative research methodology which had to do with following various commendable steps. For instance, the first step was engulfed with development of a clear and proper data collection instrument (questionnaire). The pilot study test and revision followed suite so as to be sure on modest collection of the desired data set. The data collection schedule and activity was then implemented with the aim of following up some of the non-respondents.  Implement data collection activity and schedule with plans to follow-up on first- and second-round non-respondents. The next action is the process of validation and cleaning up of the collected data before coding them into analytical scales and variables. The selected variables were then applied so as to determine the second order variables, descriptive statistics, as well as factors for variance analysis. This was then followed by the act of selecting apparent significant variables for the purpose of partial correlations, multivariate analysis and the aspect of regression analysis. Finally, the element of formulating the analytical model regarding relationships between factors was done, as well as the formulation of descriptive model of statistical phenomena for substantiation of comprehensive findings and recommendations. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: There is need of a fundamental shift with regard towards understanding of factors that tend to affect the overall productivity of CNG Software Company amongst all the other internet based Companies. Particularly, new effort and techniques should be direly directed towards the development and improvement of knowledge-based software productivity ratio analysis structure that is capable of simulating and modeling of production dynamics involving the CNG Company project in a distinct setting. To develop such a system, it was realized that it is more significant to also come up with project-specific concepts of software development, cultivation of software productivity drivers, and even development of techniques and tools for utilization of qualitative project data (Cusumano & Michael, 2004). Development of Setting-Specific Concepts of Software Production Standard measures, which include lines produced code, tend to represent data that seems relatively easier to collect. However, they can also be of least benefit in informing the main understanding and reasoning for what impacts on, or how to ignite improvement in the productivity of CNG Software Company. Simply, there is lack of articulated theory and perspectives regarding this internet based production Company. This report clearly identifies various factors that could be taken to constitute such a theory. These can be taken to include software products, processes that give increase in the amount and quality of these products, and even the organizational and computational factors that inhibit or facilitate this processes. Clearly, development of such a theoretical perspective is a fundamental research problem, which must be addressed through systematic empirical analysis of modern software development practices and projects. Such a theory can be employed in construction of new hypotheses, measures or models that will account for production of larger software structures in various settings. Similarly, such measures and models can be tuned so as to extensively account for common influence of process, setting characteristics and products that are directly proportional to a given project. In turn, this can lead to simple, experimental, and more effective guidelines of internet based Companies production rates hence giving developers and project managers a basis of information that can be used in improvement of the quality features of their processes, products and settings. Identification and Cultivation of Software Productivity Drivers: In the perceptible rush to the measure of software productivity, various insights that are of fundamental concern tend to emerge. For instance, the reason why some of the developers in the Software Companies are as productive as they maybe regardless of being in presence of various organizational and technical constraints. The fact is that, the possibility for improvement of productivity is not an intrinsic property of a few emerging technologies on software development. Instead, the workforce that is concerned with software development must efficiently and effectively transform and mobilize any form of resources that is available for constructing software products. Software developers should figure out and articulate the possibility for improvement of productivity. Emerging software establishment technologies can properly enhance this articulation. On the other hand, organizational constraints and technological impediments can inhibit or nullify this potential. Thus, a fundamental concern should touch on cultivation and identification of software productivity drivers. Such drivers can manifest themselves as latest alternative organizational, computing resources, or work arrangements (Cusumano & Michael, 2004). Development of Symbolic and Qualitative Measures of Software Productivity: A proper understanding of the way software production have occurred in CNG Software company and many other representative software companies should be enhanced. From this perspective, an initial qualitative process representation can be used to articulate the overall task of software production which incorporates impressionistic and objective data from software development professionals. This data and model can then be used to determine and analyze the nature of quantitative data that should further be collected, as the ultimate basis of evolving and refining the process model. The overall idea in this perspective is to first of all determine what should be measured before beginning the task of data collection. Data that can easily be collected out there, for instance code lines, does not inevitably explain anything regarding how such code lines were initially produced, the tools that were employed, the encountered problems, individuals who wrote the code, among other essential elements. Instead, the most appropriate data can be established by getting in touch with people who are directly concerned with the task of software development since they are in a position of clear understanding of what can work better under some situations, what can boost the company’s productivity, and even what can enhance improvement on their products’. Quantitative data might then be employed in substantiating or refuting the distribution and frequency of the described findings in qualitative terminology. This should subsequently lead to the enhancement of various process models that will be responsible for a developing scope and range of software production process. Development of Knowledge-Based Systems that can Model Software Production: The other factor that should be adopted so as to enhance the productivity of CNG Software Company and other related internet based companies should be the adoption of an integrated approach towards capturing and making of empirically-grounded and explicit perception of software production within a computational model. Such a model should represent a computational structure for capturing, description, and knowledge application on how software establishment projects are operated and managed. The emerging technology on software modeling should be embraced by the CNG Software Company simply because it appears as being well-suited towards supporting the representation, operationalization and acquisition of qualitative knowledge and skills that thrives within a software establishment project. However, any form of software process on engineering environment or even knowledge in engineering system that is capable of simulating, modeling and enacting software products, production settings, production processes and their entire interrelationships should also be employed if growth and development is to be realized in CNG Software Company. REFERENCES Cusumano, Michael A. The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad. New York: Free Press, 2004. Print. Lewis, James P. Fundamentals of Project Management: Developing Core Competencies to Help Outperform the Competition. New York: AMACOM, 2002. Print. Read More