The digital infrastructure literature provides important perspectives on the intrinsic relations between information systems in today's organisations. However, little attention has been paid to the challenges involved in providing requisite digital infrastructure services to organisations. In this paper, we argue digital infrastructure service providers operate in highly complex and uncertain environments. Rather than adopting a traditional approach to control, providers must therefore continuously negotiate a balance between control and drift as two complementary strategies. Our argument is based on a retrospective longitudinal case study of a Swedish infrastructure service team within a large international firm. Using the encounter-episode process model as structuring principle and focusing on the tension between control and drift, we analyse the evolution of the provider's efforts to manage a portfolio of digital infrastructure services over a period of ten years. Based on these analyses, we uncover the involved complexities and dynamics, how control efforts and drift were constituted and how the infrastructure services were managed by continuously balancing control and drift. In conclusion, we relate the findings to extant literature to discuss new insights into provider management of digital infrastructure services.

Current studies on User eXperience (UX) integration often do not investigate or reflect on the transition companies go through from only developing Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) to also considering usability and more recently UX. Understanding this transition provides a more holistic and realistic picture of integration and can be a rich source of knowledge for improving UX integration in the software industry. Applying case study and grounded theory research we show that UX integration, like other organizational changes, can include a mixture of planned and emergent initiatives, and is influenced by various intertwined events; not only those that reside inside an organization but also those external to it. We also show that different decisions that are made outside the authority of UX practitioners have an inevitable impact on enabling or prohibiting UX integration. In addition, we found that for a successful integration, practitioners need to explicitly consider and address the characteristics of UX, otherwise, the integration efforts may have a lopsided focus on the pragmatic aspect of UX, consequently, leave the hedonic aspect unaddressed. Based on our findings, we present four lessons learned and five pitfalls companies should consider to go beyond GUI design and usability to also address UX. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc.

In the last decades, agile methods had a huge impact on how software is developed. In many cases, this has led to significant benefits, such as quality and speed of software deliveries to customers. However, safety-critical systems have widely been dismissed from benefiting from agile methods. Products that include safety critical aspects are therefore faced with a situation in which the development of safety-critical parts can significantly limit the potential speed-up through agile methods, for the full product, but also in the non-safety critical parts. For such products, the ability to develop safety-critical software in an agile way will generate a competitive advantage. In order to enable future research in this important area, we present in this paper a mapping of the current state of practice based on a mixed method approach. Starting from a workshop with experts from six large Swedish product development companies we develop a lens for our analysis. We then present a systematic mapping study on safety-critical systems and agile development through this lens in order to map potential benefits, challenges, and solution candidates for guiding future research.

User eXperience (UX) is a key factor in the success of software systems. Many software companies face challenges in their work with UX. Existing research does not analyze UX practices and challenges in relation to other software quality characteristics or, in particular, in relation to usability. A better understanding of these challenges can help researchers and practitioners better address them in the future. In this empirical study, we have interviewed 17 practitioners with different backgrounds and occupations from eight software development companies. Their responses are coded, and analyzed with thematic analysis. We report eight themes of challenges that practitioners face in their work with UX. While some of these challenges partly overlap with those reported in existing literature about usability or other software quality characteristics, the participants of our study either view many of the challenges as unique to UX, or more severe in the case of UX. Although at a superficial level challenges of UX and other quality characteristics overlap, we differentiate these challenges at a deeper level through the five main characteristics of UX: subjective, holistic, dynamic, context-dependent and worthwhile. In particular, we identified that these characteristics have at least 20 implications (i.e. additional difficulties) for day-to-day work of practitioners. We found that 11 of these implications have been previously reported in literature. However, to the best of our knowledge, the remaining nine implications are unique to our study. These implications can explain why practitioners perceive the challenges to be more severe than for other quality characteristics. Most importantly, they can explain the industry’s lopsided focus on the pragmatic aspect of UX. Our findings can be useful for researchers in identifying new and industry-relevant research areas and for practitioners to learn from empirically investigated challenges in UX work, and base their improvement efforts on such knowledge. Identifying and investigating the overlaps underlines the importance of these challenges, and can also help finding research areas not only for enhancing UX work but also software quality in general. It also makes it easier for practitioners to spot, better understand as well as find mitigation strategies for UX, through learning from past experiences and developments in the area of software quality.

Agile development practices, such as continuous integration and continuous delivery, promise value through shorter time to market and increased exibility. While these practices have been widely adopted in small-scale, they have shown to be challenging to adopt in large-scale, system development. This is often due to a distance between customer and developer in large scale systems, and the need to break down value from the whole system into manageable parts. The notion of value is fundamental for agile methods, especially for practices such as continuous delivery to the customer. However, how value should be handled in development practices is not clearly understood. In this paper, we investigate how the notion of adding value in every sprint has been perceived in a large-scale system development. Based on an exploratory qualitative case study, the outcome shows that it is perceived beneficial by practitioners although it comes at a price and challenges exist.

Although integrating UX practices into software development processes is a type of Software Process Improvement (SPI) activity, this has not yet been taken into account in UX publications. In this study, we approach UX integration in a software development company in Sweden from a SPI perspective. Following the guidelines in SPI literature, we performed a retrospective meeting at the company to reflect on their decade of SPI activities for enhancing UX integration. The aim of the meeting was to reflect on, learn from, and coordinate various activities spanned across various organizational units and projects. We therefore supported the meeting by a pre- generated timeline of the main activities in the organization that is different from common project retrospective meetings in SPI. This approach is a refinement of a similar approach that is used in Agile projects, and is shown to improve effectiveness of, and decrease memory bias. We hypothesized that this method can be useful in the context of UX integration, and in this broader scope. To evaluate the method we gathered practitioners' view through a questionnaire. The findings showed our hypothesis to be plausible. Here, we present that UX integration research and practice can benefit from the SPI body of knowledge; We also show that such cross-section evidence-based timeline retrospective meetings are useful for UX integration, and in a larger scale than one project, especially for identifying and reflecting on 'organizational issues'. This approach also provides a cross- section longitudinal overview of the SPI activities that cannot easily be gained in other common SPI learning approaches.

We performed a retrospective meeting at a case company to reflect on its decade of Software Process Improvement (SPI) activities for enhancing UX integration. We supported the meeting by a pre-generated timeline of the main activities. This approach is a refinement of a similar approach that is used in Agile projects to improve effectiveness and decrease memory bias of retrospective meetings. The method is evaluated through gathering practitioners' view using a questionnaire. We conclude that UX research and practice can benefit from the SPI body of knowledge. We also argue that a cross-section evidence-based timeline retrospective meeting is useful for enhancing UX work in companies, especially for identifying and reflecting on `organizational issues'. This approach also provides a cross-section longitudinal overview of the SPI activities that cannot easily be gained in other common SPI learning approaches.

Many software companies face challenges in their work with User eXperience (UX) and how to integrate UX practices into existing development processes. A better understanding of these challenges can help researchers and practitioners better address them. Existing research does not analyse UX challenges in relation to other software quality characteristics including usability. In this empirical study, we have interviewed 17 practitioners from eight software development companies. Their responses are coded and analysed with thematic analysis. We report 11 challenges that practitioners face in their work with UX. Some of these challenges partly overlap with those reported in existing literature about usability or software quality characteristics. In contrast to these overlaps, the participants of our study either view many of the challenges unique to UX, or more severe than for usability or other quality characteristics. Although at a superficial level challenges with UX and other quality characteristics overlap, we differentiate these challenges at a deeper level through two main aspects of UX: subjectivity and emergent nature. In particular, we identify at least five issues that are essential to the very nature of UX, and add at least seven extra difficulties to the work of practitioners. These difficulties can explain why practitioners perceive the challenges to be more severe than for other quality characteristics. Our findings can be useful for researchers in identifying industrially relevant research areas and for practitioners to learn from empirically investigated challenges and base their improvement efforts on such knowledge. Investigating the overlaps can help finding research areas not only for enhancing practice of UX but also software quality in general. It also makes it easier for practitioners to spot, better understand as well as find mitigation strategies for UX challenges.

User eXperience (UX) is becoming increasingly important for success of software products. Yet, many companies still face various challenges in their work with UX. Part of these challenges relate to inadequate knowledge and awareness of UX and that current UX models are commonly not practical nor well integrated into existing Software Engineering (SE) models and concepts. Therefore, we present a conceptual UX-aware model of requirements for software development practitioners. This layered model shows the interrelation between UX and functional and quality requirements. The model is developed based on current models of UX and software quality characteristics. Through the model we highlight the main differences between various requirement types in particular essentially subjective and accidentally subjective quality requirements. We also present the result of an initial validation of the model through interviews with 12 practitioners and researchers. Our results show that the model can raise practitioners' knowledge and awareness of UX in particular in relation to requirement and testing activities. It can also facilitate UX-related communication among stakeholders with different backgrounds.

Digitalization of society has increased its pace during the last decade. With the introduction of modern technologies (e.g. smartphones) the amount and types of information has increased bringing in both new opportunities and new challenges. In this paper we review the main opportunities and challenges stemming from the heavy use of digital technologies in society. We outline the needs for applying SSE principles and cross-disciplinary research for adequately addressing the challenges of digitalized society. Our position is that without taking a social view for system development and cross-disciplinary research we can only address partial problems related to the digitalization and that by integrating domain-specific disciplines (e.g. financing) with the technology related ones (e.g. software engineering) we could develop holistic solutions for the challenges identified in this paper.

In a day and age when contemporary businesses are transformed, driven by a service-dominance logic and dependent upon IT, we need to understand how...

Continuous integration promises advantages in large-scale software development by enabling software development organizations to deliver new functions faster. However, implementing continuous integration in large software development organizations is challenging because of organizational, social and technical reasons. One of the technical challenges is the ability to rapidly prioritize the test cases which can be executed quickly and trigger the most failures as early as possible. In our research we propose and evaluate a method for selecting a suitable set of functional regression tests on system level. The method is based on analysis of correlations between test-case failures and source code changes and is evaluated by combining semi-structured interviews and workshops with practitioners at Ericsson and Axis Communications in Sweden. The results show that using measures of precision and recall, the test cases can be prioritized. The prioritization leads to finding an optimal test suite to execute before the integration.

In this article, we report from a 22-months long action research study in which we evaluate the usefulness of a set of software development tools in an industrial setting, a small software company. We focus on how developers in the industry use and adopt these tools, what expectations they have on them, how the tools can be improved, and how the adoption process itself can be improved. We describe these change processes from a methodological perspective, how we monitored the processes, how we reviewed the outcomes, and the strategies that we applied. We show how the processes evolved, intermediate results, and the steps that were taken along the way based on the outcomes. We believe that the described study may inspire other tool-developers and/or researchers to organize similar studies to further our understanding of the complex processes involved in the adoption of software development tools in industry.

The user's overall experience and perception of functionalities and qualities of a product, User eXperience (UX), is becoming increasingly important for success of software products. Yet, many software companies face challenges with their UX practices, hence fail to achieve a good UX in their products. Part of these challenges are rooted in inadequate knowledge and awareness about UX but also in that UX models are commonly not well integrated with existing software engineering (SE) models and concepts. Therefore, we present two SE-specific models of UX for practitioners: (i) a layered model that shows the relation between functional, quality, and UX requirements, and (ii) a general, UX-aware software process overview model that shows the additional concepts and activities that can help achieve a good UX. Validation of the models in interviews with 12 practitioners and researchers generally found the models useful for practice; for instance to raise knowledge and awareness about UX, improve communications regarding UX and facilitating making UX-aware decisions in the development process. In total, we identified six different areas of use for the models.

While efficient testing arrangements are the key for software companies that are striving for continuous integration, most companies struggle with arranging these highly complex and interconnected testing activities. There is often a lack of an adequate overview of companies' end-to-end testing activities, which tend to lead to problems such as double work, slow feedback loops, too many issues found during post-development, disconnected organizations, and unpredictable release schedules. We report from a multiple-case study in which we explore current testing arrangements at five different software development sites. The outcome of the study is a visualization technique of the testing activities involved from unit and component level to product and release level that support the identification of improvement areas. This model for visualizing the end-to-end testing activities for a system has been used to visualize these five cases and has been validated empirically.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe registered nurses' (RNs') ways of working and their views on what competence they require, make use of and wish to develop when caring for older people at residential facilities.Design/methodology/approachThe participants comprised 23 RNs, trained after 1993 and working at seven residential facilities. The data collection consists of group interviews during spring 2009. The group interviews were subjected to content analysis.FindingsThree main categories and six sub‐categories were identified. The findings show that the majority of RNs work in a consultative way although they are responsible for basic care as well as advanced nursing care. They must rely on the staff's competence. They compare the residential facilities to a “mini‐hospital” and they are often frustrated by the staff's incompetence. Attitudes to research findings and to the use of evidence‐based knowledge were limited.Research limitations/implicationsRNs require extensive theoretical, technical and medical knowledge as well as knowledge related to persons with dementia conditions and psychiatric disorders and how to lead, teach and supervise.Practical implicationsSocial and professional isolation influences competence development and working situation and the differences in leadership influence the quality of nursing care. RNs do not critically reflect on what knowledge they require and make use of and how to search for scientific knowledge and this will have a negative influence on the attitude to the competence.Originality/valueThere is a need of extensive and varied knowledge in evidence‐based nursing as well as in leadership and teaching to be able to work independently.

Contemporary organizations are increasingly dependent on information infrastructures to deliver their services. However, information infrastructures are highly complex and dynamic, which lead to co ...

PurposeThe purpose of the research project was to study aspects of the competence of age care managers, and how they develop their leadership in residential facilities.Design/methodology/approachThe participants comprised 13 age care managers (ACMs) from 13 different residential facilities. Ten of the residential facilities were located in a large municipality and three in small municipalities. On average they had 19 years of experience of caring for old people. The ages of the respondents varied from 40 to 63 years. Individual, semi‐structured interviews were chosen. The data were subjected to content analysis. Two main categories and six subcategories were generated.FindingsThe ACMs had different educational backgrounds and very few had university courses in management, implying an insufficient theoretical knowledge of leadership. There are several ways of learning leadership, for example model learning, collective learning, learning by experience and through theoretical education. Model learning is the dominant form. By being present ACMs create relationships; they check the quality of social and health care, as well as the behaviour of the staff towards residents, relatives and colleagues, which seems to be valuable in order to avoid conflicts.Research limitations/implicationsThe strength of the study is that the participants come from different workplaces, small and large municipalities and residential facilities. They have long experience of working as a leader and have a variety of professional backgrounds. Thirteen ACMs is not that many, but as they differ in professional background, education and workplace, the amount of data was considered sufficient. Some of the ACMs have difficulties in expressing how they learn leadership, because the “knowhow” is sometimes problematic to describe in words.Practical implicationsTheoretical education was mentioned as crucial for learning leadership.Originality/valueACMs' interest in competence development is weak. They seem to be more interested in motivating and inspiring their staff's learning process than their own.

Context awareness forms a core concern in ubiquitous computing and goes hand in hand with today’s extensive use of sensor technologies. This paper focuses on the use of sensors as part of remote diagnostic systems (RDS) in industrial organizations. The study shows that the process of desituating context, that is, capturing context and transferring it to another context, is critical for the successful use of the technology. The processes of capturing and transferring context are explored in industrial maintenance work through interviews with suppliers and users of RDS. To successfully manage the desituation of context, industrial organizations must find strategies of creating and managing a center of calculation, a center where the captured contexts meet and merge. To enable the long-distance control of the equipment, all data must be compiled into one manageable view without losing the specifics of the local contexts. The data collection must be designed with this in mind. Moreover, to bridge the gap between the digital and the physical world created by the new way of organizing the maintenance work, a new kind of maintenance network must be formed, one in which local technicians’ practices are reconfigured and instituted.