This study considers the product development process for a start‐up that relies on equity‐based incentives to motivate effort by vendors who are hired to contribute to the development process. We ...study how the organizational structure of the start‐up affects the choice between sequential and concurrent development using a two‐task model, in which both tasks must be completed for the start‐up to earn revenue. We study several organizational structures, which differ in terms of task allocation, including centralized development, joint development, and decentralized development with one or two vendors. In the joint development and decentralized structures, the vendors must determine the amount of effort to exert on each task, where the probability that the task can be completed is increasing in effort. In exchange for effort, each vendor is offered a percentage of the revenue earned by the start‐up upon completion of the project. The start‐up must determine whether the tasks should be performed concurrently or sequentially, as well as the incentive rate to offer the vendors. We find that organizational structure plays a major role in determining the optimal development strategy. In a centralized setting, where both tasks are performed in‐house, the sequential development strategy is preferred. However, in a decentralized setting, where a single vendor performs both tasks, the opposite may occur. This is due, in part, to the inefficiency caused by the vendor's forward‐looking behavior under sequential development. This same result does not occur in a decentralized setting with two vendors or in the joint development setting.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Shortening project duration is critical to product development project success in many industries. As a primary driver of progress and an effective management tool, resource allocation among ...development activities can strongly influence project duration. Effective allocation is difficult due to the inherent closed loop flow of development work and the dynamic demand patterns of work backlogs. The Resource Allocation Policy Matrix is proposed as a means of describing resource allocation policies in dynamic systems. Simple system dynamics and control theoretic models of resource allocation in a product development context are developed. The control theory model is used to specify a foresighted policy, which is tested with the system dynamics model. The benefits of foresight are found to reduce with increasing complexity. Process concurrence is found to potentially reverse the impact of foresight on project duration. The model structure is used to explain these results and future research topics are discussed.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
This paper proposes a software testing support system with the hardware failure simulation functions. In recent years, the high integration of the semiconductor device is advanced by the development ...of a smartphone and the tablet device. By such reason, a CD-SEM which is a semiconductor device tester using an electron beam needs high precisely and functionality. Software and concurrent development of the hardware are adopted to promote development of CD-SEM. However, a development delay of the software have been becoming big issue. One of the factors is that software test environment of large-scale software comprised of plural computers is insufficient. The software test support system was developed. It has the Real-time OS simulator and a hardware simulator which worked in a virtual machine. Furthermore, a hardware failure simulator is included in the system to make a hardware error stochastically. Herewith, the system works to prevent losing test case that a software engineer does not notice. At first, this article shows a software test support system using a hardware failure simulator. Then, it shows a result that applied the system to software development of CD-SEM.
This paper proposes an approach to concurrent feedback development method in the software development of automotive systems. The automotive software is increasing its size and complexity. Therefore, ...it has become more difficult to ensure quality. At the same time, automobile manufacturers demand to shorten the development time. Conventionally, we developed the software in the two phases of "prototype development for developing requirements significations" and "product software development based on the requirements specifications". In this article, we propose the concurrent feedback development method using the prototype in the specification development. The proposed concurrent feedback loop model consists of three patterns of feedback loop to evolve the product concurrently. We demonstrated a reduction of the development time and improved the internal quality of the product in our automotive system development.
Successfully implementing concurrent development has proven difficult for many organizations. However, many theories addressing concurrent development treat either technical aspects of the ...development process (e.g., precedence relationships) or behavioral issues (e.g., creating effective cross-functional teams), but not their linkages. We argue that much of the complexity of concurrent development—and the implementation failures that plague many organizations—arises from interactions between the technical and behavioral dimensions. We use a dynamic project model that explicitly represents these interactions to investigate how a “Liar's Club”—concealing known rework requirements from managers and colleagues—can aggravate the “90% syndrome,” a common form of schedule failure, and disproportionately degrade schedule performance and project quality. We discuss the role of the incentives on and behavior of engineers and managers in concurrent development failure and explore policies to improve project performance.
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Successfully implementing concurrent development to reduce cycle time has proven difficult due to unanticipated iterations. We develop a dynamic project model that explicitly models these ...interactions to investigate the causes of the “90% syndrome,” a common form of schedule failure in concurrent development. We find that increasing concurrence and common managerial responses to schedule pressure aggravate the syndrome and degrade schedule performance and project quality. We show how understanding of and policies to avoid the 90% syndrome require integration of the technical attributes of the project, the flows of information among participants, and the behavioral decision-making heuristics participants use to respond to unanticipated problems and perturbations.
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We study the problem of optimally allocating effort between software construction and debugging. As construction proceeds, new errors are introduced into the system. The objective is to deliver a ...system of the highest possible quality (fewest number of errors) subject to the constraint that N system modules are constructed in a specified duration T . If errors are not corrected during construction, then further construction can produce errors at a faster rate. To curb the growth of errors, some of the effort must be taken away from construction and assigned to testing and debugging. A key finding of this model is that the practice of alternating between pure construction and pure debugging is suboptimal. Instead, it is desirable to concurrently construct and debug the system. We extend the above model to integrate decisions traditionally considered "external" such as the time to release the product to the market with those that are typically treated as "internal" such as the division of effort between construction and debugging. Results show that integrating these decisions can yield significant reduction in the overall cost. Also, when competitive forces are strong, it may be better to release a product early (with more errors) than late (with fewer errors). Thus, underestimating the cost of errors in the product may be better than overestimating the cost.
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BFBNIB, CEKLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In recent years concurrent, overlapping development activities of engineering tasks have proved to be a cost-effective and time-efficient way to build products geared toward meeting the demands of a ...competitive and quality-conscious market. In this study, we examine the structure and dynamics of a software project in information technology industrial research and development that has this methodology as its foundation. We first describe a number of software engineering aspects of the project that elucidate how various development activities in its concurrently unfolding component projects are overlapped and integrated to gradually build the product over time. Using the mathematical tools of dynamic systems analysis, we next derive a number of results that characterize the long-term, stable behavior of the project. These results are then used in a numerical simulation to illustrate a procedure by which relevant resources can be distributed across the components in a way that maintains continued stability of the project over time. Our modeling approach is flexible enough to allow the theoretical results and the simulation techniques to be easily generalized to study, in real time, the stability, maintenance, and management of similar concurrent projects. The usefulness of the method lies in motivating and refining managerial decisions that drive overlapping development activities of such projects.
Adopting the framework of a multicomponent, distributed outsourced project in information technology research and development, the present paper introduces a quantitative model of the asymptotic ...stability of development output in the outsourced project components. Empirical production functions are employed to formulate stochastic distributions of the parameters in the model. Observational data from actual industrial projects are compared with prediction results from Monte Carlo simulations of the underlying project dynamics to determine the span of the linear regime of development progress. Simulation-based analysis further provides domain maps of parameter stability. These are valuable tools for project managers and management practitioners to control and sustain the long-term evolution of the project. The points of departure from linearity as well as some of their probable causes are also indicated and discussed.
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