Your search

The challenges currently facing resource managers are large-scale and complex, and demand new approaches to balance development and conservation goals. One approach that shows considerable promise for addressing these challenges is adaptive management, which by now is broadly seen as a natural, intuitive, and potentially effective way to address decision-making in the face of uncertainties. Yet the concept of adaptive management continues to evolve, and its record of success remains limited....

[Context & motivation] Few studies have reported on a systematic use case and requirements analysis of low-tech, low-resource contexts such as rural Africa. This, despite the widespread agreement on the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for social and rural development, and despite the large number of ICT projects targeting underprivileged communities. [Question/problem] Unfamiliarity with the local context and differences in cultural and educational backgrounds...

The Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles are typically referred to as the definitions of "agile" and "agility". However, many other definitions exist in the literature. Thus the different definitions provide interesting source for research. For each definition we examine where their emphasis is and compare that to the emphases found in the Agile Principles.

Online communities provide a wide range of opportunities for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or building open source software. The Art of Community helps you recruit members, motivate them, and manage them as active participants. Author Jono Bacon offers experiences and observations from his 14-year effort to build and manage communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu.Discover how your community can become a reliable support network, a valuable...

Be flexible and faster with Agile project management As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months. Agile Project Management For Dummies can make that happen. This is the first book to provide a simple, step–by–step guide to Agile Project Management approaches, tools, and techniques. With the fast pace of mobile and web technology development, software project development must keep...

Large IT efforts often cost much more than planned; some can put the whole organization in jeopardy. The companies that defy these odds are the ones that master key dimensions that align IT and business value.

New breakthrough thinking in organizational learning, leadership, and change Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. Amy Edmondson shows that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible...

A statement “Prevention is better than cure” for illnesses in medical sciences also applies to the software development life cycle in terms of software defects. A defect is a deviation from actual functionality of the application in terms of the correctness and completeness of the specification of the customer requirements. Defective software fails to meet its customer requirements leading to the development of applications with poor quality. Quality is a top priority in every enterprise...

You know the Agile and Lean development buzzwords, you've read the books. But when systems need a serious overhaul, you need to see how it works in real life, with real situations and people. Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice. Every key point is illustrated with a photo or diagram, and anecdotes bring you inside the project as you discover why and how one organization modernized its workplace in record time.Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice.Find out how...

Graham Room argues that conventional approaches to the conceptualization and measurement of social and economic change are unsatisfactory. As a result, researchers are ill-equipped to offer policy advice. This book offers a new analytical approach, combining complexity science and institutionalism. It also provides tools for policy makers in turbulent times. Part 1 is concerned with the conceptualization of socio-economic change. It integrates complexity science and institutionalism into a...

This working paper looks at the future of policy making in a world of decentralisation and more complex problems. It argues that policy makers need to see themselves less as sitting on top of a delivery chain, but as stewards of systems with multiple actors and decision makers – whose choices will determine how policy is realised. We are keen to open up a debate on what this means.

This is the last in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Diversity and global reach introduce ambiguity to the environment; therefore opportunities and challenges must be appreciated from multiple aspects, not just our own […]

Over the last decade, the field of so-called Agile software development has grown to be a major force in the socio-economic arena of delivering quality software on time, on budget, and on spec. The acceleration in changing needs brought on by the rise in popularity of the Internet has helped push Agile practices far beyond their original boundaries, and possibly into domains where their application is not the optimal solution to the problems at hand. The question of where Agile software...

This is the third in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Our complex environment demands a perspective that goes beyond viewing threats and opportunities as collective; we must see them as interactive. Leading through […]

This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military. It’s the second in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The frenetic pace of our environment, brought on by volatility, […]

This post is part of an HBR Spotlight examining leadership lessons from the military This is the first in a series on the four aspects of VUCA, a framework used by the U.S. military to describe the environment in terms of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Do challenges and opportunities that once took days or […]