Software Testing Under Agile, Scrum, and DevOps

The adoption of agility at a large scale often requires the integration of agile and non-agile development practices into hybrid software development and delivery environment. This chapter addresses software testing related issues for Agile software application development. Currently, the umbrella of Agile methodologies (e.g. Scrum, Extreme Programming, Development and Operations – i.e., DevOps) have become the preferred tools for modern software development. These methodologies emphasize iterative and incremental development, where both the requirements and solutions evolve through the collaboration between cross-functional teams. The success of such practices relies on the quality result of each stage of development, obtained through rigorous testing. This chapter introduces the principles of software testing within the context of Scrum/DevOps based software development lifecycle.

Transformation of The Role and Functions of HR in The Conditions of New Economic Challenges

The article discusses the new roles and functions of HR specialists in the context of the formation of a new economic model. The first part of the article discusses the reasons for the change in the role and status of HR in the company and the emergence of new areas of work with personnel. Among the main reasons for HR transformation, the author highlights: the formation of a new model of the business environment – the transition from the VUCA-world to the BANI world; digitalization and active development of the gig economy, which caused the emergence of new forms of social and labor relations; changing the model of the organization itself – the spread of heterarchical structures and cross-functional teams, changing the paradigm of employee management – orientation towards the concept of human capital management. The second part of the article provides an overview of the new HR functions. HR transformation is associated with the expansion of the field of attention and sphere of influence of HR specialists. Currently, the focus of HR work is shifting to strategic issues, deep immersion in business, due to the liberation from routine. At the same time, the content of traditional HR functions is changing: new HR functions are becoming more focused and technologically advanced, new employee management tools and new positions are emerging (for example, HR-marketer, HR-Ambassador, HR-evangelist, happiness manager, HR-business-travel, specialist in managing remote work of employees, etc.). Currently, there is a «war for talents» all over the world, associated with attracting the most promising, highly qualified and unique employees. In these conditions, it is the personnel management system that becomes a competitive advantage.

Evaluating and Understanding the Reason for an Increase in Nonconformances in the Laboratory

This is a study of nonconformances experienced by a laboratory of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in East Africa. There has been an increase in nonconformances from 216 nonconformances in 2017 to 229 in 2018 and by September 2019, 306 nonconformances were already logged. Increasing nonconformances result in delayed release of tested materials and many resources are wasted (e.g. chemicals, man hours and equipment). Analysts become frustrated, which may result in inexhaustive investigations. Understanding the reason for the increase in nonconformances will enable the facility to derive effective solutions to the identified causes, hence reducing the number of nonconformances and improving the productivity and morale of employees. This quantitative, nonexperimental, longitudinal survey study was intended to evaluate and understand the reason for increasing nonconformances. Trends of the nonconformances, previous investigations, procedure for investigation and the training given to analysts have been reviewed. Laboratory incidences were the most recurring nonconformances; and these were mainly caused by analyst errors. Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPAs) were derived by cross functional teams whenever root causes were identified. Procedure for investigation of nonconformances refers to investigative tools. Identification of root causes to nonconformances recently became mandatory. Analysts have limited advanced industrial training on investigation of nonconformances. Another study should be carried out to understand the cause of analyst errors. The study can be rolled out to other departments at the manufacturing facility to create similar improvements. Analysts should enroll into advanced courses of industrial pharmacy to gain advanced industrial skills which they can apply in investigations to find root causes to nonconformances.

Circular Project Selection: How Companies Can Evaluate Circular Innovation Projects

For a transition toward the circular economy (CE) at the firm level, circular innovations are an essential requirement. Many companies are still hesitant to introduce circular solutions, as their future success chances are difficult to predict. Circular solutions often imply a high uncertainty and complexity because they are designed over multiple life cycles and are strongly interconnected with diverse stakeholders. Therefore, an effective selection process tailored to circular innovation is of great advantage. This study examines circular project selection by investigating selection processes and evaluation criteria for circular innovation management. A qualitative research design was chosen, including 18 in-depth interviews with CE experts and representatives from CE pioneer companies. Findings on the selection process show that circular innovation projects are often embedded in a strategic CE framework decision. Whereas idea generation is usually approached bottom-up involving different stakeholders, project evaluation is rather performed top-down by top management or in cross-functional teams. Furthermore, the study discusses evaluation criteria and their CE implications in detail and structures them into a criteria framework that can be used in multi-criteria decision models. This paper makes a theoretical contribution by connecting innovation and CE literature and by providing new knowledge on the still scarcely explored topic of circular project selection. As practical contribution, the study guides managers on how to approach project selection in circular innovation management and thus supports their development toward a CE.

Impact of Library Activities on Labour Market Outcome

PurposeThis paper investigates the impact of the Learning Resource Centre activities of Westminster International University Tashkent (WIUT) graduated students on the labour market outcome. WIUT library provides a learning environment that helps students create functional teams and individual projects to support employability. The study aims to clarify the relationship between library activities and labour market outcomes. It proposes an employability guide to improve a commercial responsiveness workshop in collaboration with other services and alumni voices.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research approach was employed; an online survey questionnaire was distributed to alumni students to obtain the data. It was a semi-structured questionnaire designed using a Likert Scale to collect data from 607 graduates.FindingsThe study revealed that LRC activities have a significant impact on labour market outcomes for students. LRC activities such as presentation skills, information technology skills, problem-solving skills, research skills were expected mainly by the labour market.Research limitationsThe study was focused only on graduates of WIUT, which may limit the generalizability. Therefore, the researcher proposed to study and compare other graduates of universities in Uzbekistan.Practical implicationsThe insights are valuable for planning the curriculum of LRC activities and developing teaching practices at WIUT. Moreover, current and graduate students can learn market-oriented skills and labour market demands.Originality/valueThis is the first-ever study in Uzbekistan that explores the relationship of university library activities on the employability skills of alumni.

Improving the economic efficiency of oil productionat the “Gazpromneft-Khantos” fields

Aim. As part of a large-scale business transformation, Gazprom Neft is implementing new approaches to improving economic efficiency. One of such approaches is the launch of the “Renovation” project program, the purpose of which is to achieve maximum profitability of the basic well stock. The article describes the results of the study and formation of a set of measures to improve the economic efficiency of oil production at the fields of Gazpromneft-Khantos. Materials and methods. The key feature of “Renovation” is that the goal setting and the formation of key performance indicators of project teams are made not from the previously achieved result, but from the potential. To do this, a detailed technical and economic analysis of the factors affecting the profitability of oil production is first carried out, and the potential for increasing profitability is determined. After that, hypotheses are worked out to increase the economic efficiency of production and a set of measures is formed to realize the identified potential. The cross-functional teams of the “Renovation” program projects are formed around the core-team that includes specialists in geology, development, production, engineering, energy management, economics and IT. This allows teams to solve non-standard tasks in a short time, in a complex way, without attracting external leverage, which is an absolute competitive advantage. Results. The program of optimization measures developed by the cross-functional team of the Renovation project will provide the potential for the growth of the profitability of Gazpromneft-Khantos in the period from 2021 to 2030. Conclusions. The article presents the developed and implemented cases on reducing operating costs in various areas — geology and reservoir engineering, energy efficiency, oil production technologies, downhole operations and hydraulic fracturing, oilfield chemistry.

Impact of WIUT Library activities on labour market outcome

Purpose – This paper investigates the impact of the Learning Resource Centre activities of Westminster International University Tashkent (WIUT) graduated students on the labour market outcome. WIUT library provides a learning environment that helps students create functional teams and individual projects to support employability. The study aims to clarify the relationship between library activities and labour market outcomes. It proposes an employability guide to improve a commercial responsiveness workshop in collaboration with other services and alumni voices.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative research approach was employed; an online survey questionnaire was distributed to alumni students to obtain the data. It was a semi-structured questionnaire designed using a Likert Scale to collect data from 607 graduates.Findings – The study revealed that LRC activities have a significant impact on labour market outcomes for students. LRC activities such as presentation skills, information technology skills, problem-solving skills, research skills were expected mainly by the labour market.Research limitations – The study was focused only on graduates of WIUT, which may limit the generalizability. Therefore, the researcher proposed to study and compare other graduates of universities in Uzbekistan.Practical implications – The insights are valuable for planning the curriculum of LRC activities and developing teaching practices at WIUT. Moreover, current and graduate students can learn market-oriented skills and labour market demands.Originality/value – This is the first-ever study in Uzbekistan that explores the relationship of university library activities on the employability skills of alumni.

Corporate Engineering Center Org. Transformation in Response to New Business Challenges

Objectives/Scope The world is changing rapidly. In order to response to VUCA conditions, we started the business transformation of GPN scientific and technical center (STC) in the mid 2019, and finished shortly after COVID crisis began (in June 2020). Now we can sum up the ultimate effect: Methods, Procedures, Process GPN STC made a long way since 2007 and became a strong corporate engineering center, providing a full range of services from the basin modeling to the integrated modeling. In 2019, we started the transformation from the description of objectives, and for these purpose, the survey of different business branches was performed. After that, we defined the shortcomings of the existing model (which was actually inside the organizational and administrative area), such as: The transformation met all the challenges and made dramatic changes in the area of management and processes: We transformed STC works catalogue to product line and shift from instruments (such as geomodel) to business value (such as exploration strategy, based on geomodel). Now we focus on integrated analytical framework in support of key business decisions, rather than methodsor processes.The above shifting requires new roles and competences, thus we completely rebuild role model and staffing table. We initiated new role of account manager for every internal business customer, that is typically used in service companies, not in-house centers, and here we saw fantastic results and received positive feedback from business. The new role of discipline leader helped to increase speed of team gathering for new projects from average 7 weeks to 3-4 weeks;We removed 2 levels of hierarchy and moved on to "flattened" organizational structure;We initiated the internal business consulting team, responsible for implementation all of the conceptual decisions (which will be a new service for internal business customers in future);The single-contract principle was suggested, and the orders inside of this according to product line were initiated, where account manager is the person, responsible for implementation of this contract;Product transformation was supported by organizational agile transfrormation for cross-functional teams (Mohamed Saeed AlMarar, 2019);And a lot of another important changes (which will be described in final presentation); Results, Observations, Conclusions It is important to highlight again, this deep and ambitious transformation allowed STC to obtain sustainable target indexes/KPIs and business results: Novel/Additive Information We were the first (at least in Russian O&G industry), who shifted the entire corporate engineering center for product model, with focus on business value and now we perform strong operationalization of concept in order to push all changes into real life.

Determinants of project management success: view from an emerging economy

Purpose Achieving project success is the goal of every project. Due to various project requirements, some of the key determinants of project success cannot be met. The purpose of this paper is to understand relying factors that can lead to a successful project that includes project management maturity, decision-making, coordination and knowledge management. Design/methodology/approach A self-administered survey was distributed to 231 project managers in the Malaysian project management community. Analysis using partial least square structural equation modelling was applied in testing the proposed relationship between these latent variables. Findings Finding shows that all the hypotheses were supported and significant. The most impactful factor is project management maturity, followed by knowledge management. Practical implications Implication to the project management industry includes providing autonomy to individuals involved in their expertise and management of efficient cross-functional teams between teams in the project. A systematic knowledge management system through a central repository would contribute to the efficient and flexible distribution of knowledge throughout the project process. Originality/value This study is one of the few studies focussing on determinants of project success in Malaysia.