On September 16, 2005 a number of regional IT Executives and faculty from the University of Akron’s College of Business Administration held the discussion on new programming methodologies. During this session, the focus was on “lightweight” programming methodologies, emphasizing Agile Programming (AP). Topics discussed included:

• How to best make use of consultants when starting an AP trial or program
• How AP can deliver improved estimates for project duration and staffing
• The role of “iteration managers” and Program Management Offices, and how management changes when using AP
• The crucial role of testing and quality assurance people with AP
• How maintenance fits in the AP paradigm
• Other issues regarding AP, “lightweight” methodologies, the influence of Sarbannes-Oaxley, and achieving CMM certification.

The firms that have begun using AP have had positives results so far. While it was agreed that the traditional “waterfall” method works very well for projects with well-known and well-understood specifications, AP is a highly promising technique to deal with the necessity of changing specifications in a dynamic business climate.

IT Recruiting and Retention

On November 4, 2005, a number of regional IT Executives and faculty from the University of Akron’s College of Business Administration held the discussion on IT Recruiting and Retention. Firms who now wish to recruit IT personnel face many challenges, including: how to evaluate the skills and compatibility of prospective employees, where to find them, and what role the HR department should play in evaluating technical people. Many firms focus on hiring long-term employees while using contractors to plug holes or for short-term work, but younger employees may not be interested in careers in one place while many in the “baby boom” generation are retiring, taking their skills (including ability to work on legacy systems) with them. Replacing employees who leave can be more expensive. Globalization makes remote teams the norm, facilitating telecommuting, but eliminating any good meeting times. Firms enhance the work experience with extras such inexpensive day care, a laundry delivery service, flextime as possible, etc. Together all of these approaches constitute a strategy that emphasizes, to less or more degree, concern for productivity and the individual, and length of employment. The IT Exchange discussed details about these issues in the context of a framework that evaluates various HR/IT strategies.

Emerging Technologies

On January 27, 2006 a number of regional IT Executives and faculty from the University of Akron’s College of Business Administration held the discussion on Emerging Technologies. With the speed, complexity, variety, and sheer volume of new technologies that appear every year, firms use a variety of techniques to track what is happening. Communities of practice dedicated to following certain technology areas and rotation of developers through R&D roles may help develop a culture that embraces innovation. While IT should have the expertise to lead the business side to new technologies, evaluate how they fit into the existing infrastructure, and help develop business cases for them, the business side should provide the actual justification (be it ROI or not), for their use. Firms should be ready to pull the plug on pilot projects that are not working out. Among the list of new technologies discussed was Service Oriented Architecture, which can involve reuse of internally created objects and use of objects created by others, including major vendors such as SAP and Oracle.

To read the entire paper (http://cite.uakron.edu).