Abstract
Responding to rapid changes in technology sees the need for increased responsiveness and adaptiveness across all areas of a business. Responsiveness and adaptiveness are aligned with the Agile approach to software development, but responsiveness and adaptiveness are far more than being Agile. From the adoption of assembly lines in manufacturing, through just-in-time ordering, and to extended supply changes, businesses have had to pragmatically and practically adjust to changes in technology and operations over an extended period. Revisions and variations to services and operations have encompassed pragmatic and tactical planning, prototyping, staged implementations, trials, lessons learned, workable solutions that evolve, and scaling up as capacities and capabilities allow. The alignment to strategy, allocation of resources, securing funds, knowing what is to be achieved, managing delivery, integration into services, supporting operations, stakeholder engagement, customer engagement, regulatory needs, and working with suppliers all occur within business. These proven practices are still needed as knowledge worker services are transformed. The adaptiveness and responsiveness of knowledge worker operations and the use of Agile software development principles within operations are discussed in this chapter as part of the capacity and capability building of businesses.
knowledge workers to assure service
while
responding and adapting
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Notes
- 1.
Unhelkar, B. (2018). Big Data Strategies for Agile Business. CRC Press, London, 505 pp.
- 2.
IEEE. (2015). “Lessons from a Decade of IT Failures.” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway, NJ (https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/lessons-from-a-decade-of-it-failures last viewed Aug-2019).
- 3.
The intention was never to have SDLC as a drawn-out process, whereby development would not start until all requirements had been gathered and approved with testing not occurring until all development was completed. SDLC was about do we have enough requirements that are prioritised with iterative development and ongoing testing.
- 4.
Cloud-based services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) have made prototyping quicker and cheaper.
- 5.
A schedule does take time and effort to develop and maintain, but a schedule is still necessary within Agile practices.
- 6.
Sherringham, K., and Unhelkar, B. (2016a). “Service Management in Big Data.” Proceedings of the System Design and Process Science (SDPS2016) Conference, 4–6 Dec., 2016, Orlando, FL, USA.
- 7.
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) are for services like texting that link into client systems and interface with the carrier’s systems.
- 8.
Sherringham, K., and Unhelkar, B. (2016b). “Human Capital Capacity and Capability for Big Data.” Proceedings of the System Design and Process Science (SDPS2016) Conference, 4–6 Dec., 2016, Orlando, FL, USA.
- 9.
At least until the next set of budget cuts with the risk to Agile being the same as with SDLC.
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Sherringham, K., Unhelkar, B. (2020). Adaptiveness and Responsiveness Within Knowledge Worker Services. In: Crafting and Shaping Knowledge Worker Services in the Information Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1224-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1224-7_3
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