Consultancy

This paper outlines a Continuous Service Improvement(CSI) Framework designed to assist the Service Center operated by Tata Consultancy Services for a client organization, a worldwide leader in software, services, and solutions. The CSI Framework was designed to improve the service levels provided to the client. The requirements of the Service Operation Center were studied and a framework which dovetailed models and frameworks spanning across various domains was developed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Service Center. The Framework incorporates Stakeholder analysis Model, Interpretive Structural Model(ISM), Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), Six Sigma Framework, Fukuda's Structure for Enhancing daily Activity through Creativity (SEDAC) and Policy Objective (PO) matrix. The emphasis of this framework is to provide a design which will ensure a systemic way of capturing service improvement objectives, prioritizing them, addressing them through an appropriate process ensuring service levels are adhered to and sustaining the operation by tracking its progress. The Framework has been implemented and the initial results are encouraging.

The application of agile practices for requirements prioritization in distributed and outsourced projects is a relatively recent trend. Hence, not all of its facets are well-understood. This exploratory study sets out to uncover the concepts that practitioners in a large software organization use in the prioritization process and the practices that they deem good. We seek to provide a rich analysis and a deep understanding of three cases in an exploratory study that was carried out in a large and mature company, widely recognized for its excellence and its engagement in outsourced software development. We used in-depth interviews for data collection and grounded theory techniques for data analysis. Our exploration efforts yielded the following findings: (i) understanding requirements dependencies is of paramount importance for the successful deployment of agile approaches in large outsourced projects. (ii) Next to business value, the most important prioritization criterion in the setting of outsourced large agile projects is risk. (iii) The software organization has developed a new artefact that seems to be a worthwhile contribution to agile software development in the large: 'delivery stories', which complement user stories with technical implications, effort estimation and associated risk. The delivery stories play a pivotal role in requirements prioritization. (iv) The vendor's domain knowledge is a key asset for setting up successful client-developer collaboration. (v) The use of agile prioritization practices depends on the type of project outsourcing arrangement. Our findings contribute to the empirical software engineering literature by bringing a rich analysis of cases in agile and distributed contexts, from a vendor's perspective. We also discuss the possible implications of the results for research and in practice.