Energizing Collaborative Industry-Academia Learning: A Present Case and Future Visions
AbstractIn Industry-Academia Collaborations (IAC) both academic, scientific research results and industrial practitioner findings and experiences are produced. Both types of knowledge should be gathered, codified, and disseminated efficiently and effectively. This paper investigates a recent (2014–2017) large-scale IAC R&D&I program case (Need for Speed, N4S) from a learning perspective. It was one of the programs in the Finnish SHOK (Strategic Centres of Science, Technology, and Innovation) system. The theoretical bases are in innovation management, knowledge management, and higher education (university) pedagogy. In the future, IAC projects should be more and more commonplace sinc…
Exploring Virtual Reality as an Integrated Development Environment for Cyber-Physical Systems
Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) development approaches tend to start from the physical (hardware) perspective, and the software is the final element in the process. However, this approach is unfit for the more software-intensive world that is increasingly iterative, connected, and constantly online. Many constraints prevent the application of iterative, incremental, and agile development methodologies, which now are the norm for many other fields of software. Time-consuming system validation can only start when both hardware and software components are ready, which implies that the software delivery and quality is almost always the final bottleneck in the CPS development and integration. Also …
Towards a Secure DevOps Approach for Cyber-Physical Systems
With the expansion of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) across critical and regulated industries, systems must be continuously updated to remain resilient. At the same time, they should be extremely secure and safe to operate and use. The DevOps approach caters to business demands of more speed and smartness in production, but it is extremely challenging to implement DevOps due to the complexity of critical CPSs and requirements from regulatory authorities. In this study, expert opinions from 33 European companies expose the gap in the current state of practice on DevOps-oriented continuous development and maintenance. The study contributes to research and practice by identifying a set of needs…
Amidst Uncertainty–or Not? : Decision-Making in Early-Stage Software Startups
It is commonly claimed that the initial stages of any startup business are dominated by continuous, extended uncertainty, in an environment that has even been described as chaotic. Consequently, decisions are made in uncertain circumstances, so making the right decision is crucial to successful business. However, little currently exists in the way of empirical studies into this supposed uncertainty. In this paper, we study decision-making in early-stage software startups by means of a single, in-depth case study. Based on our data, we argue that software startups do not work in a chaotic environment, nor are they characterized by unique uncertainty unlike that experienced by other firms. pe…
Learnings from the Finnish Game Industry
The motivation behind our research was the rapid growth and business wins of world-class Finnish game companies, like Supercell, as well as the success of other game companies in Finland. In particular, Supercell's growth is something that has not been heard of before and this raised the interest to research what game companies have been doing right. Supercell is not the only Finnish success. Rovio is also well known and has the roots for success from few years before. There are also other game companies in Finland that have succeeded and this motivated us to investigate what is happening behind the game industry and what could be learned from there that could be applied to other software i…
Agile Enterprise Transformations : Surveying the Many Facets of Agility for the Hybrid Era
Agile companies are not uniform. Consequently, agile transformations are conceived broadly, ranging from adopting agile methods and practices in software development teams or functions to building all-encompassing enterprise agility. Moreover, the targeted effects of agility may vary, and the success of transformations and the attainment of agility are measured in various ways. In this paper, based on a recent industrial survey study, we scrutinize holistically why companies want to transform, what types of agility they are aiming at, and how they gauge transformations. The survey data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Most of the respondents were in large or very large co…