Case Analysis of Omega Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Case Analysis of Omega - Essay Example As a result the bottom line corporate profits suffered in relation to a more efficiently structured performance management system. The measures that follow constitute an in-depth analysis of the steps that were taken to develop a more efficient performance management system, as well as a recommendation on the means by which Omega, Inc. can continue to move towards a more efficient model. The performance management system at the Omega corporation began with a training program designed to coach the sales professionals to a level of proficiency The individual subsidiaries then agreed and collaborated on the development of a performance management and evaluation system. The first step in the initiation of this system was to develop a thorough job description of the sale’s position and distribute it to the sale’s professionals at all the subsidiary branches. Furthermore, a mission statement was developed about the corporate aims and the intended goals of the sales professionals and distributed in the same manner as the job descriptions. The mission statement was also included prominently among the sale’s offices and meetings were held were subsidiary managers informed the sales professionals about the mission statement and company goals. In addition to these measures, formal performance management steps were taken to institute a performance evaluatio n program. Specific performance goals were set for each employee. The sales professionals were also required to attend thorough training sessions. During the training course the sales professionals received feedback about their performance. Feedback mechanisms were also instituted on the job as managers continued to inform the sales professionals of their performance. While these methods were a step ahead of the past method, they ultimately were unsuccessful as the sales professionals had no means of keeping track of their own

Distinct varieties of masculinity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Distinct varieties of masculinity - Essay Example ne, by concurring or differing with different scholars; the conclusion, entailing a summery outline of the main points discussed and a stand on the things discussed and how masculinity manifest. In gender studies, feminist theories concern the discrimination of women by men because of womanhood feminists opine that men suit themselves by controlling sex; women get denied personal choice and exploited on labor issues. The feminists believe that the discrimination curtails women rights and seek to see the situation changed. (Piper 2009) Masculinity refers to masculine which denote something related to a male who include men and boys. (Piper 2011) defines masculinity as an expression to serve and not to be served expressing a sacrifice for the woman, which requires giving direction and having a final say. While looking at the distinct values of masculinity arises from the comparison of feminist and masculinity where feminist seek for equality between men and women, but some things constitute for womanhood and others manhood. The essay below discusses the comparison of the two in regard to distinct variety of masculinity. Distinct varieties of masculinity To begin with thoughts and experiences of men, they help in understanding gender in terms of the masculine variables, as opposed to feminist. (Rotundo, p. 106) argues that women beauty lured men from their known pleasure and secure culture to following women. Therefore, opining that gender gets socially construed with masculine thoughts and behaviors arising from social and cultural processes. The scholar opines that the new complex culture, give rise to the conception of self made manhood. (Rotundo, p. 80 ) Explains the boy’s culture, which prepared boys, for rough and competitive world of politics and business, also the youth culture characterized by debating clubs, where they learned new skills and how to compete in socially acceptable ways. Similarly, (Rotundo, p 86) expresses the idea of masculinity by

Total Quality Management Essay Example for Free

Total Quality Management Essay INTRODUCTION The level of risk and uncertainties in operation of contemporary business requires that managers of businesses come up with unique decision-making that will bring about strategies, which their rivals would find difficult to imitate. This will position them in a vintage point of curving a niche over their competitors. Information technology is a useful tool that enhances the modeling process for business organization; which ensure effective decision making process. Business intelligence tool in recent times have greatly assisted business organizations in fashioning out effective strategies that would position their organizations i9n meeting their objectives and goals by adequately utilizing its resources to cope with the environment they operate in. an organization need to carry out a vibrant, pragmatic and effective strategy for it to adequately compete in an industry with high dynamic level of ways of conducting business, and high level of uncertainties and risks. Thus, to have that strategy that would give the organization a niche over its rivals, business intelligence tools are used by reorganization in supporting their strategic planning and strategic management. According to Vriens (2004), Due to the increasing complexity and dynamics of the environment the need to produce relevant ‘actionable’ intelligence is increasing as well. Because, of, for instance, increased global competition, (speed and impact of) political changes, and rapid technological developments. With the rapid changes and stiff competition the selection of the right business intelligent tool would go along way in bringing about effective strategic management which result in total quality management. CONCEPTUALIZATION OF TERMS Quality: According to Dale (2003: 4), the term  Ã‚  Ã‚   quality has no universally accepted definition. But it is usually associated with distinguishing one organization product, service, event, person, result, action or communication from another. â€Å"Internationally definition of quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements.† â€Å"It is also defined as that which gives complete consumers satisfaction.†Ã‚   (Bert Dearborn Ltd, cited in Dale 2003) USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS BASIS FOR TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION TQM entails the delivery of quality in every process of organizational operations. Through information technology tools, which comprises of business intelligence tools, adequate planning is ensured, which result in quality delivery. Business Intelligence tools, such as data mining, data warehousing, OLAP etc, support an organization in its strategic management plans. This, they do by providing the organization with the necessary data in which its strategic plans are based upon. Effective strategic management, which entails immediate strategic planning and long-term forecast plans, has to depend on the availability of vital information for it to adequately meet the organization’s objectives and goals. This information needed to support the strategic management of an organization is derived from the database provided by different business intelligence tools. Database derived from business intelligence tools, such as Data Mining (DM), forms the bases on which strategic management information are derived for planning for an organization. According to Thearling (1995), Database marketing supports a variety of business processes. It involves transforming a database into business decisions. For building a new catalog for a retailing business, the historical database of customers would be utilized; this will include information on their location, zip code, sex, age etc. database marketing software would use this information to build a model of customer behavior that would generate a mailing list of customers most likely to respond to a new catalog. The catalog built, would enable the marketing organization to strategize in line with the information derived from the data mining process. This goes to show that data mining business intelligence tool is a supporting tool for strategic planning and not a solution-proffering tool for business problem (ibid). The importance of generating vital information for effective decision making through the aid of business intelligence tool, is further buttressed by Vriens (2004), To (re-) formulate their strategy; organizations need to collect and process information about their environment- about, for instance, competitors, customers, suppliers, governments, technological trends or ecological developments. FOUR STAGES OF TQM THAT IS OPERATED THROUGH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN AN ORGANIZATION The aim of TQM in an organization is to bring about perfection in the processes of an organization. This perfection leads to qualitative service delivery, which results in the satisfaction of clients needs. There are four stages in the implementation of Total quality Management (TQM) for an organization. Information technology plays significant roles in the effective and efficient accomplishment of these four TQM stages. The four identified stages to a successful implementation of TQM in an organisation include: The diagnostic phase: under this phase the organisations seek to find out those ways and pattern it would operate in order to bring about the delivery of quality service to its customers. In TQM diagnostic stage, it is mostly focus in analytical thinking. Its strength is in developing simple problem-solving algorithms that can be easily disseminated for mass use. Its Diagnostic methods are based on linear- cause-and-effect relationships. This makes TQM most effective in dealing with physical properties and the types of problems that can be isolated. The Diagnostic phase involves the setting out of questions that is vital in brining about a positive turn around in the quality state of products or services to the consumer. Diagnostic methods of TQM are based on linear- cause-and-effect relationships. This makes TQM most effective in dealing with physical properties and the types of problems that can be isolated. The diagnostic phase in TQM has to with raising questions about those functional part of the organisation activity, that is not well carried out. Thus, solutions on how these observed problem are prescribed the planning stage of TQM has to do with the drawing out of ways in which the diagnosed problem and intended functions for improvement, how they would be carried out.Diagnostic methods of TQM are based on linear- cause-and-effect relationships. This makes TQM most effective in dealing with physical properties and the types of problems that can be isolated. In this stage of TQM implementation those fundamental question can be diagnosed through business intelligent information tools, such as data mining, data warehousing. These business intelligient tools provide the data on which diagnoses could be applied on for effective planning. â€Å"Careful planning and goal setting during the diagnostic stage can overcome many of the problems of evaluation and institutionalization, especially where TQM is in place. Diagnostic information can be obtained from observations, questionnaires, interviews, and records. This stands as a major source of deriving a useful tool in analyzing and seeing those sphere of the organizational activities where quality performance can be improved upon. Thus, vital questions are raised in this effect†. (Jamshid 2005). Under this phase, decisions are made on those alternative that best suit the situation at hand. Also, decision on who should operate the different functions in the organization is decided upon and which material option is preferred to the other and that should be adopted. The importance of the diagnostic stage of TQM is that it is used in identifying problems and solving problems. Thus, it is very vital in the process of an organisation’s TQM implementation. The next stage is the Planning stage in the TQM implementation. Planning consists of strategic planning and developing more short-term detailed plans. Thus, in the TQM planning stage, this involves a strategic plan on which course to take in implementing the company’s TQM, to make it a successful venture. Furthermore, according to Thomas (1995), TQM must be built into other systems, particularly those involving planning and rewards. Leaders should expect a long-term process, including a transition period. They will need to be persistent, using constant reinforcement, for example, through continuous training. Cohen and Brand suggest that TQM should eventually be made an invisible part of the organization, permeating all areas and the responsibility of everyone. In the view of Nurre (2005), in the planning stage, managers make decisions concerning which alternatives should be selected. Financial information is often a vital component of this decision-making. Once the alternatives have been selected, detailed planning is possible. These detailed plans are usually stated in the form of budgets. The control function of management is aided by performance reports that compare actual performance to the budget. This feedback mechanism directs attention to activities where managerial attention is needed. That data presented by information technology tools gives the decision maker the choice to make the right by choosing the most feasible and productive alternative. The strategy preparation stage has to do with the identification and solving of quality issues by involving all management and supervision in a proper scheme of training and communication. Here, the organisation is oriented along the organisation’s move to bring about top quality in all its services, targets are set and these information are further relayed to subordinates to keep them abreast with the organisation strategy. The role of information technology comes to play in the area of information dissemination to top-level managers who are to partake in the implementation of the organization strategy on TQM. In addition, suggestions from the senior workers are welcome in drawing the strategy on which the organisation seeks to operate. This is also derived by the proper utilization of information technology tools. TQM strategy preparation requires systematic changes in management practice, including the redesign of work, the redefinition of managerial roles, the redesign of organizational structures, the learning of new skills by employees at all levels, and the reorientation of organizational goals. These make all the organizational functions to be directed at bringing out the best quality as outcome in every stage of the organizational activities.   â€Å"The strategy is based as the systems concepts and structured around the business processes of an organization. Such an approach makes the entire system documentation user-friendly and therefore easily implementable and upgradeable, in response to changing needs.† (Nandi, 2005). TQM’s strategy preparation stage, thus requires systematic changes in management practice, including the redesign of work, the redefinition of managerial roles, the redesign of organizational structures, the learning of new skills by employees at all levels, and the reorientation of organizational goals. It becomes very important in the TQM implementation because it gets the organization ready for the proper implementation of the TQM. Thus, this leads to the organization success. The implementation stage is the carrying out of service or giving customer the quality product to meet their needs as they envisage it. Under this stage, everybody including the supplier and consumer are linked in the quality chain of the TQM of the organisation. Current approaches to total quality implementation initially, when managers do TQ they tend to utilize exemplars specific to, and introduce bundles of activities primarily from, one mindset Many managers measure the success of their TQ implementation programmes in terms of increases in systems predictability, reductions in waste or system leakage, and improvements in system outputs per unit of input (Ibid). In this stage, there is the need to rely always on a control measure as a way of checking and preventing the TQM strategy from derailing and missing its target. Thus, statistical data need to be taken to see the satisfaction of clients from time to time. This information is derived from business intelligent tools. CONCLUSION The contribution of information technology to an organization strategic process is of great importance when such organization which to embrace total quality management. Through basic business intelligence tools like Data mining, Data warehousing, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), Queries etc. the vital information needed for effective strategic planning is derived from databases. Also, these tools give the organization the medium of transmitting its information across the organization. Data mining brings about those hidden information unknown to an organization to utilize this for its advantage, while Data warehouse through its software collate those redundant data in the organization’s database and formulate a database useful for its planning process. The utilization of business intelligence tools requires that it is structured to suit the organization’s problem. Hence, it requires that a great understanding of an organization is known to the experts and practitioners of these business intelligence tools for it to be effective in aiding the organization in strategic drives in meeting its objectives and long term goals. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chopoorian, John A. et al (2001), Mind Your Business by Mining Your Data in SAM Advanced Management Journal Vol. 66, No. 2 Dale, B. (Ed.) (2003), Managing Quality 4th edition. Blackwell. Oxford. Drucker, Peter (1969), The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society, New York: Harper and Row. Flynn, B.B. Flynne, E. J. (1996), â€Å"Achieving Simultaneous Cost and Differentiation Competitive Advantage through Continuous Improvement: World Class manufacturing as a Competitive Strategy† in Journal of Managerial Issues. Vol. 8, No. 3 Jamshid Gharajedagi, (2005) â€Å" Making TQM work for America: The interactive design approach† http://www.interactdesign.com/tqm.html (3/ 09/ 2005) Jayamalini, G. (1999) â€Å"An Overview of TQM in Libraries† Documentation Research and Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute January 6-8. Morris, Foster (1994), â€Å"Regenerating Your TQM Effort: What to Do When It Runs out of Steam† in   The TQM Magazine, Vol. 06 Issue 4 Nandi,S.N. (2005) â€Å"TQM, benchmarking and Sips Division† http://www.npcindia.org/tqm.htm (4/09/2005) Nurre, Rosemary (2005), â€Å"Introduction to management accounting† http://smccd.net/accounts/nurre/online/chtr1.html   (4/11/05) Peter, J. Dowling, et al (2005), Strategic Management: Competition and Globalization (2nd Pacific Rim Edition) Porter, E. Michael (1985), Competitive Advantage: creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York Ringland, Gill (1998), Scenario Planning: Managing For the Future. London: John Wiley Sons Limited Ross, J.E. (1999), Total Quality Management: Text, cases and readings. Florida: St. Lucie Press, Boca Raton. Sims, Ronald R. (2002), Organizational Success through Effective Human Resources Management. Westport, CT: Quorum Books Thearling, Kurt (1995), From Data Mining to Database Marketing DIG White Paper. October http://www.thearling.com/text/wp9502/wp9502.htm (29/09/06) Thomas, Packard, D.S.W (1995), â€Å"TQM And Organizational Change And Development† in Total Quality Management in the Social Services: Theory and Practice. Burton Gummer and Philip McCallion, Eds., Albany, NY: Rockefeller College Press. Vriens, Dirk (2004), The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Competitive Intelligence University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands www.bi-kring.nl/bi-kring/community/partners/contentlev/abk/01chap.pdf (29/09

Requirements Engineering and the Agile Approach

Requirements Engineering and the Agile Approach Yangqing Lu   Ã‚   With the evolution of Project Management (PM) methodology, Requirements Engineering (PE) has experienced huge change, especially when Agile is adopted by projects increasingly. However, no matter how the PM approach develops, the importance of PE is unshakable. Based on the Qualitative Research Approach, three articles has been viewed to introduce requirements issues regarding requirement elicitation,   consensus, prioritization, user story. In the first article, the author introduced concepts of traditional RE and some changes in Agile approach.   The second article demonstrates criteria of how to build qualified user stories. Ten requirement prioritization methods are compared in the third paper. These three articles are sound fundamentals for readers to gain basic skill for requirement management. Requirements Engineering and Agile Software Development This article discusses the difference and similarities between traditional Requirements Engineering (RE) and agile approaches. RE is a process comprising Requirements Elicitation, Requirements Analysis, Requirements Documentation, Requirements Validation, and Requirements Management. RE have a high dependency on documents for communications and the manner of prediction of future needs often leads to over documentation. (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003) During Requirements Elicitation, approaches concerning the closed or open interviews of stakeholders, use cases and scenarios, observation and social analysis, focus group, brainstorming, and prototyping are often conducted during the period of the Requirement Elicitations. Based on this phase, in phase Requirements Analysis, information gathered is checked prioritized regarding necessity, consensus, completeness, consistency, and feasibility. Requirements are discussed by stakeholders and developers before write them down in requirement documents which are verified to be acceptable to organizational standards and organizational knowledge. (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003) By contrast, the Agile approach is preparing to cater to continuous requirement changing and close collaboration so much that it has been adjusted to deliver upgraded products frequently. The mission of Agile determines that it cannot precisely follow the standards of RE. In fact, Agile never prepare to include a formal RE process: people cannot clearly separate a phase regarding Requirements Elicitation or Requirements Analysis from Agile process. Whereas, most RM methodologies are embedded into the Agile process: such as elicitation methods concerning interviews, brainstorming, and prioritization are also adopted in Planning Game a phase designed in Extreme Programming(XP). (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003) It is highlighted that requirement document is both essential for RE and Agile. However, Agile, as the lazy approach, do only the right thing by eliciting, analyzing, validating, and documenting only when needed (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003). Improving Agile requirements: the Quality User Story framework and tool This article introduces the concept of User Story and thirteen items of criteria towards creating Quality User Stories (QUS). Basing on the introduction, a software tool called Automatic Quality User Story Artisan (AQUSA) is introduced and its function has been assessed too. According to (Lucassen, G., Dalpiaz, F., van der Werf, Jan Martijn, E. M., Brinkkemper, S., 2016), User stories are a concise notation for expressing requirements that are increasingly employed n agile requirements engineering and in agile development. As explanations of requirements, user stories are used to discuss ideas with stakeholders and also act as criteria for acceptance. A user story should be able to state who it is for, what it does, and optionally why does that. Thus, an accepted user story format is As a, , I want , [so that, some reason/end]. Whereas in Scrum a specific Agile pattern, Epic and Themes also involved into user story design with the former one identifies a list of smaller, implementable user stories and the later one defines a set of user stories who are in the same criterion such as authorization. To qualify a user story, thirteen criteria are separated into three categories regarding Syntactic, Semantic, and Pragmatic. Those standards are used to guideline the creation of user stories and aim to make user stories clearly defined, focus on a single feature, able to be estimated, etc. The article also gives out a table of ill-defined user stories to explain what regulation is broken. Such as I want to see an error when I cannot see recommendations after I upload an article, this user story breaks the law of well-formed since the role is missing in the story. (Lucassen, G., Dalpiaz, F., van der Werf, Jan Martijn, E. M., Brinkkemper, S., 2016) User stories inside a specific user story set must be unique without confliction (no similar stories can exist in one set, the scope of work items must be consistent), uniform (most stories in the set use same format), independent (stories must not rely on the implementation of another case), and complete (a story cannot use an undefined term without reference. the undefined term or dependency should be stated in terms of relationship). (Lucassen, G., Dalpiaz, F., van der Werf, Jan Martijn, E. M., Brinkkemper, S., 2016) Both those 13 single-user-story criteria and four user-story-set criteria are guideline for agile project engineer to follow when they want to create agile requirements in high quality. Comparison of Requirement Prioritization Techniques to Find Best Prioritization Technique This article introduces ten techniques for requirement prioritization and compares them to find the best method. Some methods are using grouping approach by assign requirements with different group level then those requirements in the same group will be in the same priority. One of the famous grouping methodologies is Museum of Soviet Calculators on the Web (MoScoW) who provides four prioritization groups concerning MUST have, SHOULD have, COULD have, and WONT have. Based on the research result demonstrated in this article, grouping approaches feature low effort, low difficulty, consistent, and high confidence from the users. Especially, MoScoW can help to handle a large number of changes. (Javed, A. K., Rehman, I. U., Yawar, H. K., Iftikhar, J. K., Rashid, S., 2015) Bubble Sort, Minimal Spanning Tree, and Binary Search Tree provide methods for sorting requirements into a requirements list from the most important requirement down to the least important one. When these approaches are adopted, stakeholders and software engineers should be able to compare requirements pair by pair then adjust the location of their importance one by one until all requirement have been put into the correct position. The sorting approach needs the most number of decisions although this method is easy to use. (Javed, A. K., Rehman, I. U., Yawar, H. K., Iftikhar, J. K., Rashid, S., 2015) Hundred Dollar Method and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) are typical methods using ratio to identify priorities of requirements. During these processes, stakeholders should either balance importance among several requirements or mark out between requirements to what extent one is important than the other. AHP is considered to be the most reliable approach for its fault tolerance, consistency, ratio feature. However, to get the final results, AHP needs the most effort regarding decision making and time-consuming. (Javed, A. K., Rehman, I. U., Yawar, H. K., Iftikhar, J. K., Rashid, S., 2015) Requirements are the baseline for specific IT product or service since they define what the product/service is, regulate development scope, provide background for discussion and negotiation between stakeholders and project engineers, and most importantly, act as a guideline for newly hired engineers to understand the product/service. Thus, requirements management are essential for all kind of IT project. To elicit requirements, interview, brainstorming, and observation is often adopted. While to reach consensus, negotiation and team-decision are often valuable to be considered. (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003) However, Traditional RE approaches cannot fulfill the current project management approaches. With more and more project adopt Agile methodology, engineers use user stories to replace traditional requirement document, and the way they elicit requirement has also changed: they document what exactly needed only when needed; more collaborations are involved whenever they need, but they only discuss what are needed; traditional requirements tend to explain what customer need or want while user story focuses on interaction between role and object user to machine, user to user, machine to user, machine to machine. (Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F., 2003) Since user stories are as important as traditional requirement document, the quality of user stories become equally important. To define high qualifies user stories, a set of guideline consisting of 13 criteria concerning syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic are required to adopt. (Lucassen, G., Dalpiaz, F., van der Werf, Jan Martijn, E. M., Brinkkemper, S., 2016) Before start iterations or springs, choosing specific requirements or user stories out of the whole repository on the basis of requirement prioritization technology is a must. To mark priority of each requirement or just sort them in order, the customers must make most of the decisions such as a case is a must or just what they want. Project engineers also need to estimate time effort and provide to what extent they think the estimation is accurate or not (risk aspect). Sometimes, stakeholders are asked to group these requirements (grouping requirements) or to vote 100 dollars to several requirements(buy requirements).   Some prioritization methods are easy to use and reasonably accurate (MoScoW) while some are the most reliable but very difficult to use regarding (AHP). (Javed, A. K., Rehman, I. U., Yawar, H. K., Iftikhar, J. K., Rashid, S., 2015) Requirements: conditions or capabilities that must be met by the project or present in the product, service, or result to satisfy an agreement or other formally imposed specification Requirements engineering (RE): is a traditional software engineering process with the goal to identify, analyze, document and validate requirements for the system to be developed. Requirements Prioritization: to deliver the most valuable feathers as early as possible under a tight schedule, limited resources, and high customer expectations, the customer should decide which requirements are more urgent than others to be implemented. Javed, A. K., Rehman, I. U., Yawar, H. K., Iftikhar, J. K., Rashid, S. (2015). Comparison of requirement prioritization techniques to find best prioritization technique. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science,7(11), 53-59. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2015.11.06 Abstract: This paper describes an assessment of different requirement prioritization techniques (binary search tree, AHP, hierarchy AHP, spanning tree matrix, priority group/Numerical Analysis, bubble sort, MoSoW, simple ranking and Planning Game) on the basis of previous literature. Five research papers and thesis are critically reviewed, in order to select best requirement prioritization method. The study of literature shows that AHP is the best requirements prioritization technique amongst all the requirements prioritization techniques. It provides the most efficient and reliable results which are on ratio scale. It is fault- tolerant and provides a consistency check. Lucassen, G., Dalpiaz, F., van der Werf, Jan Martijn, E. M., Brinkkemper, S. (2016). Improving agile requirements: The quality user story framework and tool. Requirements Engineering. 21(3), 383-403. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-016-0250-x Abstract: User stories are a widely adopted requirements notation in agile development. Yet, user stories are too often poorly written in practice and exhibit inherent quality defects. Triggered by this observation, we propose the Quality User Story (QUS) framework, a set of 13 quality criteria that user story writers should strive to conform to. Based on QUS, we present the Automatic Quality User Story Artisan (AQUSA) software tool. Relying on natural language processing (NLP) techniques, AQUSA detects quality defects and suggest possible remedies. We describe the architecture of AQUSA, its implementation, and we report on an evaluation that analyzes 1023 user stories obtained from 18 software companies. Our tool does not yet reach the ambitious 100 % recall that Daniel Berry and colleagues require NLP tools for RE to achieve. However, we obtain promising results and we identify some improvements that will substantially improve recall and precision. Paetsch F., Eberlein A., Maurer F. (2003). Requirements engineering and agile software development. International workshop on enabling technologies: infrastructure for collaborative enterprises,IEEE.308-313. doi: 10.1109/ENABL.2003.1231428 Abstract: This article compares traditional requirements engineering approaches and agile software development. Our paper analyzes commonalities and differences of both approaches and determines possible ways how agile software development can benefit from requirements engineering methods.

Martin Luther Reformation Essay -- essays research papers

Martin Luther: Reformer Martin Luther was born in Eisieben, Germany, on November 10,1483, St. Martin’s Day. He was the son of Has Luther, a coal miner, and Margarethe. Martin’s parents were of the middle class and were unbending in their disciplinary acts. He attended the best schools in his region but all of them held to the barbaric discipline system of the times. This had a big impact on Martin’s personality. But he did receive some positive influence from his home environment. His parents were very pious people and brought him up to be one too. His parents also gave him a strong sense of superstition. At the age of 14 Luther went to grammar school at Magdeburg. There he got attracted to the Church and particularly the Lollards. Then in 1498 he moved to Eisenach and came in contact with a warmer church life than he was use too. He also made some important friends here including Fran Ursula Cotta. He really started going into the Church works when he attended the University at Erfurt. He was a very diligent student and quickly rose through the academic ranks. Meanwhile his father upon hearing of his son’s achievements had great hopes for him. Luther was preparing to be a lawyer to some prince or town after he received his degree in philosophy. But halfway through his training he decided to quit and take up life permanently in an Augustine monastery.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historians speculate on why such a successful young man would want to join the monastery. Historians believe a string of events led Luther to choose the path of the Church. Being superstitious, Luther might have thought that this was god trying to get him to join the monastery. Luther made hid decision to go into the monastery during a thunderstorm. A bolt of lightening hit just a few feet away from him and threw him up into the air. He saw this as an act of god and joined the monastery. Later he and his father would look back and wonder whether it was God or the devil.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  His methods of teaching were a bit unorthodox but had a natural talent for speaking to the masses that listen to him. He often used vulgar language in his classes and had liberal ideas that he preached. His vulgarity came from a few things. First of all he was constipated and often talked about it in class. He rel... ...ed that Catholic services be followed. It also outlawed the practice of Lutheran services in all the Catholic States. The angered many of the Lutheran princes and nobles and said they would Protest this unfair decree. From this Protest came the term Protestant, or a person who protests against the Catholic Church. Charles V never seriously enforced the edict and allowed the Lutheran countries to continue their reforms. A group of Protestant Princes and Cities came together and formed the Schmalkaldic League named after they city in which the first meeting of their league was held. Also in 1530 another diet was called and the Lutheran princes decided to put their complaints in writing so they sent a scholar named Philipp Melanchuthon to what was called the Augsburg Confession. The Augsberg Confession was the systematic statement of the Lutheran belief. The Confession was written as uncontroversial as possible. Charles handed the Confession to a team of theologians to analyze and t heir report stated that the Church did indeed have some problems. Charles said that he would help correct the problems of the Church and that he hoped the Protestants would rejoin the Church. They did not.

Free College Essays - The Optimists Daughter :: The Optimists Daughter

The Optimist's Daughter  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     The major characters in The Optimist's Daughter are Judge McKelva, Becky Mckelva, Laurel Mckelva, Wanda Fay, Dr. Courtland, Miss Adele Courtland, Tish Bullock, Major Bullock, Miss Tennyson, and Miss Missouri. Becky Mckelva was Judge Mckelva's wife before she died and had Laurel Mckelva with him. Wanda Fay remarried Judge Mckelva after his wife's death. Dr. Courtland did surgery on Becky Mckelva and the final operation on Judge Mckelva. Miss Adele Courtland is the sister of Dr. Courtland and is a bride's maid to Laurel McKelva. Tish Bullock is also a bride's maid to Laurel and is the daughter of Miss Tennyson and Major Bullock. Miss Tennyson is another bride's maid to Laurel McKelva and is married to Major Bullock. Miss Missouri is the maid to the McKelva's and a long time friend of the family.   3.1 Two main characters in The Optimist's Daughter are Wanda Fay and Laurel McKelva. Wanda Fay is a woman in her 40's and has the maturity of a child. Whenever she becomes mad, Fay starts to scream, point fingers, and search out people who will help her. She can not stand up and fight for herself, instead Fay uses tactics to make her opponent feel sorry or inferior. This makes her extremely hard to get along with since she is always demanding and never giving. Laurel McKelva is the complete opposite of Wanda Fay. She is kind hearted, nice, caring, and intelligent. Laurel has a air of maturity and understanding around her due to her experiences in life. 3.3 In "The Optimist's Daughter" Judge McKelva will soon enter eye surgery to fix a slipped retina. Judge McKelva, his daughter, Laurel, and his new wife, Fay, are all anxious about the surgery and what might happen. Laurels mother died from cancer that started with her eyes and the family fears that the judge might be suffering from the same illness. The surgery symbolizes a fear that is contained by the three main characters and is a form of foreshadowing. As mentioned by Laurel several times, she fears that her father might not make it out of the operation and die, like her mother, blind and confused. I predict that Judge McKelva will not make it through the surgery or he will die shortly afterwards. With such a sudden death, Laurel and Fay will not have time to say good-bye to him and this will lead to complications later in the book.

How Literacy Skills Can Help You Achieve a Personal Goal or Accomplishment

My literacy skills helped me achieve a personal goal which is to work as a computer engineer for a multinational information technology organization like Hewlett Packard, Dell, Microsoft etc., One has to be fluent in English and technically competent in order to get through the interview and also to succeed at work. English is needed in every aspect of today’s modern world to communicate with people at work irrespective of their origin. Since my teenage I wanted to become a computer engineer and work for multinational organization which not only pays well but also will have the opportunity to travel abroad. I am from a middle class Indian family where bearing the costs of studying from an English medium school is hard and yet my parents helped me study in English medium school.I studied English medium during all my schooling which helped me develop my literacy skills. I started learning computers since my 10th grade. . This was the time of mid 1995 when the computer classes we re first introduced in my school in India and I was one of the member of the first batches that was offered the basics of computer and little bit of programming. This was the beginning and I was getting interested to learn more about computers. We also had to take up a exam at the end of the course to prove our competency in the subject though it was not part of the 10th grade board exam.I scored 83 out of 100 which gave me confidence that I can succeed in this field of study. From there on during my 11th and 12th grade I took computer science as my specialization and also completed Bachelor’s Degree in computer science. After my graduation it was time to look for my dream job but consulting with friends, family and seniors in college I realized that the degree that I earned is not just enough to get my dream job and due to my interest in Hardware and Networking I immediately joined specialization course in computer hardware and networking which is a rigorous training for one year in a private institute to equip myself with the right skills and be competent to face the job interviews.While pursuing the course, I got a job from a small local computer hardware firm which I only worked for couple of days and quit as I was not able to continue the course. Immediately after completing specialization in computer hardware and networking I started looking for my dream job. I initially started attending  job interviews of non multinational organizations to understand the interview process and also to know my weaknesses so that I could improve myself.The interview process usually includes four rounds, first round is the written test which comprises of aptitude test, English grammar, computer hardware and computer networking, second round is a group discussion or communication round where a topic will be given and we will need to effectively discuss about the topic with proper tone and confidence, third round is a technical round where I will have to face an int erview with computer hardware expert and final round will be with human resources personnel who will talk about the joining process and company policies and procedures if selected for the job.After attending a few interviews for different organizations and not able to succeed through the interviews, I worked on my weakness and was able to finally obtain a job in a multinational information technology organization Hewlett Packard in India as a Technical Support Engineer with the help of my literacy skills and technical competency. It was August 11 2003, 9 pm when all the interview process was completed and confirmed that I got through the interview and secured a job. That was the proudest and happiest moment in my life which was so sweet. My family also was so proud of me about my achievement.As I started working for Hewlett Packard I never looked back. I had to go through training process for another couple of months on Hewlett Packard products and also soft skills on how to talk to customers on phone. My job included communicating with the United States customers of Hewlett Packard and help them fix any issues with the Hewlett Packard products. With the skills I obtained academically and professionally I was able to succeed in the job which helped not only me to grow but also my family. After 2 years to further improve my literacy skills I pursued Master’s Degree in computer applications from a distance education university in India while I was working. This further enhanced my competency and helped me secure a much better position at work.Thus my literacy skills helped me get my dream job in a multinational organization which not only helped me grow personally and professionally but also my family grow economically. This is a dream come true.