Week 14_Ramasubbu, Bharadwaj, and Tayi (2015)_Yaeeun Kim

Normally, novelty and flexibility is perceived valuable due to its predicted positive influence on outcome. This article pinpointed the area of software process and reported the drivers, which can increase software process diversity. The software process is varied in plan-based and agile-process approaches at the firm. First, the authors conceptualized the degree of fit (or match) between a projects’ software process diversity and the level of process compliance by conducting focus group meetings and interviews. Next, in the second stage, they tested using empirical data from 410 large commercial software projects of a multinational firm.

The findings suggest that higher level of requirements volatility, design and technological novelty, and customer involvement increase software process diversity within a project. As expected, on the other hand, software process diversity decreased relative to increase in the level of process compliance to the firm’s process standards, enforced on the project. The attributes to increase diversity is reversely correlated with the level of process compliance. Overall, a higher degree of fit between the process diversity and process compliance of a project, which are largely associated with each other, are again correlated with a high level of project performance, based on project productivity and software quality. Boundary effect was found. The results was significant only when there is an increase in organizational process compliance efforts.

For the managerial implication, it is highly recommended to the project designers to suggest an appropriate fit between process diversity and process compliance for improving software project performance. The novel part of this study compared to the previous literature is the authors differentiate the level of process maturity organizations and the conflicting effect of process diversity and compliance efforts. In my opinion, weighing the fit between process diversity and process compliance is highly dependent on the project organizations.

The variety dimension of diversity was measured using the Blau’s index. Process compliance, team size, and team experience were in a reversely related to the effect on process diversity.