Purpose of this assignment is to get a glimpse

Assignment Help Management Theories

Reference no: EM133613430

Question: In order to benefit from economy of scale, one has to reduce the variety of tools used. This is particularly important in a distributed environment where, without common tools, collaboration is difficult. The purpose of this assignment is to get a glimpse at the complexities of tool selection, so then to be able to plan and timebox this activity.

The first step in the convergence effort is to determine which tools are being used in your organization. Suppose you have the results of a survey in front of you. At the bottom of this document (and in the supplied EXCEL file) is a table with names of twenty-two tools. Note that in a real organization such table is much longer and can extend into hundreds of various tools. You need to organize these tools into eleven affinities. You might not know all tools, but you surely need to know categories of tools. To this end, please do the following,

1) Define each category. Consider a subtle (or not so subtle) difference discussed in the class between Processes and Tools. Complete the table below. Starting with the first category, define the basic process for doc control and then define the key feature of an example of a corresponding tool.

DOC CONTROL. Process........ Key Feature of a Tool.....

SOURCE MANAGEMENT. Process ...... Key Feature of a Tool.....

PEER REVIEWS. Process........ Key Feature of a Tool.....

DEFECT TRACKING. Process ...... Key Feature of a Tool.....

SYSTEM TEST. Process........ Key Feature of a Tool.....

REQUIREMENTS. Process ...... Key Feature of a Tool.....

GENERATIVE CHATBOT. Process ..... Key Feature of a Tool.....

VIRTUAL MEETINGS. Process........ Key Feature of a Tool.....

HOSTING PLATFORM Process........ Key Feature of a Tool.....

UNIT TEST. Process ...... Key Feature of a Tool.....

STATIC ANALYSIS. Process ...... Key Feature of a Tool.....

2) Complete the given table by check marking the relevant category for each tool. For example, Bugzilla could be marked for "Defect Tracking" and Documentum could be marked for "Doc Control."

The next logical step (which is outside of the scope of this assignment) is selecting a single tool to satisfy the needs of the whole category and then discouraging folks from using other tools within the same category. When categorizing tools, you might find the following notes useful.

It is always a good idea to start by researching categories, rather than researching tools. Because the number of tools is much greater than the number of categories.
Avoid some obvious mistake of placing a tool into the wrong category, e.g., placing WebEx into "Code Control" is a mistake. A tool could belong to several categories. For the purpose of this assignment, select the best possible fit and mark it with RED check mark. You can also select the second and the third best fit and mark those with BLUE check marks.
Drilling down into the detail features of each tool is unnecessary at this initial step.
Names of tools and companies could be misleading. VersionOne has nothing to do with Doc Control. In fact, the company called "Version 1" has nothing to do with the tool called "VersionOne."
Companies, along with their products are being acquired quite frequently. This commonly results in a name change. For example, in May 2015, Rally Software was acquired by CA (Computer Associates). The official product name was subsequently changed from "Rally" to "CA Agile Central." In 2011, HP Quality Center was renamed into ALM (Application Lifecycle Manager). Note that old names are being used along with new names interchangeably.
Make sure you distinguish a company (e.g., CollabNet) from a tool (e.g., TeamForge).
When reading about a tool, attempt to see through the marketing smoke and mirrors. For example, an ad for a lifecycle management tool that is capable of doing absolutely everything - is an overstatement and is not helpful for selecting a category of a tool.
Tools belonging to the same category are expected to compete with each other, while tools from different categories would never compete.

Reference no: EM133613430

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