quality assurance

Intelligences

Tutorial: Ethnography for Project Risk Analysis and Quality Assurance

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Ethnography for Project Risk Analysis and Quality Assurance
Instructor: PATRICIA ENSWORTH, Harborlight Management Services LLC & New York University Learn the core vocabulary, concepts, and methods of project managers, risk managers, and quality assurance managers, and explore how they align with ethnographic practices and expertise. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. In this tutorial participants will learn the core vocabulary, concepts, and methods of project managers, risk managers, and quality assurance managers, and explore how they align with ethnographic practices and expertise. This understanding helps us build bridges to domains such as Legal, Operations, and Compliance, and elevate the impact of our work on the products, services, and strategies of the organizations you serve. Participants will become familiar with standard Project Management Body of Knowledge and Agile processes, tools, and templates for risk and quality management: identification of seldom-noticed...

Intelligences

Software Quality and Its Entanglements in Practice

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JULIA PRIOR University of Technology Sydney JOHN LEANEY University of Technology Sydney Effective software quality assurance in large-scale, complex software systems is one of the most vexed issues in software engineering, and, it is becoming ever more challenging. Software quality and its assurance is part of software development practice, a messy, complicated and constantly shifting human endeavor. What emerged from our immersive study in a large Australian software development company is that software quality in practice is inextricably entangled with the phenomena of productivity, time, infrastructure and human practice. This ethnographic insight — made visible to the organization and its developers via the rich picture and the concept of entanglements — built their trust in our work and expertise. This led to us being invited to work with the software development teams on areas for change and improvement and moving to a participatory and leading role in organizational change. Keywords: ethnography, entanglements,...

Perspectives

Retooling Our Skill Set for Resilience: Ethnography in Project Risk Analysis and Quality Assurance

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by PATRICIA ENSWORTH, Harborlight Management Services LLC & New York University In the months since the Covid-19 pandemic began disrupting everyone’s lives, people and organizations worldwide have adapted quickly for the sake of survival. This is a matter of long-term intellectual interest for ethnographers – but also, sometimes urgently, of short-term solvency. Some jobs, we now notice, really are essential for the ongoing functioning of a civilized society. Others…well, recently Bloomberg News published an Opinion article entitled “Coronavirus: Anybody Need a Management Consultant? Thought Not.” The industries we serve are in the midst of a whiplash pivot: A sports stadium becomes a field hospital. A restaurant becomes a general store. Physical workplaces are entirely redesigned. And so we might ask ourselves, Are there ways in which ethnographers can contribute to these efforts, repurposing our practices and expertise, especially as organizations plan for fundamental, lasting changes in their operations? During...