Suchergebnisse

Purpose
Early research into Agile approaches explored particular practices or quantified improvements in code production. Less well researched is how Agile teams are managed. The project manager (PM) role is traditionally one of "command and control" but Agile methods require a more facilitative approach. How this changing role plays out in practice is not yet clearly understood. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how adopting Agile techniques shape the working practices of PMs and critically reflect on some of the tensions that arise.


Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic approach was used to surface a richer understanding of the issues and tensions faced by PMs as Agile methods are introduced. Ethnographic fiction conveys the story to a wider audience.


Findings
Agile approaches shift responsibility and spread expert knowledge seeming to undermine the traditional PM function. However, the findings here show various scenarios that allow PMs to wrest control and become more of a "gate-keeper". Ethnographic fiction communicates a sense of the PMs frustration with the conflict between the need to control and the desire for teams to take more responsibility.


Originality/value
Stories provide insight and communicate the experiential feel behind issues faced by PMs adopting Agile to surface useful knowledge. The objective is not how to measure knowledge, but how to recognize it. These reflections are valuable to fellow researchers as well as practitioners and contribute to the growing literature on Agile project management.

Abstract: When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, teachers around the United States shifted to distance learning practically overnight. In both general education and special education, many teachers did not have tools or strategies in place to provide deaf students with accessible lessons and support. Teachers needed to change their materials quickly and clearly in order to meet the needs of all their students in the new distance format. The unique needs of deaf and hard of hearing students meant that unique accommodations and solutions needed to be considered and used for the distance learning formats. In the present article, we provide an overview of the challenges schools faced in the quick move to distance learning, present the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and give some examples of ways in which UDL can benefit students who are deaf in distance learning.

This paper describes a project established in 2009 by the human rights charity, Reprieve, to coordinate rehabilitation for men who have been released from long-term detention at the US military base of Guantánamo Bay. The majority of the men referred to the project were deemed unable to return to their home country because of the risk they faced of torture or other persecution and were therefore resettled in a third country. This paper also refers to Tunisian former Guantánamo detainees with whom Reprieve worked, who had initially been resettled in a third country but then following the Jasmine Revolution and the fall of the Ben Ali regime, were able to return to their home country. Reprieve then provided assistance to them and their families under the Life after Guantánamo in Tunisia project. This paper briefly outlines the abuse and nature of psychological control at Guantánamo and, based on the first-hand experiences of the Project Coordinator and Caseworker, offers non-clinical observations of the apparent consequences of this control on the former detainees who were referred to the project. The Life after Guantánamo project facilitated social, medical, psychological, legal and financial assistance in partnership with local service providers and through liaison with host governments and intergovernmental organisations, such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The paper recounts the type of assistance provided, highlights some of the challenges faced and, based on learnings made over the project's eight year duration, makes recommendations, for future work with former Guantánamo detainees and others who have been detained and subject to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment in the 'War on Terror'.

The aim of the Joint Assessment of these four donors (2-13 March 2003) was to understand the way in which the implementation of donors' partnership strategies contributes to country ownership. The paper looks at the challenges for donors posed by the Tanzanian aid co-ordination mechanisms, which strongly promote Tanzanian ownership of the development programme. It concludes with a series of lessons for DAC donors. (InWent/DÜI)

This review identifies successful approaches to collating and using biodiversity data in spatial planning and impact assessment, the barriers to obtaining and using existing data sources, and the key data gaps that hinder effective implementation. The analysis is a contribution to the EU BON project funded by the European Commission FP7 research programme, which aimed to identify and pilot new approaches to overcome gaps in biodiversity data in conservation policy at European and national levels. The consideration of biodiversity in impact assessments and spatial planning requires spatially explicit biodiversity data of various types. Where spatial plans take account of biodiversity, there are opportunities through Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of development plans and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of individual development proposals to ensure that consented activities are consistent with no net loss of biodiversity or even a net gain, and help to maintain or develop coherent ecological networks. However, biodiversity components of SEAs and EIAs have often been found to be of insufficient quality due to the lack of data or the inadequate use of existing data. Key obstacles to providing access to biodiversity data include the need for data standardisation and data quality governance and systems, licensing approaches to increase data access, and lack of resources to target gaps in data coverage and to develop and advertise policy-relevant data products. Existing data platforms differ in the degree to which they successfully provide a service to spatial planners and impact assessment practitioners. Some local governments, for example Somerset County Council in the UK and the Bremen federal state in Germany, have invested in integrated data collection and management systems that now provide intensively used tools for spatial planning and impact assessment informed by local data collection and monitoring. The EU BON biodiversity data portal aims to provide a platform that is an access point to ...

This article explores the experiences and identities of minority ethnic women at the UEFA Women's Euros (UWE) held in England in 2022. It does so at a time when women sports fans have become more visible in the historically male-dominated environs of football fandom, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK), and when questions of 'race', ethnicity and gender are longstanding, contested elements of British culture and society. Through a Black feminist thought methodology allied to critical race theory principles, the study contributes an essential intersectional account of minority ethnic women's sports fandom experiences at a major international event. The findings confirm that the growth of women's football in the UK, motivated minority ethnic women to attend the UWE. However, the current visibility and inclusivity of professional women's football demonstrates a lack of diversity and cultural sensitivity, which often inhibits minority ethnic women from presenting their identities to further engage with and support the game's growth.

After-school and summer programs provide important opportunities for youth to learn STEM practices and form STEM-related identities. However, there has been limited coordination across these programs to measure effectiveness toward learning outcomes. To better understand the constructs that are used to evaluate these programs, we searched key terms related to out-of-school time STEM learning on several education research databases. Our search uncovered 36 different tools. Across these tools, we discovered 76 measures, which were then grouped into 10 constructs based on similar themes. Constructs included: attitude toward science, career awareness and career interest, curiosity, engagement, home/school environment, interest, motivation, nature of science, self-efficacy, and STEM practices. Each construct is defined and clarified with examples from the tools. The review also considers tensions between attempts to standardize measures for evaluating program success and the need to account for equitable STEM learning pathways and adaptability across diverse communities.

Austerity and financial constraints have been threatening the public sector in the UK for a number of years. Foreseeing the threat of continued budget cuts, and addressing the situation many local councils face, requires internal transformations for financial stability without losing the key focus on public service. Agile transformations have been undertaken by organisations wanting to learn from the software development community and bringing agile principles into the wider organisation. This paper describes and analyses an ongoing behaviour-led transformation in a district council in the UK. It presents the results of the analysis of 19 interviews with internal stakeholders at the council, of observations of meetings among senior and middle management in a five-month period. The paper explores the successes and the challenges encountered towards the end of the transformation process and reflects on balancing acts to address the challenges, between: disruption and business as usual, empowerment and goal setting, autonomy and processes and procedures, and behaviours and skills. Based on our findings, we suggest that behaviours on their own cannot guarantee a sustained agile culture, and that this is equally important for enterprise agility and for large-scale agile software development transformations. ; publishedVersion ; © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Austerity and financial constraints have been threatening the public sector in the UK for a number of years. Foreseeing the threat of continued budget cuts, and addressing the situation many local councils face, requires internal transformations for financial stability without losing the key focus on public service. Agile transformations have been undertaken by organisations wanting to learn from the software development community and bringing agile principles into the wider organisation. This paper describes and analyses an ongoing behaviour-led transformation in a district council in the UK. It presents the results of the analysis of 19 interviews with internal stakeholders at the council, of observations of meetings among senior and middle management in a five-month period. The paper explores the successes and the challenges encountered towards the end of the transformation process and reflects on balancing acts to address the challenges, between: disruption and business as usual, empowerment and goal setting, autonomy and processes and procedures, and behaviours and skills. Based on our findings, we suggest that behaviours on their own cannot guarantee a sustained agile culture, and that this is equally important for enterprise agility and for large-scale agile software development transformations. ; publishedVersion

Austerity and financial constraints have been threatening the public sector in the UK for a number of years. Foreseeing the threat of continued budget cuts, and addressing the situation many local councils face, requires internal transformations for financial stability without losing the key focus on public service. Agile transformations have been undertaken by organisations wanting to learn from the software development community and bringing agile principles into the wider organisation. This paper describes and analyses an ongoing behaviour-led transformation in a district council in the UK. It presents the results of the analysis of 19 interviews with internal stakeholders at the council, of observations of meetings among senior and middle management in a five-month period. The paper explores the successes and the challenges encountered towards the end of the transformation process and reflects on balancing acts to address the challenges, between: disruption and business as usual, empowerment and goal setting, autonomy and processes and procedures, and behaviours and skills. Based on our findings, we suggest that behaviours on their own cannot guarantee a sustained agile culture, and that this is equally important for enterprise agility and for large-scale agile software development transformations. ; publishedVersion ; © The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

This commentary sits within a context of growing cultural concern over brain damage that occurs in many of the Western world's most popular, profitable and prized sports. After laying out evidence demonstrating this point, we discuss the increasing inclusion of women within sports which involve regular and routinised brain injuries. We problematise this apparent 'progress' with the title of our commentary. In particular, rather than offering some simplified yes/no answer, we argue that in light of the five decades of social scientific scholarship documenting the various harms produced by performance impact sports, working towards gender equality in brain damage is a nonsensical outcome. So, while there is clear evidence from academic gender studies that progress has been made towards tackling issues of exclusion and various forms of discrimination against women and girls in performance sport spaces, there has not been concomitant progress made in tackling the ways bodies and brains are often broken down, damaged and sometimes destroyed during participation in such sports. We do not suggest that consenting adults should be prohibited from enjoying impact sports and our aim with this commentary is not driven by a paternalistic, patriarchal belief which reflects historical notions around sportswomen being the 'fairer' sex, nor that responses to sport-acquired brain injury should be sex- or gender-specific. Rather, we conclude by suggesting that the emerging science on sport-acquired brain injuries should serve as an important inflection point to those leaders, organisers, practitioners and scholars working in this area to reconsider how we imagine, promote and structure sport – for everyone.