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VOL. 2, NO. 10, October 2011 ISSN 2079-8407 Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences

©2009-2011 CIS Journal. All rights reserved.

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Impact of Agile Software Development on Quality within Information Technology Organizations

Robert Imreh , Mahesh S. Raisinghani

[email protected], [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Quality and an emphasis on quality are must have ingredients for an organization to be successful. Therefore, in the present environment of fast pace software development, quality plays an essential role when it comes to the long term viability of IT organizations. As a result of continuous quality improvement, IT organizations have defined and implemented various quality processes and software development methodologies in order to achieve a higher quality standard. Currently, one of the most popular software development methodology is known as the Agile Software Development Methodology. Some IT organizations have been successful with the implementation of this new framework, while other IT organizations have experienced less success or complete failure. The purpose of this study is to provide some answers to the following thesis question that has not been answered yet by currently available literature related to Agile Software Development: in what ways does the implementation of Agile Software Development Methodology impacts quality within IT organizations? According to Dybå & Dingsøyr (2008, p.14), Agile Software Development, the innovative “movement”, has a considerable impact on organizations specialized in IT software development, and poses several hurdles that ultimately impact quality within IT organizations. This study takes a look at the impact of Agile Software Development on quality within the organizational, methodical, and cultural framework and provides industry standard recommendations to alleviate such impacts.

Keywords: Project Quality Management, Agile Software Development, Continuous Quality Improvement, Agile Quality Improvement Model

1 INTRODUCTION

Software development has evolved through various phases, methodologies, and orientations from the 1960s and forward as shown in the figure 1 provided by Yuan, Han, & Hu (2008, p.12)

As explained by Kassim & Zain (2004, p.4) “hypercompetitive markets”, rapidly shifting customer needs and an ever-changing IT environment forced many IT organizations to adopt agile software development practices. Specifically, IT organizations are required to deal with and acclimatize to an extremely fluid environment, become more efficient and receptive in relationship to the continuously and rapidly changing environment ensuring continuous future growth and prosperity (Kassim & Zain, 2004, p.4).

Static requirements have become a thing of the past and more flexible approaches are being demanded by more competitive markets and more savvy end users. As a result, due to the built-in flexibility of Agile software development methodologies, the software development industry gradually started to transition and adapt to become more agile by implementing one of the following well established Agile software development methodologies:

Extreme Programming (XP) Scrum Feature-Driven Development (FDD) Dynamic System Development Method

(DSDM) Adaptive Software Development (ASD) Crystal, and Lean Software Development (LD)

As described by Noël, Valdes, Visconti, &

Astudillo (2008, p.8), contrary to the conventional, static methodologies, all of the above listed Agile methodologies include the following key ingredients: “test-driven”, “iterative”, “evolutionary”, “simple”, “lean” – ultimately leading to higher quality (Ambler, 2008). Furthermore, opposite to the conventional methodologies – in which case all requirements are entirely defined and finalized upfront – Agile methodologies center on change (Noël et al., 2008, p.8). Specifically, as described by Noël et al. (2008, p.6), Agile methodologies are based on the concept of the following “four core values”, also known as the “Agile Manifesto”:

“1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

2. Working software over comprehensive documentation

3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

4. Responding to change over following a plan”

(Noël et al., 2008, p.6).

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




Simply translated to quality terms, the four core values of Agile can be prematurely and wrongly

interpreted and re-phrased as follows:

Figure 1: Evolution of software development methodologies in the last four decades

Avoid contract conciliation procedures Avoid pursuing a project plan Avoid following processes and using tools Avoid full documentation efforts

From a quality perspective, based on the above

four core values it is self evident that at a first – superficial - glance Agile is a major threat to quality. Specifically, based on the four core values, Juran’s concept of quality improvement through “planning and control” is greatly violated (Foster, 2010, p. 41). Therefore, the big question is, how can IT organizations take advantage of the benefits of becoming agile and adopt and implement agile methodologies without deteriorating quality.

As pointed out by Cho (2008). the answer lies in the fact that, beside the above listed four core values the software development community designed and implemented various detailed techniques and processes that provide detailed guidelines as outlined in details in the below table, provided by Noël et al. (2008, p.11):

The most important deduction from the above guidelines is that - based on the four core values of Agile - a correctly implemented Agile Software Development environment has the following main quality characteristics:

recurrent release continuous improvement collaborative approach continuous, iterative testing iterative preparation and planning incremental delivery straightforward blueprint re-factoring

group coding forty hours work week

The majority of the characteristics of the top six agile methodologies listed above are elements of industry standard best quality practices. Therefore, within the context of this study - from this point forward - the four core values of Agile will be referred to within the framework of the methods, processes, and guidelines defined in the above table. To clearly distinguish between a correctly implemented Agile approach versus an incorrectly implemented one and to aid the objective of this exploratory study - the in-depth analysis of organizational, methodical, and cultural aspects of the quality impacts -, the term ‘core values’ will be replaced with the term ‘Core Quality Values’ or CQVs.

1.0 ORGANIZATIONAL QUALITY IMPACT

In a nutshell, the majority of quality impacts are related to the organization itself. In other words, IT organizations should strategically plan for agility in such ways that will ultimately transform the organizational structure in order to accomplish client requirements and present the correct goods and services at the exact instance and accurate extent (Kassim & Zain, 2004, p.8).

1.1 Organizational establishment and resistance to transformation

The exploratory study conducted by Kassim &

Zain (2004) analyzed the quality impact of Agile on

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Malaysian IT organizations within the context of the four CQVs of agility. The terminology used by Kassim & Zain (2004, p.4) is slightly different, but it is fully compliant and equivalent in meaning to the QCV terms of the Agile Manifesto:

1. Cooperating to compete

2. Leveraging resources

3. Enriching customers 4. Mastering change

Table 1: Top six agile methodologies/quality processes

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The study performed by Kassim & Zain (2004) employs the CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) and the CFI (Comparative Fit Index) with the intention of demonstrating that the results of the

study are well supported and based on real data revealed by the below table provided by Kassim & Zain (2004, p.14).

Table 2: Organizational agile quality analysis

The above results sustained by field literature

and by randomly collected CFA / CFI data, present empirically demonstrated fundamentals reflecting agility parameters of particular IT organizations in Malaysia. As a result this study provides impartial experimental data about CQVs that impact organizational quality within agile IT organizations, further supporting the needs to accept and implement the four CQVs, of Agile.

As further demonstrated by the survey study provided by Kassim & Zain (2004), organizational establishment and resistance to transformation, are the major reasons why IT organizations fall short of their goals when attempting to implement an Agile software development structure.

1.1.1 Recommendation

To overcome organizational establishment and resistance to transformation, as described by Kassim &

Zain (2004, p.6), it is recommended that IT organizations change their respective executive practices in order to facilitate the four CQVs of agile by focusing on:

1. elevating clients 2. embracing transformation 3. controlling assets 4. collaborate to contend

In addition, as described by Bieberstein, Bose, Walker, & Lynch (2005, pp. 2-5) IT organizations have to proactively fine-tune existing ways of doing business, employ new quality processes and guidelines, and encourage motivation and avoid disturbance to current company configuration. Moreover Bieberstein, et al. (2005, p.7) further points out that this can be furthermore implemented by company quality programs and directions that would aim to introduce guiding principles and models, within the framework of adequate resources needed to support these directions (Bieberstein, et al., 2005).

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Last, but not least, it is recommended that IT organizations allocate high level management ownership with clear authority and accountability because the success of Agile Software Development is directly related to the support (or lack of ) provided by upper executive (Qumer & Henderson-Sellers, 2008, p.5).

1.2 Governance

According to Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008,

p. 12), governance in an agile software development environment is meant to empower agile team members to formulate resolutions and provide contribution to results to accomplish preferred outcomes. Habitually, due to the simplistic interpretation of the four CQVs of Agile, IT organizations misinterpret the reference to being lean by avoiding planned and structured governance. In actuality for Agile Software

Development to be thriving governance is a vital quality building block that cannot be overlooked.


With the help of grounded theory research

methodology, Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008, pp. 6-12) analyzed various IT quality governance standards such as Six Sigma and PRINCE concluding that none of them are practical in an Agile software development setting because of the inherent inflexibilities of these quality approaches. Therefore, it is recommended that, based on Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008) research, a more focused, lean, cooperative, and collaboration-oriented, iterative governance be implemented - illustrated by the below guidelines provided by Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008).

Table 3: Agile quality governance guidelines

Table 4: Agile quality success attributes

In addition, it is further recommended that IT organizations make use of quality success attributes as

illustrated by the table 4 provided by Chow & Cao (2008, p.11).

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2.0 METHODICAL QUALITY IMPACT

For decades IT organizations have been entrenched in the programmatic, structured, almost code-like thinking when it comes to software development. The first crack in this paradigm happened during the advent of Object Oriented Programming, when software development was elevated from the structural almost code level framework to a higher level, abstracted objects framework. The final blow to the structural, waterfall methodology can be traced back to the appearance of the Agile Manifesto setting the stage for a

complete methodical software development paradigm shift.

2.1 Paradigm shift

One of the major methodical quality impacts on agile IT Organizations when is due to the methodical paradigm shift as a result of the substitution of premeditated, straight blueprint by means of iterative, user driven JIT (Just-in-Time) design. The below table provided by Noël et al. (2008, p.14) illustrates the major differentiation among conventional and Agile software development:

Table 5: Conventional development vs. agile development methodology

The above table by Noël et al. (2008, p.14), shows that the conventional and agile software development methodologies are extremely contrasting methodologies, thus when transitioning from one to the other a paradigm shift is unavoidable.

In contrast with traditional methods, the largest part of controversial agile software development characteristics, as explained by Fruhling & deVreede (2006, p. 3), is found in the flexibility surrounding requirements – specifically, in the case of Agile software development customers are allowed and encouraged to alter the requirements through the iterative development process (“customer coproduction” (Foster, 2010, pp.225-226), resulting in a better end-product, but often opening the door for scope creep if quality agile processes are not followed. From a pure quality perspective, the iterative, Agile approach creates an optimal – “must-be” innovative environment (Börjesson et al., 2006) - for reaching the top right quadrant of the Kano Model.

According to Foster (2010, p. 190) and Sauerwein, E., Bailom, F., Matzler, K., Hinterhuber, H., H. (1996, pp. 1-2), the Kano Model describes the relationship between three types of product requirements: Basic Quality (or Must-be Requirements), Performance Quality (or One-dimensional Requirements), and Exciting Quality (or Attractive Requirements). As shown in the below figure provided by Sauerwein et al., (1996, p. 2) the aim of any organization should be to reach the top right quadrant.

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Figure 2: Kano’s model of customer satisfaction


The JIT (Just-in-Time) approach is not new – it

is recommended by Deming’s 4th point and it was first implemented by the Japanese (Toyota’s production system developed during the 1960s through the 1980s) (Foster, 2010, p. 37). To be a thriving agile organization, it is recommended that IT organizations

embrace modern quality concepts such as the JIT as related to agile software development. As explained by Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008, p.10) instead of an “all-or-nothing approach”, “proper ways to launch agility”, a planned “step-by-step approach”, and quality models like the Agile Adoption & Improvement Model (AAIM) should be followed as illustrated below by

Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008, p.11)

Figure 3: Agile quality improvement model

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The range of Agile research performed by Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008) shows that the AAIM is a must have quality assessment tool with five

key features as summarized by Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008, p.5) and shown in the below table:

Table 6: Key features of AAIM as a quality assessment tool

2.2 Agility qualification

Often times, IT organizations that have experienced the benefits of agile software development make the mistake of categorizing every project as an agile one. While agile is widely applicable across the board, there are exceptions, and IT organizations should pay increased attention to such exceptions in order to avoid failure – failure that can – wrongly – be associated to agile.


As a precaution, it is recommended that IT organizations use the Agile quality methods and quality

frameworks - for instance the previously described Agile Adoption & Improvement Model (AAIM), the Agile Quality Toolkit (AQT), and the Agile Software Solution Framework (ASSF). The most significant AQT is the “Agility Calculator” known as the Four-Dimensional Analysis Tool (4-DAT) which assesses the following four vital characteristic of Agility: 1. Suppleness; 2. Velocity; 3. Compactness; 4. Erudition and Receptiveness, as described in the below matrix provided by Qumer, & Henderson-Sellers (2008).

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Table 7: Agile quality toolkit – the “Agility Calculator”

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3.0 CULTURAL QUALITY IMPACT 3.1 Collaboration and collocation

The introduction of Agile is often accompanied by cultural quality collision with the existing organizational culture. Specifically, the know-how of the executive and staff and their readiness to finalize the transition will be impacted considerably – best illustrated by the disparity amid agile and conventional, non-client driven development and by the distributed software development environment – mostly the result of globalization.

As pointed out by Fruhling & deVreede (2006, p.4) methodologies, administration procedures, and scientific approaches are all essential to the accomplishment of the successful agile software development, however lacking the right staff and communications, success is at risk. In contrary to conventional, waterfall methodology, agile software development necessitates a highly collaborative, creative, and experienced software development team located in the same geographical and ideally office area.

The magnitude of cultural aspects are habitually ignored by IT organizations implementing Agile Software Development, consequently ensuing in additional complex changeover, with a reduction of efficiency, deteriorating quality, and a general downbeat occurrence. As stated by Berger (2007, p.4), not every development setting progresses through the identical enthusiasm, hence a business’ intrinsic customs might not equal the development methodology implemented - ultimately resulting in disappointment.

In addition a successful agile environment also requires highly dedicated clients near the development group – as proved by the successful ERS project analyzed by Fruhling & deVreede (2006). The following table provided by Fruhling & deVreede (2006, p.8) provides a line-by-line comparison of agile vs. conventional (plan-driven) software development quality attributes:

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Table 8: Agile vs. conventional software development quality attributes

As illustrated, cultural parameters, such as “Developers” and “Customers” represent the two most significant factors that set aside conventional and Agile software development. On the other hand, unfortunately, the magnitude of cultural quality aspects is often ignored by IT organizations, thus resulting in inefficient agile environment, and a fundamentally unconstructive impact on quality.

3.1.1 Recommendations

To steer clear of a number of obscurities due to cultural aspects, it is recommended that IT organizations select veteran project team members when creating an agile team, provide adequate guidance, and a quality focused atmosphere based on the agile collaboration and collocation principles. Specifically, Fruhling &

deVreede (2006, p.6) recommend implementing the central Agile practice of paired programming in order to encourage liberated streaming of thoughts, timely discovery of blueprint and programming glitches.

Furthermore, it is recommended to provide the needed additional resources required by agile development needed for implementing paired programming, since these costs are compensated by increase in overall efficiency and amplified quality of the end product (Fruhling & deVreede, 2006, p.7). Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008) recommends to implement the following quality paired programming process illustrated in the below table provided by Qumer & Henderson-Sellers (2008).

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Table 9: Quality paired programming process

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3.2 The expertise gap

As in many other professions, in the field of IT projects there are a number of diverse expertise silos that make up a development team. For example, a typical software development team can include programmers, database administrators, network administrators, security experts, testers, user interface designers, and others. While the expertise diversity of a software development team strengthens the team as a whole, this diversity is often the source of a cultural quality impact.

For example, as pointed out by Ambler (2008), the discrepancy is wide-ranging among the information administration groups and software developer (programmer) groups. According to Ambler (2008) the rift originates in the differentiation among object oriented versus relational database technologies – mostly initiated by the “object revolution” and grew larger and larger since the early 1990s as illustrated by Ambler (2008) in the below figure.

Figure 4: The increasing expertise cultural quality gap

As further explained by Ambler (2008) this inconsistency is mainly apparent in the outcome of the

study results presented by Ambler (2008) as shown in the below figure.

Figure 5: The expertise cultural quality gap survey results

3.2.1 Recommendations

To be able to address and prevent cultural quality impacts due to the expertise gap, it is recommended that IT organizations focus on the collaboration CQVs of Agile and provide adequate training for all staff to become more efficient in industry standard agile best practices. As pointed out by Foster (2010), training is the key to success in all quality management.

To effectively address the root of the problem(s), it is strongly recommended that IT organizations conduct a survey similar to the one conducted by Ambler (2008) (shown in the above figure). Then, in order to focus on and resolve the cause(s) that cause the biggest cultural quality rift, IT organizations are recommended to perform a Pareto Analysis using the “80/20 rule” as described by Foster

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(2010) and as shown below suing the survey results provided by Ambler (2008).

Figure 6: Pareto Analysis of the Ambler (2008) survey results

In the case of the Ambler (2008) survey based on the above Pareto Analysis, 75% of the problems are caused by the following three cultural perceptions: 1) Data group too slow to work with; 2) Data group offers little value; 3) Data group too difficult to work with. Therefore, if these top three causes are remediated, close to 80% of the problems that cause the cultural rift can be eliminated. And in this particular case, even more than that, due to the last two causes having an indirect relationship to the first two, resolving the top three causes will indirectly reduce the negative effects of the last two causes.

4 IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT AND PRACTICE

Based on the findings of this exploratory study, successful IT organizations need to focus on the following quality impacts

Organizational quality impact o Organizational establishment and

resistance to transformation o Governance

Methodical quality impact o Paradigm shift o Agility qualification

Cultural quality impact

o Collaboration and collocation o The expertise gap

Furthermore, as a result of this study, IT organization ought to be able to recognize and appreciate the quality impacts of an Agile software development atmosphere and follow the recommendations described by this study as needed.

5 FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

AND IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

Based on the currently available literature quality the impact of Agile Software Development on quality within IT organizations has not been fully researched. Most of the existing research is focused on the technical aspect related to the Agile Software Development. Therefore, the current state of literature has a significant gap and future research is needed to provide a better understanding of the subject matter. This exploratory study only focuses on the surface of organizational, methodical, and cultural impacts caused by Agile Software Development within IT organizations. Further research, analysis, and especially surveys are desirable to strengthen the knowledgebase related to this subject matter.

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6 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, as described by Foster (2010), quality and emphasis on quality is one of the most significant ingredients of a successful organization. Through continuous quality improvement and industry standards outlined by the PMI (2008), IT organizations have defined and implemented various quality processes and software development methodologies in order to achieve a higher quality standard. As a result many IT organizations have transitioned or are in the course of transitioning to an Agile environment.

In general, Agile software development has a considerable impact on quality and to be successful, IT organizations have to identify improvement areas and implement organizational, methodical, and cultural changes. As a result of this study, some of the major quality impacts of Agile Software Development have been identified and various approaches of remediation have been recommended within the organizational, methodical and cultural framework and industry best practices. Furthermore, a clear differentiation is made between a correctly implemented agile approach and an incorrectly implemented one.

REFERENCES

Ambler, S. (2008). When IT gets cultural: data management and agile development. IT Professional, 10(6), 11-14. Retrieved February 7, 2011, from IEEE Computer Society Digital Library database. Berger, H. (2007). Agile development in a bureaucratic arena—A case study experience. International Journal of Information Management, 27(6), 386-396. Retrieved February 15, 2011, from Business Source Complete database. Bieberstein, N., Bose, S., Walker, L., & Lynch, A. (2005). Impact of service-oriented architecture on enterprise systems, organizational structures, and individuals. IBM Systems Journal, 44(4), 691-708. Retrieved March 10, 2011, from Business Source Complete database. Börjesson, S., Dahlsten, F., & Williander, M. (2006). Innovative scanning experiences from an idea generation at Volvo Cars. Technovation, 26, 775-783. Retrieved April 2, 2011, from Business Source Complete database.

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Cho, J., (2008). Issues and challenges of agile software development with scrum. Information and Software Technology, 45(19-23), 133-159. Retrieved April 2 14, 2011, from ACM Digital Library database. Chow, T., & Cao, D. (2008). A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. Journal of Systems and Software, 81(6), 961-971. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from ACM Digital Library database. Dybå, T., & Dingsøyr, T. (2008). Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review. Information and Software Technology, 50(9-10), 833-

859. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from ACM Digital Library database. Foster, S. T. (2010). Managing quality: Integrating the supply chain. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Prentice Hall. Fruhling, A., & deVreede, G. (2006). Field Experiences with eXtreme Programming: Developing an Emergency Response System. Journal of Management Information Systems, 22(4), 39-68. Retrieved February 13, 2011, from Business Source Complete database. Kassim, N., & Zain, M. (2004). Assessing the Measurement of Organizational Agility. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 4(1/2), 174-177. Retrieved February 15, 2011, from Business Source Complete database. Noël, R., Valdes, G., Visconti, M., & Astudillo, H. (2008). Deconstructing agile processes: Would planned design be helpful in XP projects? International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society, 42-51. Retrieved March 7, 2011, from IEEE Computer Society Digital Library database. PMI (2008). A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. (4th ed.). Newtown Square: PA Qumer, A., & Henderson-Sellers, B. (2008). A framework to support the evaluation, adoption and improvement of agile methods in practice. Journal of Systems and Software. 81(11), 1899-1919. Retrieved March 21, 2011, from ACM Digital Library database. Sauerwein, E., Bailom, F., Matzler, K., Hinterhuber, H., H. (1996). The Kano model: How to delight your customers. Retrieved on March 7, 2011 from. http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/CEM/bushait/CEM_515-082/kano/kano-model2.pdf Yuan, H., Han, Y., & Hu, J. (2008). Research on agile development methodology of service-oriented personalized software. International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, 1075-1078. Retrieved March 7, 2011, from IEEE Computer Society Digital Library database.

Authors’ Biographical Information

Robert Imreh is an IT Professional in the field of Information Technology & Business/Project Management. He earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering (Computer Science and ITspecialization) 10+years ago. Currently, he is pursuing his Dual Master's degree in Information Technology and Project Management. For the last 10+ years he has been working primarily on Department of Defense and Government related IT projects fulfilling various roles within software development, systems/business analysis, and project management.

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/CEM/bushait/CEM_515-082/kano/kano-model2.pdf

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/CEM/bushait/CEM_515-082/kano/kano-model2.pdf




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Mahesh S. Raisinghani, is an associate professor in the Executive MBA program at the TWU School of Management. He is a Certified E-Commerce Consultant (CEC), a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). Dr. Raisinghani was awarded the 2008 Excellence in Research & Scholarship award and the 2007 G. Ann Uhlir Endowed Fellowship in Higher Education Administration. He was also the recipient of TWU School of Management's 2005 Best Professor Award for the Most Innovative Teaching Methods; 2002 research award; 2001 King/Haggar Award for excellence in teaching, research and service; and a 1999 UD-GSM Presidential Award. His research has been published in several academic journals such as IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Information & Management,

International Journal of Web-based Learning and Teaching Technologies, Information Resources Management Journal, International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Journal of E-Commerce Research, International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, Journal of IT Review, Journal of Global IT Management, and Journal of IT Cases and Applications Research among others and international/national conferences. Dr. Raisinghani serves on the board of Global IT Management Association and on the education task force of the World Affairs Council. He is included in the millennium edition of Who's Who in the World, Who's Who among Professionals, Who's Who among America's Teachers and Who's Who in Information Technology.

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