Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Most business processes of an organization are dependent on IT services addressing the use of electronic computers and computer software. Maturing the former Application Service Providing, Software as a Service (SaaS) is an option of software delivery over the internet. The demand for these services is increasing, and resources are by far not sufficient to provide all of them in time. The increasing size, complexity, and interdependence of IT services exceed the abilities of humans to make "good" decisions in that process. The main goal of this three-year project is to develop a methodology and a prototype decision support system called Electronic Process and Decision Guide (EPDB). The EPDG is a web-based intranet solution guiding processes and related decisions in the early stage of IT service development. It aims at increasing the likelihood that services will meet customer's expectations and that services can be provided in-time with the resource available. Process improvement is directed towards early involvement of internal and external stakeholders. The project is a joint effort between the Laboratory for Software Engineering Decision Support at the University of Calgary (Principal Investigator), Process Pathways Inc. (Industrial sponsor and collaborator) and the American University of Sharjah (collaborator).