Lero – the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, headquartered at the University of Limerick - has entered into an agreement with Oghma, a Dublin-based training company, to provide training courses and workshops based on Lero’s world-leading software development process research.  

Dr Ita Richardson, who heads up Lero’s process research, said; “This partnership provides an outlet for our best practice research to link in with the Irish software development industry.  Having access to Lero’s research should enhance the reputation of this industry in a growing global market.

 Lero Centre Director, Professor Mike Hinchey, regards this as an important development in supporting the Irish Software Development Industry, which generates sales worth €1.4 billion annually and employs over 10,000 people. “Much of software engineering research relates to techniques rather than tangible, patentable deliverables. So the licensing of training materials to Oghma allows us to get our research out to a practitioner audience in a professional format.”

The first Lero-Oghma training course will revolve around global software development, a research area in which Lero has extensive experience. In the global software economy, within which Ireland is a major player, increasing numbers of companies are distributing their software development across countries.  This is done for a variety of reasons such as taking advantage of lower employment costs, giving access to a larger market place or acquiring skills not available in Ireland.  Historically, multi-national companies (in particular, those from the U.S.A.) have distributed software development to Ireland.  In recent years this role has changed, and we now have Irish companies distributing development to other countries – including Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, India, China and Malaysia. The client-vendor model used can take on different characteristics - software development may be distributed to third-party contractors or to subsidiaries.  Additionally, a feature of Global Software Development is that there is no single model of distribution – individual processes can be distributed from the client to the vendor; they can be worked on by both the client and the vendor at one time; or the client may never distribute a particular process. 

When Global Software Development is being undertaken, Lero has learned that there is no one model which has been shown to be more effective than others.  On the contrary, companies are faced with difficulties which are caused by ‘global distance’.  Global distance itself is complex – it is made up of geographical distance which introduces physical separation between team members and management; temporal distance which hinders and limits opportunities for direct contact and cooperation; cultural distance which affects the level of understanding of the activities and efforts of remote colleagues and teams; and linguistic distance which introduces obvious barriers to communication.  Therefore, Global Software Development has complexities over and above those experienced in local software development.  Global distance introduces barriers and complexity.  The need for effective coordination, visibility, communication and cooperation are key variables for success.  However, these are negatively impacted by distance and this increases the barriers and complexity faced by those managing global software teams.

Oghma’s MD Joe Crinnion is really looking forward to working with Lero. “This is a significant development for Oghma and is in line with company strategy to widen our customer base and service offering to the ICT sector. Having access to the latest Lero research on an annual basis will give us a significant advantage over our competitors and allow us to offer the most up to date course material. I am delighted to enter into this agreement with Lero and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Companies now will be able to share Lero’s understanding of global working through Oghma’s one day training course/workshop.

About Lero

Headquartered in the University of Limerick, Lero is the Irish software engineering research centre.

It brings together leading software engineering (SE) teams from Universities and Institutes of Technology in a coordinated centre of research excellence with a strong industry focus. Lero has raised the level and profile of Irish software engineering research with such effect that it is now one of the best known and highly regarded SE research centres in the world.

The centre has the proven capacity to attract and retain global research leaders and to make a substantial contribution both to software engineering research and to the Irish economy. Lero is now ready to take on key challenges of Evolving Critical Systems.

The Lero Centre is supported by a Centre for Science Engineering and Technology (CSET) grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), by other state grants, by industry contributions and by external funding (particularly the European Union’s research programmes). Non-SFI funding for the Centre is currently 47% of the total and our sustainability plan places particular emphasis on industry support and EU funding in the years ahead.

Lero interfaces with a wide range of industry, state agencies, educational bodies and international collaborators to deliver on its twin goals of research excellence and social and economic relevance.

About Oghma Services

Oghma Services is a training and educational Solutions Provider to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Oghma is dedicated to offering a world-class, cost-effective service to its clients. In supporting its clients training activities and requirements, Oghma offers a wide range of services, from outsourced training solutions to custom-designed training programmes to off-the-shelf technical training courses.

For Further Information

Jack Downey (Lero):       (061) 213 072, jack.downey@lero.ie

Joe Crinnion (Oghma):   (01) 663 9310, joseph.crinnion@oghma.ie