Here at Lero in NUI Galway we focus on two things: First, evolving methods such as Flow and Agile, adaptive project portfolio management, and lean analytics. These have been shown to reduce cost and time-to-market by over 30% while continuing to serve the ever changing needs of diverse users.

We run a network of excellence including 14 research staff, key international thought leaders, and industry partners such as Dell, Cisco Systems and Information Mosaic. We use scientific and evidence based approaches to help companies to tailor, implement and evaluate methods. We benchmark each against leading international practice, and bring all partners together every eight weeks to share, compare and collaborate.

None of the above challenges are specifically technical – addressing the softer social and cultural issues are often key to successful method adoption. Also, software is no longer the shunned, basement-residing ‘IT Crowd’ operation but is often the core, driving component of a company’s strategy and so methods must coherently and effectively embrace accounting, marketing, HR and other business functions. The combination of Lero’s software and business expertise address these issues very effectively. Unsurprisingly, we find that this combination of technical and business skills is exactly what most software product and consulting firms are looking for in prospective graduates.

Impact Story

Over the past two years Lero @ NUI Galway facilitated an agile transformation programme at DellEMC (Limerick) that improved its flow of value to customers. Flow refers to the manner in which work progresses through a system: “Good” flow describes a system where work moves through steadily and predictably, whereas “bad” flow describes a system in which work stops and starts frequently


Related Publications

  1. Dennehy, D., and Conboy, K. (2016) ‘Going with the Flow: An Activity Theory Analysis of Flow Techniques in Software Development.’ Journal of Systems and Software.  
  2. Dennehy, D., and Conboy, K. (2016) ‘Flow in Information Systems Development: Activity Theoretic Analyses.’ International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Dublin, Ireland.
  3. CONBOY, K et al. (2010) 'Project failure en masse: a study of loose budgetary control in ISD projects'. European Journal Of Information Systems, 19 :273-287.
  4. CONBOY, K. (2009) Agility From First Principles: Reconstructing the Concept of Agility in  Information Systems Development, Information Systems Research  20(3)
  5. CONBOY, K.; FITZGERALD, B. (2010) Method and Developer Characteristics for Effective Agile Method Tailoring: A Study of XP Expert Opinion. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering Methodology, 20(1)

Meet the Expert

Prof. Kieran Conboy, Lero PI