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Software Developer Development and Improvement
Software Developer Development and Improvement
Student’s name
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Introduction The need of organizations to compete in a global market has forced them to implement methods that will enable them have competitive advantages and survive corporately. Many methods have been employed to see this trough but there were still some shortcomings until the People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) was introduced. P-CMM may be used as an instrument by which the process enhancement efforts of an organization may be ripened to facilitate effective corporate enactment and pursuits (Schweigert & et.al, 2012).
People Capability Maturity Model
The People Capability Maturity Model is an instrument that aids in efficaciously addressing the critical issues of employees in an organization. The P- CMM implements the process maturity outline of the highly fruitful Capability Maturity Model for Software as a blue print for a model of excellent practices for manning and developing an organization’s personnel. Most software organizations around the globe nowadays use the P-CMM Software for guiding vivid developments in its capability to improve production and quality, costs and time reduction to market, and increase client fulfillment. P-CMM has helped organizations to improve processes for managing and developing their workforce which has resulted to the best practices such as knowledge management, human resources and organizational management.
There are several practices and improvement activities from the P-CMM that can be used to address the software failure and accomplish the desired satisfying product. These practices are normally initiated since software developers face problems that have propelled them initiate these changes. Issues like customer discontent, insufficient software quality, late delivery and delivery within budget, too much rework and many more. P-CMM revolves around four strategic objectives which are; improving the software ability, workforce capability increase, ensuring that software development capability is an aspect of the organization and not of a few people, aligning the inspiration of employees with that of the organization and retaining human asset.
Maturity Levels
P-CMM is made up of five maturity levels. The maturity framework underlying the CMM for Software uses the best management practices to software firm to enable them advance their ability to develop best quality software on schedule and within the intended budget. The maturity framework guides software firms through five stages in refining their capability.
-114300396240The below diagram shows the maturity level stages
The Initial Level
Most firms at this stage normally have trouble retaining talented staffs. Organizations ought to train the responsible workforce to carry out the practices that exist and offer financial or career motivations for individuals to encourage them and to align themselves with the organization’s objectives. Organizations at this level normally usually show four features: Inconsistency in implementing these practices, responsibility dislocation formalized practices and dissociated workforce.Recruiting promotions, training, and awards are some of the practices that should be performed in order to achieve specific and quantifiable results. Workforce should also be evaluated continually to ensure their input to the organization is not counterproductive to the intended effect and also to ensure that these people do not chase their own agendas.
Managed level
In managed maturity level the managers take the accountability for managing and rising staffs in their departments. The main process areas are teaching, development, coordination and communication. The second thing is to do away with the problems the staffs are facing when performing their responsibilities and coming up with a workforce practice to improve in developing the workforce. Team building and mentoring should also be carried out. The team consists of individuals with corresponding skills in order to make the most of the efficiency of main competences, whereas, the mentor offers the backing, guidance and skill improvement.
Defined level
The main objective at this level is to come up with the workforce in organization’s business and pin point the core capabilities in it. The individuals with knowledge and skills ought to cultivate the fundamental competences of the business procedure. This develops staff competencies and workgroups, and junctions with the business plan and goals. The process areas then develops work group and skill based practices. It also works in career development and personnel preparation. This also helps organization to establish a blue print for upcoming development of skills and knowledge. Examining the skills needed by the workforce and the business tasks the individuals carry out will enable the organization to identify the core competencies and then adopt the workforce practices to nature specific knowledge and abilities that comprise these core competencies on the grounds of recognized best ascription.Predictable level
The main objective at the Predictable Level is to come up with an assessable approach for gauging the core competences. It enables and assimilates workforce capabilities and manages their performance quantitatively. When competent individuals carry out their duties using confirmed competency grounded processes, management relies in the outcome results. This trust allows the organization to store the results of carrying out capability based processes and advance them as resources to be used again. The trust of these assets comes as a result of trusting the procedure of their production. When these assets are formed and fully utilized, knowledge spreads quickly through the organization which will in turn result in higher productivity of the software (Nasehi, 2013).
Optimizing level
Levels Developing Competency Building workgroups & culture Motivating & managing performance Shaping the workforce
Optimizing5
Continuous Capability Improvement Organisational Performance Alignment Continuous workforce Innovation
Predictable4
Competency based assets
Mentoring Competency Integration
Empowered Workgroups Quantitative Performance Management Organisational Capability Management
Defined3
Competency Development
Competency Analysis Workgroup Development
Participatory Culture Competency based practices
Career Development Workforce Planning
Managed2
Training and Development Communication & Coordination Compensation
Performance Management
Work environment Staffing
At this Level, the energy of the entire organization is directed on continual enhancement. These improvements are made to the ability of people and ten groups, to the execution of
Skill based processes, and to staff practices and activities. Coming up with creative ways for refining the workforce enthusiasm, Innovative technologies and tools should be used in trials on the organization and the effective tested methods are circulated over the organizations.
In an optimizing organization the philosophy of all the individuals to come up with the performance of the work-group, unit or individual knowledge, abilities and motivation so as to come up with the general organization performance.
The above table summarizes the levels involved in the maturity levels
Measuring returns
Measurement delivers objective facts and visibility into project performance, process performance, process ability and product and quality services. This will help the organizations to learn from the past so as to improve software performance and attain better expectedness over time. The P-CMM undoubtedly confirms this and represents measurement practices as a virtual constituent of project. Positive returns have been witnessed in the organizations that have deployed the P-CMM practices in the activities of their organizations. The organizations that have employed the PCMM guide have exhibited the remarkable result in improved software delivery (Berander, & et.al, 2005).
The organizations return is done by measuring and monitoring the software life right from the start of an application’s lifecycle, this guarantees optimal business benefit delivery.
Bad quality software should be investigated well before they become major issues at distribution; the major causes of these problems are identified and highlighted, and rectified once and for all, thus averting major business interference and customer frustration.
Project budget and schedule data were collected. Project cost is divided into two parts: direct and indirect costs.
Direct costs
Direct costs are the cost is the total expenditure of the resources that will be required to carry out the project; this will also include man power, materials, and equipment.
Indirect costs
Indirect costs are the repayment of the overhead costs related with completing of the project. These will include clerical, utilities, administrative, and miscellaneous expenditure.
The percentage of the real cost and original budget is used to calculate the cost index (CI). Project Performance indexes are used to evaluate the cost and schedule performances on the project considered to be illustrative of the company being benchmarked. The CI and planned index (SI) are shown in the following equations.
Cost Index, CI=Actual Project Costs
Original Budget
Schedule Index, SI=Actual Project Duration
Original Project Duration
Conclusion
The success any software organizations depends on its ability to satisfy its clients. A highly qualified and competent workforce could help the organization achieve this goal. The P-CMM is a major breakthrough to software organizations since it has helped them assist their personnel to attain objectives such as developing individual competence, managing and motivating performance, building team groups and traditions and also to nature the workforce. Delivery optimization is the most important organizational advantage gained by applying the practices of PCMM. The P- CMM has helped many software organizations effectively address their grievous human capital matters. The P- CMM initiates a process maturity framework as the basic blue print for the best practices for running and developing an organization’s staff. Therefore it should be encouraged to attain the best result for the software organizations and their clients
Reference
Schweigert, T., Nevalainen, R., Vohwinkel, D., Korsaa, M., & Biro, M. (2012). Agile maturity
model: oxymoron or the next level of understanding. In Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (pp. 289-294). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Nasehi, A. (2013). A Quantitative Study on Critical Success Factors in Agile Software
Development Projects; Case Study IT Company.
Berander, P., Damm, L. O., Eriksson, J., Gorschek, T., Henningsson, K., Jönsson, P &
Tomaszewski, P. (2005). Software quality attributes and trade-offs. Blekinge Institute of Technology.
Soft drink competitors
Soft drink competitorsName
Institution
Introduction
Soft drink competitors usually have comparable products. Customers encompass different discernments relying upon on the quality of the soft drink previously presented. It is essential to compete with general brands. This paper attempts to introduce and market the Fresha soft drink as a brand identity as a new product. It commences with an elegant package design followed by promotions to exemplify exclusive approaches that instigate consumer knowledge by the employment of in-house creative marketers. The marketing of Fresha endeavors in the development of prevailing advert campaigns to bring in and uphold the brand identity. An extensive range of coordinated media hype and advertisements will be utilized in effect and competently in highly imaginative fashions to increase Fresha’s awareness. Marketing of Fresha will be subject to increase positive consumer awareness, resulting in the product’s success and establishing unparalleled growth and proceeds. In the event of accomplishment and thriving of Fresha soft drinks, other product brands will be developed, as well as, launched.
Description of Fresha
As soft drinks are manufactured, consumers develop into being more conscious of their food ingestion. Consumer apprehensions regarding the quantity of sugar or calories, or simulated ingredients and constituents in their drinks continue to mount. Consequently, healthy soft beverages like Fresha made from fruit and vegetable juice will gain as well as benefit more awareness from consumers. Indeed, organic juices recorded the uppermost overall volume sales increase in soft drinks last year because of a healthy reflection to consumers (Jain, 2011). On the contrary, carbonates growth, even though still recording an optimistic growth rate, established symptoms of reducing, seeing that consumers started to shift to healthier alternatives. The overriding idea is to discover the most recent marketing trends and expose sources of potential market development. The marketing of Fresha will be centered in finding unknown opportunities in nearly all existing research data obtainable. The product’s marketing also comprehends competitive hazards with comprehensive market study, as well as, planning a corporate approach through expert qualitative study and escalation projections.
Unmet Customer Need
The promotion is in reaction to a theatrical drop in proceeds as consumers shift as an alternative to tap water. Even though, bottled water exceeding billion liters were consumed globally in the preceding year sales and earnings have reduced by approximately nine per cent over the past twenty four months. There is a requirement and need to address the unmet customer need for organic juices. This will undo the reduction in sales and dismiss some of the depressing promotion bottled organic juices have engrossed over the preceding years (Kapferer, 2008). Bottled organic juices have been blamed for escalating pollution through the plastic bottles. It has also been subjected for being a needless lavishness at a period when numerous individuals all over the globe do not have access to sparkling running water. Promotions have been initiated to try to promote diners in eating places to request tap in place of bottled water. Therefore, juices bottled in recyclable materials would act as a replacement to this pressing issue.
With the pressing issues encompassing tap water globally, organic juices will rise to the occasion in solving the quest and thirst problems. Organic soft drinks in most locales of the planet have encountered extremely extreme competitive surroundings. International businesses and firms have long conquered sales regarding juices and drinks (Tremblay, 2007). In spite of all the hardships, Fresha organic soft drink will productively sustain its principal position in retail volume, as well as, price variation in the market. The drink’s promotion possesses a reflective perception of organic soft drinks, as well as, consumer behavior. In addition, inventive and forceful marketing activities as well will assist the company secure its consumer position.
Target Market Description
It is believed that Fresha organic soft drink is projected more at teenagers and young adults, as opposed to any other age cluster. It will be intended for the male along with female, young adulthood since it is perceived as a refreshing hip-hop beverage. Its promotion will mainly be promoted through media programs, which are predominantly watched by adolescents and young adults rather than the elderly. It will be vended everywhere so that every person can purchase it. The elderly can also consume the drink since it is organic, but the packaging and branding will target the youth to be specific in nature. Its price will be set at a sensible price so that teenagers can pay for it with their recreational jobs as well as their pocket cash. It could also be suitable for the elderly since it tackles their concern for being overweight, sleep as well as their maintenance to their healthy, as well as, balanced existence. The covering of Fresha will be related to mutually girls and boys, illustrating that it will be appealing for both genders. Being organic would steer families to purchase the organic juices since organic beverages are fit for consumption. The development of well built customer devotion will bring in improved profits and sales. It representation in numerous, diverse languages as well as styles will be appealing to all the planet’s civilizations. Target positioning is concerned about the manner a brand or business is located, or perceived in the conscious of the intended group of consumers (Smith, 2007). Developments of perceptual maps will assist in strategizing positioning, as well as, repositioning. A perceptual plot is a drawing which designs different positioning along with repositioning.
Description of Existing Alternatives and Substitutes
The only alternatives or rather substitutes that exist are the carbonated drinks. These have been in the market for extensive periods. Primarily, people have a liking for carbonate drinks since they are refreshing, but they pose to have numerous side effects. A person will not fancy drinking too much carbonated beverages due to the unhealthy consequences that will accumulate over time. The elderly persons will not want to consume so much of these drinks owing to the fact they encompass too many hazards than benefits to them. The Fresha soft drink is better than its counterparts since it is made from organic materials. Its sweetness will be synchronized as well as the sugar will be somewhat moderated to accommodate all the age clusters. There are no presentable alternatives for Fresha since many other products are manufactured and produced through synthetic methods. The bottled water business will be an alternative in some way even though it does not pose as a threat since it lacks the sugary element that the youth like. Fresha’s packaging will be more appealing to the Youth as compared to its alternatives and substitutes.
Marketing plan
The four Ps
This brand new product, is aimed to be presented to consumers of the modern era, who are focused in consuming food that are health and diet balanced, as they intend to thwart ailments such as obesity and diabetes, in their lives. This drink is intended to hit the market and succeed because it is to be sold at a price that customers will affords, and it has been established at a time when consumers are concentrating on their health; thus giving it an edge over the dominant and widely established beverages companies.
Product
In marketing, a product entails anything which can be given to consumers, and assist in satisfying their needs and wants. The Fresha soft drink comprises basic ingredients that can be traced in most similar drinks such as organic water, organic fruits, sugar colorings, phosphoric acid, citric acid and natural flavors among other ingredients (Klopper, 2006). The drink is caffeine free and is aimed to be a health drink, considering that current populations are concerned with living and consuming healthy foods, rather than sugary and tasty drinks, such as those from its main competitors, who will be coca-cola and Pepsi among other soft beverages companies. This Fresha soft drink is an innovation that is aimed to compete, and be accepted in the market, because of its organic nature, which is different from the other competitors’ products.
Price
Price is an integral variable in the marketing mix that is inte4gral in the marketing plan of Fresha. When the suitable price and the precise pricing strategy are determined it becomes paramount to a marketing process. The price of this product will be aimed to attract customers, and it will be founded on the structure of competition. Although other factors such as the cost of production are considered in the pricing of Fresha, the competition from other competitors and issues such as marketing and advertising will determine the pricing of this product. This will also entail that the company can lower its prices, to attract more consumers. Since competition is stiff the company by lowering prices risks incurring losses, but this will enable it achieve a consumer base that is loyal to its product.
Place
Since Fresha is a new product, its location will be located in the US, focusing on the American market, for its main consumers. The company is has not grown enough to compete with the multinationals such as coca cola, but it can compete aggressively with them in the local US market. Since the beverage is a health drink, it can easily find itself to many American’s hearts, as it will appeal to people across generations, who are concerned with consuming healthy foods (Chisholm-Burns, Vaillancourt & Shepherd, 2011). However, the company intends to go international, by merging with other smaller companies, in other nations, to boost its market reach.
Promotion
This will involve personal selling, sales promotion, advertising and publicity and public relations. These are critical for Fresha’s promotional plan. This indicates the level of attention that Fresha will accord each of the mentioned subcategories as well as specify the budget of cash to apply for each (Klopper, 2006). Fresha’s promotion is intended to en sure that the product is accepted in the market, enhance its sales, facilitate its image creation and position the brand in the soft drinks market. This brand will be promoted as a health drinks that add value and diet to its consumers. The company will also embark in advertising the product through the media such as TV ads and social media to enhance its reach among populations. Furthermore, the brand will be promoted by using brand ambassadors who will include famous celebrities both from the music and sports arena with immense influence among the population to facilitate its acceptance in the market.
P.E.S.T. Analysis
Political Influences
The production distribution and application of Fresha product is entailed to different federal laws including the food, drug and cosmetic Act and occupational safety and Health Act among others. Furthermore, the company and its product are subject to the state, local and overseas environmental decrees and regulations. The company has to comply with the established environmental and healthy laws, to prevent any environmental litigation, concerning its products.
Economic Influences
The company is affected by the harvest of the raw materials that it uses to produce the Fresha soft drink, such as orange, vegetables, potatoes and grapefruits among others. Fuel is also critical in the economic influences as the company depended of trucks and other means of transport to transport such raw materials to the manufacturing plant (Mukherjee, & Kachwala, 2009). Therefore, the fuel prices changes and fluctuations also affect the economic aspect of the soft drink. By taking into consideration the economical influences, this will allow Fresha to be prepared for economical turndowns; hence ensuring that it does not register a lot of losses.
Social Cultural Influences
The drink is a non alcoholic beverage, and it always strives to maintain this image, before the public and its consumers. The beverage is subject to people’s changing lifestyles because it has based its advertising and promoting campaigns in a specified form of people with a certain lifestyle (Rajagopal, 2000). Therefore, the company has to pay significant attention to the changing lifestyles. The Fresha drinkers are intensely defined to as those people of all ages who are aiming to consume drinks that are healthy oriented.
Technological Influences
The company is a subject to novel techniques of manufacturing for its soft drink. Therefore, the company has to concentrate on new distribution methods as well as be attentive to the developed competence, so as they will be aware of new products (Rajagopal, 2000). This will ensure that the company attains competitive advantage within the market. Furthermore, with the emerging trends, which are technologically oriented such as most businesses being carried out online, and through social media, Fresha will make certain that it operates within these new technologies, to remain competitive and relevant in the market.
Conclusion
Starting a new business such as selling organic soft drinks in a highly competitive environment would be challenging. Therefore, for an incoming company to be successful in such environment, it should have a strong business plan and strategy that will enable it to penetrate such competitive market and ensure that they continue to grow. This will entail that the company focuses on marketing its brand, and promoting its product to ensure that it increases its sales and gains more consumers. Furthermore, with a certain target audience in mind the company will ensure the company finds it is easier to mingle in the market and promote its products. Fresha has embarked in making a healthy oriented drink its priority, as most people are watching what they consume, to prevent food related diseases. This gives it an advantage in the marketplace to that is full of competitors. Therefore, considering the factors that a new product has to undergo to penetrate in the market, Fresha soft drink is well positioned to be successful in the soft drink industry.
References
Chisholm-Burns, M. A., Vaillancourt, A. M., & Shepherd, M. (2011). Pharmacy Management,
Leadership, Marketing, and Finance. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Jain, S. C. (2011). Handbook of Research in International Marketing: Ed. by Subhash C. Jain
and David Griffin. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Kapferer, J.-N. (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand
Equity Long Term. London [u.a.: Kogan Page.
Klopper, H. B. (2006). Marketing: Fresh Perspectives. Cape Town: Pearson/Prentice Hall South
Africa.
Mukherjee, P. N., & Kachwala, T. T. (2009). Operations Management and Productivity
Techniques. New Delhi: PHI Learning.
Rajagopal,. (2000). Marketing: Concepts and Cases. New Delhi: New Age International
Publishers.
Smith, A. F. (2007). The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Tremblay, V. J. (2007). Industry and Firm Studies. Armonk, NY [u.a.: Sharpe.
Socrative Methods
Socrative Methods
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Reading Summaries
According to the writer, Socratic methods signify the methods to look for truth by personal lights when well defined. In other words, it is a certain kind of philosophical inquiry, a method, a spirit, an intellectual tactic, a system, all trundled into one. This method is named after Socrates. It was named after him because he modeled for us philosophy practice. In it, he delineated philosophy as something that any of us can do, as a deed, and as a way of living. An individual who was Socrates scholar clarified Socratic Methods as a common human experience available to every man. It normally calls for common sense and common speech as an alternative instead of necessitating allegiance to a particular analytical technique or perception (Phillips, 2017). The Socratic method goes beyond Vlastos’ account, whereby it calls for common sense and scrutinizes what common sense denotes. Vlasto’s account proceeds by clarifying that Socratic inquiry calls for higher-order moral qualities and the highest degree of psychological attentiveness that any individual can. Examples of such values include humility, sincerity, and courage. Having these values protect someone from the Socratic dialogue.
Socratizing is normally the case that some abstract notions are closely connected to the deepest pertinent humanoid experiences. Sustained effort to explore the ramifications of specific opinions and offer compelling alternatives and objections differentiate the Socratic method from the mere nonsystematic inquiry. As a result, an exhaustive and scrupulous inquiry from numerous ways bears a resemblance to the scientific method (Phillips, 2017 (Phillips, 2017). Socrates centered mainly on human beings and their universe within, using his method to open up innovative realms of self-knowledge. Intellectuals normally refer to Socrates’ methods as elenchus. It is a Greek term for cross-examination or inquiry. This is the kind that discloses individuals to themselves and makes them perceive what their sentiments amount to.
Socrates’ method is an important part of existence. According to Socrates, continuous use of this technique makes individuals more contented. However, it comes with a price that can make individuals either more uncertain, unhappier, more troubled in addition to more contented. There lacks no good divide between someone’s perception of life and that of philosophy (Anne, 2020). The Socratic method forces individuals to deal with their personal dogmatism. Partakers in the Socratic dialogue are in effect, forcing themselves to be free. This method needs that honestly and amenably, sensibly, and inventively, the individuals confront the doctrine by inquiring what it signifies. The Socratic method requires us to discover other viewpoints inquiring about something that might be said.
Reference
Anne L’Arrivee, E. (2020). Refute Thyself: The Socratic Method in Plato’s Republic Book 4. The European Legacy, 1-18.
Phillips, C., & DeLeon, B. (2017). Redefining the Can-Do Attitude, The Language of a Critical Thinking Culture. Defense Acquisition University’s Defense Systems Management College Fort Belvoir United States.
