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Details: Published: 26 June 2012

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pliXos and the Technische Universität München start a three-year pilot project "GlobuS - Global Bus Software" - supported by the program "Information and Communication Technology" of the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology.

Munich, 26 June 2012. pliXos started to cooperate with the Department of Software and Systems Engineering at the Technische Universität München within the framework of the "Information and communication technology Bavaria (ICT)" by the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology (StMWIVT). The aim of the three-year project is to develop an independent project bus, which allows the effective integration of the pliXos product suite known as "Outsourcing Director" with the currently most important and most widely used tools in the market for software development lifecycle (SDLC). This will cover the most important trends in governance of globally distributed (offshore/nearshore) software development projects and will allow all companies, corporations as well as small to medium-sized enterprises to benefit from a global approach in SW development. The project consists of necessary research, specifications, development as well as tests in real live scenarios. Well-known industry partners are supporting the project. Those emphasize the importance of integrating multiple SW tools for the rising MultiSourcing approach – the integrated management of multiple service providers.

The cooperation with the Technische Universität München is considered by pliXos as a further step in its program to increase the transparency and success rates in software development. This is especially true when using globally distributed teams and agile processes. Dr. Joerg Stimmer, founder and MD of pliXos and a well known expert in Outsourcing said: "It is a great pleasure for us, that we are able to build upon a three year funding and strong partners to actively work on further innovative topics in the industrialization and optimization of SW services delivery. Especially the opportunity of transferring the results to an autonomous product, the integration bus is a significant benfit for us as well as any user. The integration of our "Outsourcing Director" with the most important tools in the market by an open bus system, aligned with any standards provides a high added value for our customers. The action will particularly focus on agile processes.” Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Manfred Broy, director of the Institute for Software and Systems Engineering at the Technische Universität München, emphasizes that the pilot project provides an essential contribution to the cognitive progress in the scientific fields of software and system development: "The benefit to TUM results from the increasing scientific knowledge and particularly from the ability to validate the research findings in practice". pliXos has offered possibilities of industrialization in SW development with its innovative software as a service (SaaS) products. With GloBuS these opportunities will be available to a wider range of users.

About pliXos

pliXos sees itself as a provider of solutions for the optimization of globally distributed software services. Significant cost and time advantages are implemented by using these solutions based on best-practices processes. Offers of pliXos are "tool-assisted" evaluation and analysis of global sourcing projects, the optimized control of such projects as well as consulting and the assumption of overall responsibility for individual projects. pliXos was founded in April 2009. Participants include the high-tech start-up funds, Bayern Kapital and a Bavarian entrepreneur (private investor).

Contact

pliXos
Nóra Regős

Press Relations
Munich Technology Centre (MTZ)
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Germany
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www.plixos.com

Last Updated: 17 September 2012

Details: Published: 16 June 2014

Press Release 15 June 2014

UK Public Sector can use pliXos online Tools Outsourcing Director and Outsourcing Advisor to automate their Applications Development Projects

Stockport, Cheshire and Munich, Germany: 15 June 2014. pliXos GmbH has again been appointed by the UK Government Procurement Service to supply cloud-based Remote Applications Development, Sourcing Strategies and specialist Outsourcing Support Services to the UK Public sector, under the G-Cloud 5 Framework Agreement.

Dr. Joerg Stimmer, MD of pliXos states: “We are delighted to continuously be part of G-Cloud. By providing central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies with a cheaper and faster way to deliver complex application development and IT Outsourcing projects with the required functionality, in time, to budget and at the lowest possible cost for UK citizens.

Adrian Quayle, General Manager for the UK added “It is a pleasure to see that pliXos proven SaaS based offerings can benefit hard pressed CIOs and their teams across the Government and the public sector in the UK. A major advantage they can obtain is the capability to deliver application development projects and sourcing strategies on time and in line with the cost challenges they face.”

By building on innovative cloud based tools from pliXos offered under G-Cloud 5, Government Departments are able to

implement IT sourcing strategies fast, easily and to high quality
ensure efficient governance of application development projects
benefit from an highest level of cost efficiency and transparency through automation
only pay what you need in line with business growth
ely on security and reliability, all of the services provided out of the UK or Germany
focus on core responsibilities using a experienced partner with assured quality ethos

For Immediate Attention

pliXos Contact
To speak directly to pliXos regarding this press release, please contact Adrian Quayle on +44 (0) 7770 431 409 or via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Last Updated: 16 June 2014

Details: Published: 22 November 2013

We gratefully acknowledge the funding by IuK Bayern
» www.stmwmet.bayern.de

Marco Kuhrmann, Daniel Mendez Fernandez, Matthias Groeber. Towards Artifact Models as Process Interfaces in Distributed Software Projects. In Proceedings of 8th Intl. Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE 2013), IEEE, 2013.
» Download PDF

Abstract-Much effort has been spent to investigate the organization of distributed teams and their collaboration patterns. It is, however, not fully understood to which extent and how agile software processes are feasible to support distributed software projects. Practices and challenges that arise from the demands for communication are often in scope of current research. Still, it remains unclear what is necessary to monitor a project and to track its progress from a management perspective. A solution is to monitor projects and their progress on basis of the current quality of the created artifacts according to a given reference model that defines the artifacts and their dependencies. In this paper, we present an artifact model for agile methods that results from of a systematic literature review. The contribution serves as an empirically grounded definition of process interfaces to coordinate projects and to define exchanged artifacts while abstracting from the diverse local software processes.

Index Terms-agile methods; artifact model; distributed projects; software process interface; project management

Last Updated: 29 November 2013

Details: Published: 22 November 2013

We gratefully acknowledge the funding by IuK Bayern
» www.stmwmet.bayern.de

Index Terms-agile methods; artifact model; distributed projects; software process interface; project management

Last Updated: 29 November 2013

Details: Published: 18 September 2013

Munich 18.09.2013

pliXos (www.plixos.com/en) is further expanding its technology base for sourcing lifecycle management. A key part of this expansion is the new "(Out-)Sourcing Relationship Tracker - ORT" project, which will be carried out in close collaboration with the Department of Information Systems and Services at the University of Bamberg. The first steps towards this management tool which supports the ongoing observation and control of the social components of sourcing relationships have already been successfully completed. As part of the (Out-)Sourcing Relationship Tracker, new measurement methods based on social network analysis will be implemented.
pliXos-ORT

What are the objectives?

The overall goal of this project is to create a scientifically grounded, multi-dimensional instrument for measuring relationship quality. Today, the monitoring of sourcing arrangements does often only focus on the “hard facts” (cost, timelines etc.) while considering the social dynamics is nearly always neglected. But, poor communication quality, lacking openness or insufficient information transfer often cause serious problems, in the long run, and thus should be used as early warning indicators for deteriorating sourcing performance. The (Out-)Sourcing Relationship Tracker will collect data from the interaction between vendor and client staff and thus allow for a transparent and holistic monitoring of the sourcing relationship over time, both for single sourcing arrangements and overall multi-sourcing portfolios. Building on thoroughly conducted scientific analyses the new system will complement pliXos´ Global Sourcing Platform.

What’s new?

Two specific features make the Sourcing Relationship Tracker different from existing solutions:

The focus of monitoring is shifted from the relatively easily measurable and accessible, technically oriented performance indicators, such as service quality, to the essential characteristics of good relationship quality, like, e.g., trust, mutual understanding and communication quality. In addition, key drivers of relationship quality like knowledge transfer mechanisms will be assessed. Following this approach is expected to solve the well-known problem of "everything is green but we are still dissatisfied".
A minimum of time-consuming user surveys: Until now, data for measuring soft aspects of relationship quality had to be collected via online or offline polls from the involved staff and managers at client- and vendor-side. The (Out-)Sourcing Relationship Tracker will come with collector modules that enable relationship quality monitoring using, e.g., social network analysis and sentiment analysis, thus minimizing the need for user surveys. Ultimately, a well-defined mix of different measurement tools is set to comprehensively examine and present all relevant dimensions of relationship quality.

Status of the research project

As of today, the objectives and work packages for the remainder of the project have been defined in detail. Furthermore, based on many years of academic outsourcing research a comprehensive model of the potential dimensions and indicators of relationship quality and its drivers has been developed. Current solutions from industry were examined to identify the extent to which these approaches include relationship quality. It was found that existing industry solutions rather focus on performance indicators than on the underlying relationship quality where problems might become apparent much earlier. Next, the project, will define the optimal cockpit for tracking relationship quality. Subsequently, specific measurement instruments will be developed, and finally tested and evaluated with selected pilot partners.

The further development will include early evaluations in the industry which will give important fresh stimuli to the design of the (Out-)Sourcing Relationship Tracker. Pilot partners will receive early results and have the chance to proactively monitor and improve their sourcing relationship quality. Do you have any questions? Are you interested in being part of this project as a partner or pilot customer? Do not hesitate to contact us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..