Methodology and Tools. The benchmarking procedure has been active since the earliest phases of the project. It will be active during the course of activities and at conclusive stages of the project. We have begun discussion at the first meeting and have had a series of exchanges in the first month of the project because we believe it is important to start with a common understanding and agreed upon Observable Concepts. Carrying out an initial idea of what is going to be observed and deciding how and when that is going to happen at the start of any activity like this is fundamental. In fact an established baseline is essential to ensure objectivity of the evaluation further along in the project. In research which involves development projects, the process of testing and evaluation clearly helps to ensure the overall quality of results. In particular the Xxxxxxxxx-Xxxxxxxx, or Pygmalion effect27 is a known phenomenon in information technology research and development projects where it is understood that if clear objectives are established and expectation to achieve those objectives are formalized it is much more probable that those results will be achieved. As an alternative, where research and development groups are allowed to go forward without clear expectations and methods to formalize and quantify their results, they will tend to evaluate the aspects of their research that are most promising28 and the most probable to return good results. In this scenario quality will suffer as researchers are not actively pursuing expectations and results will not necessarily follow the project plan expectations. To avoid this type of project behaviour and ensure that the outcome remains as close to the expectations as possible we have defined our expectations from the start and are in the process of determining what observable outcomes of the single themes might be decomposed into elements we expect to be able to monitor. We are currently discussing those elements and the quantifiable characteristics of those elements. Themes 4, 5 and 6 have provided a sufficient level of detail and actual measurements are being discussed and agreed upon. In the next several weeks we will detail and establish a baseline observation of the concepts described in the previous section. Near the end of the project we will compare these initial baseline to results of the project to understand where we were most successful and to give direction to researchers in this domain. The actual observation practice will be...
Methodology and Tools. The main methodology of the study is based on semi-structured interviews with 43 firms. It was aimed to understand their general profiles (size, project number, IPR data etc.) and their opinions, which is about support mechanisms, sectoral diversification, METUTECH infrastructure, and their R&D and innovation policies. Despite no recorders were used during the interviews, I took notes transcribing almost all of their answers simultaneously during the interview. There were 7 firms which responded the interview via e-mail and with other 36 firms face to face interviews were conducted. For evaluating the firms, I designed “Firm Evaluation Form” (Appendix A) in Turkish, containing demographic (e.g. number of employee, number of projects) and basic informative questions (e.g. date of establishment, financial/institutional support they receive, IPR details and so forth) in the first part. The second part of the form is designed to receive qualitative data related to their opinions of METUTECH infrastructure, whether they perceive METUTECH’s sectoral diversification positive or not, either the firms themselves have an R&D and innovation policy or not. I would like to introduce semi-structured interviews in general and the advantages of using this type of interview method in this particular study. It offers a flexible and multi-dimensional evaluation for research objects in comparison with some other methodologies which require quantitative analysis such as structured survey questionnaires, “likert scale” questionnaires are more advantageous than close ended surveys. This is a significant benefit since the focus of my study is how these firms perceive cooperation related to R&D and innovation, support, sectoral diversification and METUTECH infrastructure; as well as whether they cooperate or not. At this juncture, to emphasize METUTECH’s specific problems, to address its specific characteristics and to generalize over its social actors’ opinions on the given subject, cooperation, I set the questionnaire in the following form: First part was formed to get quantitative data, including the questions on: ⇨ Date of establishment of the firm, the department and the building. ⇨ Their current number of employees in each department. ⇨ Whether the firm had taken any support from any specific institution. ⇨ Amount of financial support it received from any source. ⇨ Any type of support received from METUTECH. ⇨ Turnover of the firm and the ratio of METUTECH department in it. ...
Methodology and Tools. The project management teams will apply modern project management methods and tools in the management of the ALLEGIANCE project, including the generation of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). To guide the implementation activities and to ensure completeness, Lucent will develop a detailed WBS, following formal and informal meetings held with Lucent and ALLEGIANCE subject matter experts, to identify all project tasks. The WBS will show the tasks which must be completed to insure that a thorough and complete job has been done through every project phase. The WBS also includes itemized activity lists with the name(s) of the person responsible and when the activity must be completed. Actual completion dates and jeopardy situations are also noted. Finally, the WBS identifies critical project milestones, and is the basis for 1) the Deployment Milestones shown in SECTION 11.4, and 2) the detailed project plan, which includes task duration's and intervals. Lucent will develop the appropriate detailed project plans and Critical Path Method (CPM) schedules during the implementation of this SOW. INITIAL SWITCH CONNECTIVITY PLAN A connectivity plan for the first switch (switch to be selected jointly by Lucent and ALLEGIANCE) will be developed jointly with ALLEGIANCE in accordance with the time frame set forth in SECTION 11.4, "Deployment Milestones". The initial switch connectivity plan will be dependent on the deployment and availability of data networking between CONNECTVU-ATP and the selected switch. The parties must complete the switch connectivity plan prior to ensuring that the CONNECTVU-ATP system is able to send and receive Recent Change/Verify information to and from the selected switch. ALLEGIANCE is responsible for setting up the CONNECTVU-ATP software to communicate with all subsequent switches.
