Standardisering kontra flexibilitet
En fallstudie av utvecklingsprocesser
Process standardization is a topic that has generated a lot of research and literature. At first, the focus was on production; today processes are used in all different kind of business areas.The aim of this study has been to analyze how processes can be applied on development businesses and how IT systems affect the result of the process. To accomplish this, we have asked questions such as what standardization is in a development process? Why are the processes standardized? What difficulties can appear with standardization? And how the IT-systems affect the result of the process?To answer these questions, we have preformed a case study on Saab. Saab is a well know Swedish company who are working with a project called the GMS-project, where they develop processes to cover the whole company´s business areas.The literature gives the reader an understanding of processes and standardization. Further on it gives a perspective on how IT and processes should be integrated as well as a perspective on quality in processes.The result of this study shows that Saab focus on standardization of milestones, concepts and language, when designing processes for development. Through this, they want to accomplish better collaboration. The study also shows the difficulties in development processes compared with production. The main differences are that development processes needs to have built in flexibility and room for the employees to take initiatives. This makes it hard to standardize mode of operation, in a development process. For IT to be a support for the development process, it requires an adaptation of both the process and IT systems. On Saab there are different opinions on how the adaption should be organized. This study points out some specific reasons that it is hard to predict it the system or the process should be adapted. Instead, common sense should be used while adapting IT and process.