ICREATIVE - A project selection platform for projects within IT organization

Abstract

Innovation is key aspect in maintaining the competitive edge of any business or company. With the fast-growing nature of technology innovation plays a major role in the context of software industry. Thus, maintaining the competitive edge has become a huge challenge for companies due to the expanding technology. Similarly, the constant innovation has become a major necessity for the companies that belongs to the software domain around the world. When relating to the importance of innovation to the Sri Lankan context, currently many startup companies are emerging into the local software industry. Thus, maintaining the competitive advantage has become vital for the small to medium scale software companies in Sri Lanka. Even though many large-scale software companies in Sri Lanka have initiated NPD projects, most of the SME companies are comparatively behind in initiating NPD projects mainly due to the lack of funding for NPD projects or due to uncertainties and risks associated. NPD can be conducted in two approaches such as conducting market research or through idea generation. This project aims to analyze the problems in current methods of idea selection in NPD projects in the Sri Lankan software industry and propose an IS solution to introduce an efficient platform that can obtain and assess employee ideas to help management make successful business decisions when selecting NPD projects. Several interviews and surveys have been conducted with industry experts to identify problems faced by ideators, idea reviewers and management of SME IT companies in Sri Lanka. The results obtained indicated that the current process if idea selection needs to be structured and digitized to ensure the accurate tracking and selection of ideas submitted by employees while reducing the risks and uncertainties associated with idea selection. Thus, constant feedback was obtained by stakeholders involved to propose a solution that address the problem identified. The developed solution includes a web-based system that will accurately manages the idea selection process which have been evaluated by stakeholders involved to ensure that the solution has addressed the aimed purpose."