The increasing use of software and information technology in modern society requires that the deployment of IT solutions should be more efficient and controlled. In this sense, agile methodologies are essential to achieve this goal, but a relevant question arises: Which is the right methodology for reaching that goal? The purpose of the research was to study the prioritization of agile practices and improvement objectives in the context of software development, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. For this purpose, 42 agile practices, 16 improvement objectives, 4 organizations dedicated to software development in Colombia and 40 professionals in the area of information and communication technologies in the same country were considered. ology: The methodological approach used was mixed. On the one hand, we applied a quantitative approach for the treatment of data with the AHP method and, on the other hand, a qualitative analysis by consulting experts through a digital survey to validate the prioritization of the improvement objectives. Questionpro was used as a support tool for multicriteria comparison. The main results show that applying AHP allowed us to prioritize 6 improvement objectives and 5 agile practices, where it is highlighted that the prioritization does not discard the other objects of comparison but allows us to put into practice the prioritized elements to favor their progressive implementation. The non-prioritized elements could be part of future iterations of multicriteria comparison that go hand in hand with capacity development and organizational maturity models in the context of global software development. It is highlighted that, although there is evidence of the application of multi-criteria comparison methods in the software development industry, this work applies such methods in the context of four different agile methodologies, which translates into a precedent for the conformation of hybrid methodological approaches.

The aim of the study in this paper is to show how the performance of banks can be evaluated by ranking them based on Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. Nowadays, assessing the performance of companies is a vital work for finding their weaknesses and strengths. The banking sector is an important area in the service sector. Many people want to know which bank performs best when entrusting their money to them. For assessing the performance of banks, BSC can be used. This method helps to translate strategic issues to meaningful insights for the respective financial institutions. After that, the banks will be ranked based on performance indicators by the Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS) method. Because this method is based on a decision matrix, weights are required. To find such weights, the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method is applied. The results show that the International Bank of Colombia has a much better performance than other Colombian banks. Besides, further insights regarding the evaluation process based on BSC, SWARA, and WASPAS are obtained.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to find and prioritise multiple critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of LSS in the oil and gas industry.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a preselected list of possible CFSs, experts are involved in screening them with the Delphi method. As a result, 22 customised CSFs are selected. To prioritise these CSFs, the step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method is applied to find weights corresponding to the decision-making preferences. Since the regular permutation-based weight assessment can be classified as NP-hard, the problem is solved by a metaheuristic method. For this purpose, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used.Findings: The resulting prioritisation of CSFs helps companies find out which factors have a high priority in order to focus on them. The less important factors can be neglected and thus do not require limited resources.Research limitations/implications: Only a specific set of methods have been considered.Practical implications: The resulting prioritisation of CSFs helps companies find out which factors have a high priority in order to focus on them.Social implications: The methodology supports respective evaluations in general.Originality/value: The paper contributes to the very limited research on the implementation of LSS in the oil and gas industry, and, in addition, it suggests the usage of SWARA, a permutation method and a GA, which have not yet been researched, for the prioritisation of CSFs of LSS.

Products’ classification according to their importance has been a topic addressed by academia and industry for many years, mainly due to the great importance of this process to obtain efficient inventory policies that reduce lost sales while reducing inventory maintenance costs. This research has to perform an ABC inventory classification in a medium-sized company that sells hardware goods and construction materials, considering multiple quantitative and qualitative criteria. AHP fuzzy TOPSIS multicriteria tool was used as a methodological approach which implies the definition and initial weighting of a set of relevant criteria for the study based on the AHP fuzzy methodology, to obtain an inventory products’ importance assessment according TOPSIS technique procedure. After applying the technique, it is possible to obtain that 0.26% of the inventory was classified as highly critical. Likewise, 5.45% represents products of medium relevance to the organization. Finally, it is observed that many of the products (approximately 94%) have little or almost no impact within the company under study. This methodology was used in a practical case where some criteria were taken from the reviewed literature. In addition, the criticality criterion was used from a financial perspective.