Browsing by Author "Wickramarathne, C"

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Open Access
Does management support drive sustained agile usage? a serial mediation model and cIPMA perspective
(Public Library of Science, 2025-02-05) Wijesinghe, U; Mapitiyage, V; Wickramarathne, C; Wickramage, C; Wisenthige, K; Aluthwala, C
Agile software development is immensely popular in the industry, but most teams struggle to sustain its use. Human factors like management support, agile training, agile mindset, and team resilience are often neglected, hindering long-term success. However, research has not explored their underlying mechanisms in depth. Therefore, this study examines if management support impacts the sustained usage of agile methodologies within software development teams. It subsequently investigates the individual and serial mediating effects of agile training, the agile mindset, and team resilience on this relationship. Additionally, it compares the importance and performance of management support, agile training, the agile mindset, and team resilience in infusing agile practices. Finally, it determines these antecedents’ necessity for the enduring success of agile application. Data collected from 391 agile software development professionals using a structured questionnaire. Partial-least-squares structural equation modelling, importance-performance map analysis and necessary condition analysis were used to investigate relationships. The findings underscore the pivotal role of management support in infusing agile practices. Agile training, mindset, and team resilience emerge as critical mediators, with a strong serial mediation effect. While management support is paramount, its practical implementation falls short within teams. All four antecedents are found to be necessary for optimal agile sustainment. Thus, this study significantly advances theoretical understanding by introducing a serial mediation model that elucidates their mechanisms in impacting agile infusion. It extends prior organisational-level findings to the team-level. The study’s quantitative verification of qualitative findings strengthens their generalisability to a broader spectrum of teams. It pioneers in expounding the constructs’ relative importance, performance and necessity, to offer actionable insights for agile practitioners. Finally, it provides methodological guidance to apply importance performance map analysis and necessary condition analysis in agile software development research. Adult
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Towards Autonomous Strawberry Pollination via IoT and Robotics
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2025-12-09) Karunarathna, R.T; Wickramarathne, C; Mohamed Akmal, M.A; Wickrama Arachchi, C.S; Dissanayaka, K; Silva, N
Strawberries, a high-value crop with growing demand, face increasing challenges due to labour shortages, declining natural pollinator populations, and inconsistent manual pollination. To address these obstacles, this paper introduces an IoT-enabled robotic system designed to automate strawberry pollination with minimal human intervention. The system consists of a mobile rover with a three-dimensional robotic arm for precise flower detection and positioning, and a high-performance server to handle image processing and task coordination. The rover uses an event-driven software architecture that enables responsive, real-time behaviour and keeps power and memory usage to a minimum, which is crucial to field-deployable robotics. The onboard camera modules capture images of the strawberry bed and send them to an image processing server, which returns flower coordinates. The arm then performs targeted pollination based on the flower positions. Communication between system components is asynchronous and modular to allow scalable integration and future system extensions. Preliminary field tests conducted in open-field raised beds demonstrate the system's functional viability and reliable operational behaviour under real-world conditions. Designed with affordability and practicality in mind, this work contributes a novel and cost-effective approach to precision agriculture, particularly for small and medium farms where traditional pollination methods are either unreliable, labour-intensive, or too costly to sustain.