A Requirement Elicitation Methodology for Global Software Development Teams (original) (raw)

Classifying groupware tools to improve communication in geographically distributed elicitation

2003

In a scene where stakeholders are geographically distributed, communication presents new challenges for research areas. Considering the characteristics of interpersonal communication and the virtual area where it is carried out, the importance of applying interdisciplinary approaches, such as Cognitive Engineering, is currently increasing. Particularly, our proposal aims at improving the interaction between stakeholders by applying learning models when eliciting distributed software requirements. These models might help characterise the way people interact with distributed environment abstracting information or procedures. Identifying a type of interaction a stakeholder is more suitable for, would led to the use of specific groupware tools as a way of improving communication during a requirements elicitation process.

Groupware research and technology issues with application to software process management

Systems, Man and …, 1991

Technology for actively supporting groups of collaborating users is currently being applied to many kinds of cooperative work activities. The paper presents the following: 1) the authors' definition of groupware, 2) a conceptual framework in which to examine research issues, and 3) high-level groupware research issues within this framework. One potentially fertile area of application for such technologies is the problem of software process management. Software process means one of the teamwork, cooperation, coordination, and communication activities that occur within and across groups and organizations of persons throughout the life of software projects, including processes that occur under the broad categories of proposal writing, software engineering, development, and maintenance. This application domain contains a number of research issues and technology problems in such areas as communication, distribution, concurrence control, and human-computer interface design. The research areas needed for groupware to facilitate software processes are described. Issues are described for researchers in the field to address and for future users to be aware of when they decide which systems to purchase. The directions of our research in extensible groupware tools at the Lockheed Software Technology Center are presented in the conclusion.

Collaborative Development of Groupware Applications

2004

Groupware aimed at coordinating the actions of people is faced with a dilemma. In order to support a group at work, the groupware must be configured into applications that accurately reflect how the group works. Yet, organizations are constantly changing both their structure and the way they work, leaving the groupware application inaccurate, or at least out of date. Implementers of groupware applications are finding that the cost of implementation comes not from the hardware or the software, but the effort needed to capture and codify their organizational processes, and then to maintain the applications to keep them up to date. This paper explores how the implementation of groupware is a collaborative activity. Methods to define processes, such as BPR, are group activities. A powerful way to solve this is to develop the groupware applications collaboratively. In a sense, this is groupware to help in the development of groupware. Four key capabilities are described that are needed t...

Choosing Groupware Tools and Elicitation Techniques According to Stakeholders’ Features

Enterprise Information Systems VII

The set of groupware tools used during a distributed development process is usually chosen by taking into account predetermined business politics, managers' personal preferences, or people in charge of the project. However, perhaps the chosen groupware tools are not the most appropriate for all the group members and it is possible that some of them would not be completely comfortable with them. To avoid this situation we have built a model and its supporting prototype tool which, based on techniques from psychology, suggests an appropriate set of groupware tools and elicitation techniques according to stakeholders' preferences.

Groupware: a strategic analysis and implementation

Industrial Management & Data Systems, 1999

The term groupware is widely used but not clearly defined. Owing to ongoing rapid developments, a consistent definition of the term has proved elusive. However, there is a good reason to view groupware as a technology that addresses the vast areas of collaboration, human‐computer interaction, and human‐human interaction through digital media to bring substantial improvement and transformation to organizations. This paper analyzes the definitions, implementation, and management of groupware. The focus is on the strategic considerations rather than technical solutions. Factors that contribute to the future development of groupware are also discussed.

Constructing distributed groupware systems

Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGOPS European workshop on Support for composing distributed applications - EW 8, 1998

The term "groupware" is used to describe a wide range of application types, from e-mail systems through shared text editors to videoconferencing systems, all of which aim to support the co-operation of multiple users . Building such systems is difficult. All but the most trivial groupware system are complex distributed multi-user systems. For example, a system might integrate a spreadsheet, a CAD package and a multi-media conferencing application, enforcing a variation of strict turn taking on the part of the participants . It is important therefore to find a way to support the construction of groupware, so simplifying the design and programming tasks. This support should be generic and comprehensive: it should support, in every important respect, the construction of a very broad spectrum of groupware systems, rather than some subset. We hypothesise that useful groupware support should be based on an integrated approach that focuses first on the commonality across the range of groupware systems, rather than targeting specific support issues for one or other class of system.

Coordinating Work with Groupware

Organizational Information Systems in the Context of Globalization, 2003

One important goal of employing groupware is to make possible complex collaboration between geographically distributed groups. This requires a dual transformation of both technology and work practice. The challenge is to reduce the complexity of the coordination work by successfully integrating the protocol stipulating the collaboration and the artefact, in form of the groupware application, mediating the collaboration. This paper analyses a generic groupware application that was deployed in a large financial organisation in order to support working groups distributed throughout four countries. Using the CSCW framework of coordination mechanisms, we have elicited six general factors influencing the integration of the groupware application in two situations.

Collaborative Groupware Implementations: A Systematic Literature Review

International journal of engineering research and technology, 2021

Application software utilized to assist groups consisting of two or more individuals working towards same outcome is called collaborative software. These software mostly function by allowing process managers to keep track of required group processes that are needed to obtain a specific result. Software development heavily relies upon inter/intra-team collaboration between small teams of developers to build functional software modules. Utilization of collaborative groupware software monitors individual contributions towards process outcomes. Mapping individual contributions will cause a boost in overall productivity by allowing the organization process managers to highlight specific unfulfilled processes over the span of a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Tools designed to facilitate inter/intra-team collaborative interaction were examined. This paper studies factors which influence design of collaborative groupware implementations along with their adoption by end-users in a post COVID (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic impacted world. We present our inferences on existing productivity groupware implementations after going through referenced literature pertaining to their construction and impact on the end-user. We detail the variables which influence usage patterns and implementation of productivity tool, investigating whether User Interfaces (UI) allow for end-user to have an uncluttered experience while navigating the tool, checking for cohesive user engagement using local variables unique to the experiences of domestic teams. Lastly, we conclude with a few points regarding complications faced while designing resources to assist globally distributed virtual networks of teams carrying out complex projects.

Applying the 3C Model to Groupware Development

his paper introduces an approach based on the 3C (communication, coordination and cooperation) collaboration model to the development of collaborative systems. The 3C model is studied by means of a detailed analysis of each of its three elements, followed by a case study of a learningware application and the methodology of a web-based course, both designed based on this model. Moreover, this paper describes a component-based system architecture following this 3C approach.