Dynamics of Collaborative Work in Global Software Development Environment (original) (raw)

Exploring collaboration patterns among global software development teams

2009

This study examines communication behaviors in global software student teams. The authors of the paper characterize the types of communication behaviors that occur when student teams are engaged in a software development project. The authors present findings from a one-semester study that examined factors contributing to successful distributed programming interactions among students enrolled at the University of Atilim (Turkey), Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, University of North Texas, and Middlesex University (UK). Using content and cluster analyses techniques, we identified distinct patterns of collaboration and examined how these patterns were associated with task, culture, GPA, and performance of collaborative teams. Our results suggest that communication patterns among global software learners may be related to task type, culture and GPA. It is hoped that these findings will lead to the development of new strategies for improving communication among global software teams.

Global teams: Futuristic models of collaborative work for today's software development industry

… , 2009. HICSS'09. …, 2009

This paper emphasises the importance of global teams in the field of software development. The paper presents an approach for setting up pilot studies simulating those key features that make global software development teams particularly attractive to exploit and challenging to manage. The underlying research is supported by a research project funded by the US National Science Foundation with the participation of universities from US, Turkey, Panama and the UK. The paper provides detailed guidelines for setting up simulations resembling globally dispersed software development teams and discusses preliminary data of two pilot studies with involving collaboration between teams residing in the US and the UK. Key concerns of this research are those factors affecting collaborative work when global teams are involved. Such factors include differences caused by distance, culture, time zones and technology.

Collaboration practices in global inter-organizational software development projects

Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 2003

Global interorganizational software development projects are becoming common, but their management and the creation of practices and processes to support collaboration seem to be harder than what the companies expect. In this article, we present successful collaboration practices collected in an interview study of eight globally distributed interorganizational software development projects.

Interaction patterns among global software development learning teams

2009 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems, 2009

, the researchers first characterized the asynchronous communications among student teams in Panama, Turkey and the US as they worked to complete a global software development project. Cluster analysis was then used to identify groups with similar communication patterns, which is defined as the proportion of time spent on each of the behaviors. Results suggest that particular patterns of communication behaviors are associated with higher performance. More specifically, it appears that communications related to the "contributing" category seem to have the strongest relationship to high performance.

Patterns of Communication Behaviors among Global Software Student Teams and the Effects of Task Type

2009

A key factor in the success of global software development learning teams is the communication that occurs among the group. Various task characteristics, however, may affect the both the quality and quantity of the group communication. This study investigates the effects of task type on the communication behaviors of student teams engaged in a software development project. Two groups of teams completed assignments that varied in degree of task type and product. Content analysis was used to identify distinct patterns of interactions and examine how these patterns were associated with task type. Results indicate that differences in task context and product do not have large effects on the communication behaviors of global software teams. These findings will provide a basis for creating instruction that can help maximize successful communication among global software learning teams.

Rhythms of Interaction in Global Software Development Teams

2010

Researchers have speculated that global software teams have activity patterns that are dictated by work-place schedules or a client's need. Similar patterns have been suggested for individuals enrolled in distant learning projects that require students to post feedback in response to questions or assignments. Researchers tend to accept the notion that students' temporal patterns adjust to academic or social calendars and are a result of choices made within these constraints. Although there is some evidence that culture do have an impact on communication activity behavior, there is not a clear how each of these factors may relate to work done in online groups. This particular study represents a new approach to studying student-group communication activities and also pursues an alternative approach by using activity data from students participating in a global software development project to generate a variety of complex measures that capture patterns about when students work....

Causal Analysis of Factors Governing Collaboration in Global Software Development Teams

2010 5th IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2010

Abstract—Globally distributed software development (GSD) is increasing in popularity in industry. However, as it is coupled with its challenges of distance, time, and culture, it increases the importance of identifying and understanding the specific factors that enable and hinder GSD teams. This paper presents the approach and preliminary findings from an exploratory study of the enabling and inhibiting factors that affected several globally distributed projects in a large commercial organization. Our quantitative analysis includes grouping these factors to reduce the dimensional complexity, studying their underlying causal relationships, and identifying the most influential factors using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The paper concludes by presenting preliminary findings, limitations, and directions for future work.

CWS: An Awareness Tool to Support Starting Collaboration in Global Software Development

Open Software Engineering …, 2010

Software development organizations are facing a paradigm shift towards Distributed Software Development. This shift introduces situations from which organizations may benefit (e.g. highly skilled human resources, development groups closer to client location, etc.); but also introduces challenges to which organizations have to adapt (e.g. coordination difficulties, inadequate knowledge management and communication, and lack of inter-virtual-team trust relationships). In this work, we particularly study the lack of timely adequate opportunities for informal interaction, which has been identified as an underpinning foundation to overcome coordination, communication and trust limitations. To achieve this, we introduce and define the concept of Collaborative Working Spheres (CWS), through which developers can obtain information related to the personal activities of their distributed colleagues. CWS allow identifying opportunities for collaboration in suitable moments both for the one making contact and the one being contacted. We notice that other examples of technologies, including the telephone and instant messaging are used by developers for starting collaboration; however, they do not provide enough information from the personal activity of the person being contacted. We argue that with CWS, software developers will be able to become aware about the status and progress their partners have achieved in some activity, and use this information to inform their starting collaboration. We illustrate this concept with the design of a CWS-based messenger tool that supports Collaborative Working Spheres for Distributed Software Developers. The results of an initial evaluation provide encouraging evidence on the perceived usefulness and ease of use of the proposed CWS-based messenger tool.

The learner experience of student-led international group project work in software engineering

2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings, 2014

Software development has become increasingly globalized because of technological innovation, the evolution of work and business processes, as well as prevailing educational systems and national policies [1]. This paper addresses the challenges faced when creating realistic opportunities for students to participate in team working on a globally distributed software engineering project. We examine the experience of one set of students who undertook a single semester software development project, the technical objective of which was to create a product using online collaboration tools [2]. The students involved were studying at two widely-separated universities:

TASK ALLOCATION IN A GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

Second International Conference on Management of Globally Distributed Work 2007 Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India, 2007

In this paper we tackle one crucial part of the coordination problem in globally distributed software development, namely the problem of task assignment in a team. There are a number of ways to split work among the globally distributed sites. The work could be split according to the process state it is in, according to the product structure or even according to the product features. These different strategies could be more or less effective depending on a variety of circumstances. We propose a technique to test for problems in coordination through allocation of tasks, by observing the task allocation and advice network structures.