Teamwork in Software Engineering (CH3)

Slide 1

Teamwork in Software Engineering

 Jim Tomayko     Orit Hazzan 

Slide 2

Main Problems in Teamwork

• Suggest general problems of teamwork.

• Suggest problems of software teams .

• Suggest solutions to the problems you mentioned.

Slide 3

What Does It Mean to Be a Team Member?

• Different from working alone

  Instead of being efficient as much as possible, the target is that the team would be efficient as much as possible.

  A gelled team is capable of performing tasks that can not be carried out by the individual(s)

• Shared goals

Slide 4

The Mythical Man-Month (Brooks)

One of the main problems of software development is that schedule is based on Person Months.

Correct for other professions where

• Where a task can be shared among many people

• No communication is needed

• No dependency among people/tasks

Incorrect for software development

• In software development people and months are not interchangeable

Slide 5

The Mythical Man-Month

Brook s law:

Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.

Slide 6

Communication

Inside and outside the team

• Feedback

• Visibility

• Listening

• Negotiating

Slide 7

Types of Software Teams

Source: Armour, P. G. (2001). Matching process to types of teams, CACM 44(7), pp. 21 “23.

Four main types of software teams:

• Technical (its job is to do something)

• Problem-solving (its job is to fix something)

• Creative (its job is to build something)

• Learning (its job is to learn something)

Slide 8

Types of Software Teams

Usually software teams are more than one type:

Example: a team is a

• Learning team when data about the customer is collected;

• Creative team when the system is designed;

• Technical team when they code;

• And a Problem Solving team during debugging sessions.

Slide 9

Structures of Software Teams

• Structure of software teams depends on the type of project and people.

• Sometimes the structure of the project is reflected into the structure of the team

• 3 typical structures:

  • Democratic Team

  • Chief Programmer Team

  • Hierarchical Team

In each team: 3 “8 people; enables communication

[Lecturers can elaborate on each team structure according to students background]

Slide 10

Additional Topics Related to Team Work

Team members heterogeneity:

• Personal variables : gender, age

• Skills

• Previous experience

Team evaluation

Decision making processes

Dilemmas in teamwork (in the continuation)

Slide 11

Dilemmas in Teamwork ”Discussions

One of the team members does not work on his/her task.

• What are you doing?

Additional dilemmas from your experience

Slide 12

Relationship Between Reward and Cooperation

Optimum ways for sharing bonuses:

• Shared ”as a team member

• Individually ”depending on personal contribution

[Lecturers may proceed with the reward allocation activity descried in Chapter 3]