Agile Collaboration for Distributed Teams

Editor Introduction: Today software engineering is characterized by two strong trends: agile and distributed. Both together are increasingly demanded and challenge teams and projects due to lack of discipline, insufficient transparency, agile "ping pong" and thus overheads and rework. Authors Fabio Calefato and I describe current technologies and tools for agile collaboration. I look forward to hearing from both readers and prospective column authors about this column and the technologies you want to know more about. -- Christof EbertComment:

Leadership in partially distributed teams

Inter-organizational collaboration is becoming more common. When organizations collaborate they often do so in partially distributed teams (PDTs). A PDT is a hybrid team that has at least one collocated subteam and at least two subteams that are geographically distributed and communicate primarily through electronic media. While PDTs share many characteristics with both traditionally collocated and fully distributed teams, they also have unique characteristics and issues. This dissertation reports on a field study of PDTs conducted over two semesters with student participants, This research was conducted as part of a larger series of studies investigating PDTs, In these studies, participants were formed into PDTs of two collocated subteams each. The task was to produce requirements for an emergency response information system for a specified country. Study 1 varied leadership configuration but held distance constant. Study 2 varied both leadership configuration and distance. Although distance was to be measured as cultural, geographic, and temporal distance, multicollinearity issues arose and cultural distance was dropped from the analysis. Distance was measured as time zone differences which, because the subteams in a team had east-west geographic distance, captured the geographic distance as well. Data collection was through surveys and personal reflections, Personal reflections are open ended survey questions for which the subjects reflected on their experiences the previous week in a PDT. This dissertation reports on qualitative and quantitative analyses of Study 1 data and quantitative analysis of Study 2 data, In addition to bivariate analyses of the survey data conducted separately for each study, multivariate analysis using Partial Least Squares (PLS) was performed on the combined Study 1 and Study 2 data. Factor analysis resulted in the identification of three types of trust: Expertise Trust, Personal Trust, and Process Trust, Trust was measured in the first personal reflection (after one week) and in the post survey at the end of the four week project, Early trust has the dimensions of Expertise Trust, Personal Trust, and Process Trust while longer term trust is comprised of Personal Trust and Process Trust. The results partially support the proposed research model. Strong support was found for the proposition that leadership roles identified by Quinn (1988) and examined in fully virtual and traditionally collocated teams are enacted in PDTs as well, Results suggest that leadership configuration influences leader role enactments. Trust was found to be important to team outcomes and influenced by media used and distance. Leadership role enactments were associated with perceptions of leader effectiveness, perceptions of performance, and satisfaction. Results suggest that leader effectiveness is associated with trust, perceptions of performance, and satisfaction. That is, trust, leadership configuration, distance, and leader role enactments all play important roles in PDTs. The results add insights into leadership and trust in partially distributed teams, which can inform professionals as to issues, leadership configurations, and leadership behaviors (roles) that will promote successful outcomes

Conflict In Virtually Distributed Teams

The purpose of this paper was two-fold. The first was to investigate the impact of conflict as a mediator in the relationship between distribution and team performance. The second was to examine how that relationship was affected by virtuality. Four-member teams of different distributions (partially distributed, fully distributed, and fully collocated) and different virtuality conditions (videoconferencing, teleconferencing, and chat) played a team-oriented game. Significant results were found only in the videoconferencing condition, in which both distribution and task conflict had a negative impact on team performance, but task conflict did not mediate the relationship between distribution and team performance. Further research investigating how virtuality impacts distributed teams in needed

Communication tools used by distributed teams in a BIM learning project

The constant changes in the world market demand flexible and fluid organizational structures, such as rotating and engaging human effort, to provide high performance. Therefore, organizations make use of distributed multicultural teams, meetings, and online lead projects. However, these social categorization processes can become a disadvantage if trigger potential conflicts during task performance. Distributed teams can also be difficult to manage, and their members can face extra adversities in communication. Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industry (AEC), is a context where the use of distributed teams is growing significantly, particularly through the enabling features of Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodologies. This paper was aimed at the diagnosis of communication behaviour in distributed teams in the context of a PBL methodology that requested students to work in distributed teams on two distinct locations. For that, the authors managed a workshop on Lean Project Management and Collaborative Tools in the European Master in Building Information Modelling (BIM A+) using a Lego for Scrum activity, adapted to a team of students distributed in Portugal and Slovenia. After that, nine distributed teams of students had to design exposition pavilions in BIM platform and using collaborative tools. At the end, each team had to present the project for the entire body of students and faculty, located in Guimaraes (Portugal) and Ljubljana (Slovenia).- (undefined

Coordination in Distributed, Self-managing Work Teams: The Roles of Initiated and Received Task Interdependence

While coordination is assumed to contribute to distributed self-managing work team performance, our knowledge about the factors influencing coordination in such team settings is limited. In the present study, we investigate the moderating roles of initiated and received task interdependence on the relationship between self-management and coordination perceptions in distributed teams that rely on electronic communication tools to interact. A field survey study of 110 employees in 40 distributed teams demonstrated that when there are high levels of initiated task interdependence and low levels of received task interdependence, team self-management is associated with stronger perceived coordination in distributed teams. Based on these results, we discuss theoretical and practical implications for distributed self-managing teams

Distributed Team Communication Preferences: A Case Study Of Community-Based Medical Schools

It’s surprising that in the 50 years since computer networks were created, geographically distributed teams still face communication challenges. Businesses manage geographically distributed teams across the globe seemingly well, but in higher education, communication between geographically distributed teams on different campuses is a challenge. Faculty-administrators, staff and students are focused on their day-to-day tasks, and send e-mails and voicemails without giving much thought to how those messages are received on the other end. Often, the recipient of that communication reacts negatively, causing conflict. This mixed-methods exploratory-sequential study qualitatively explored communication challenges, solutions, preferences, and feelings of connectedness and conflict among a small number of geographically distributed teams at one community-based medical school and measured quantitatively what communication preferences in certain scenarios might improve feelings of connectedness and avoid conflict among community-based medical schools across the United States. In summary, social presence theory as well as conflict was found to be prevalent among the North Dakota community-based medical school but not necessarily in community-based medical schools across the United States

Requirements Engineering for Globally Distributed Teams using Scaled Agile Framework

As large organizations are striving to deliver software at a faster pace and to keep up with the latest trends, they are in a transformation stage of adopting to Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). SAFe is a framework for implementing agile practices at enterprise level and it provides a roadmap for portfolios, programs and teams. Large organizations adopting to SAFe are facing challenges in coordinating, planning and managing requirements, as they work with globally distributed teams. The goal of this thesis was to improve the Requirements Engineering (RE) process using Scaled Agile Framework in globally distributed teams. The main research method used in this thesis was action research, an iterative approach which combines theory and practice. The empirical study was conducted in a large project that used SAFe and had eight globally distributed teams. In order to investigate the challenges faced by globally distributed teams, analysis of the existing literature and RE process flow in SAFe was important. It served as a good input to understand which good RE practices can be applied in the empirical study. The results of the study show that visually representing requirements as models and sharing domain and system knowledge through Community of Practice (CoP) reduced ambiguity in requirements. The good RE practice applied in SAFe, of working and improving collaboratively with the globally distributed teams helped in better coordination and managing of requirements. In addition to this, it was also essential to have SAFe training to develop clear and shared understanding of the framework and RE process. The lessons learned from the empirical study indicate that a well-organized PI planning is the key RE practice of SAFe in providing the big picture of requirements to all members in distributed teams. In addition, Community of Practice (CoP) can be a key RE practice of SAFe in sharing knowledge such as business domain, system knowledge, skills and techniques, and experiences