Evaluation of team dynamic in Norwegian projects for IT students

The need for teaching realistic software development in project courses has increased in a global scale. It has always been challenges in cooperating fast-changing software technologies, development methodologies and teamwork. Moreover, such project courses need to be designed in the connection to existing theoretical courses. We performed a large-scale research on student performance in Software Engineering projects in Norwegian universities. This paper investigates four aspects of team dynamics, which are team reflection, leadership, decision making and task assignment in order to improve student learning. Data was collected from student projects in 4 years at two universities. We found that some leader's characteristics are perceived differently for female and male leaders, including the perception of leaders as skilful workers or visionaries. Leadership is still a challenging aspect to teach, and assigned leadership is probably not the best way to learn. Students is are performing well in task review, however, needs support while performing task assignment. The result also suggests that task management to be done in more fine-grained levels. It is also important to maintain an open and active discussion to facilitate effective group decision makings

Proceedings of the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC) 2011

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2011 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference(SPARC). It includes papers from PhD students in the arts and social sciences, business, computing, science and engineering, education, environment, built environment and health sciences. Contributions from Salford researchers are published here alongside papers from students at the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Chester,De Montfort, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Manchester

Dynamic Capability Building through partnering: An Australian Mobile handset case Study

Dynamic capabilities are increasingly seen as an organisational characteristic for innovation and are regarded as a source of competitive advantage. In a quest for sustainability, service organisations are partnering with their stakeholders, and subsequently are aptly bringing innovation in services to market. Most of existing empirical research regarding dynamic capabilities seeks to define and identify specific dynamic capabilities, as well as their organizational antecedents or effects. Yet, the extent to which the antecedents of success in particular dynamic capabilities, contribute to innovation in service organisations remains less researched. This study advances the understanding of such dynamic capability building process through effective collaboration, and highlights the detailed mechanisms and processes of capability building within a service value network framework to deliver innovation in services. Deploying a case study methodology, transcribing interviews with managers and staff from an Australian telco and its partnering organisations, results show that collaboration, collaborative organisational learning, collaborative innovative capacity, entrepreneurial alertness and collaborative agility are all core to fostering innovation in services. Practical implications of this research are significant, and that the impacts of collaboration and the dynamic capabilities mentioned above are discussed in the context of a mobile handset case study

WORK THAT RELATIONSHIP: INVESTIGATING TOP MANAGEMENT SUPPORT VIA TOP AND PROJECT MANAGER RELATIONSHIPS IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

High rates of failure are reported for software development projects and top management support has been identified as a critical factor in avoiding such failure and achieving project success. However, there has been little in-depth examination of what exactly is meant by “top management support”. The purpose of this paper is to redress this gap in the literature and to develop a framework that treats top management support as one characterization of the overall relationship between project and senior (top) management. An initial framework was developed from the existing literature and then explored through data gathered from an exploratory study with interviews in five organizations. The conclusion drawn was that the framework has validity in showing top management support as a relational concept, with ten important attributes of the relationship being communication, documentation, leadership, decision making, governance structures, governance processes, resourcing, education, managerial engagement and time management

Gendered approach to managing change in organisations:differences in the way men and women manage organisational change in Abuja, Nigeria

Examining the impact of gender leadership differences on organisational change management outcomes in Nigeria, Africa was one of the main aims of this study. Existing literature reports that only one third (30 per cent) of change programmes in organisations meet the desired outcomes, thereby leaving 70 per cent of organisational change programmes failing to achieve anticipated expectations. Some scholars (e.g., Paton and Dempster, 2002) report that the gendered aspect of organisational change management has been largely ignored, and may be one of the contributing factors to organisational change programmes not meeting desired outcomes. Given the increasing rate of change implementations in organisations and the reported failure rate, this study reviews the current trends, strategies and approaches adopted by change leaders. Furthermore, it examines men and women’s differences in their approach to organisational change management in Nigeria, and the impact that this might have on organisational change management outcomes. This research was undertaken in order to identify and recommend strategies that will assist with successfully managing change programmes in organisations. Qualitative research methods through the use of 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted in five organisations (one federal medical health centre, two banking organisations and two government parastatal/ministries). Analytical tools including inductive content analysis, descriptive data analysis, thematic template and cross-case analysis were used to analyse the obtained data. The results show that there may be some differences in the way that men and women approach and manage change scenarios in organisations, which may have some potential impacts on OCM outcomes. However, certain factors appear to affect the observed leadership behaviour and adopted styles. Firstly, leaders’ behaviour and choice of leadership style is influenced by national and sector culture, therefore some of the leaders are unable to adopt their preferred way of approaching and managing the implemented changes as they have to conform to organisational set principles in managing the change programmes. Secondly, the results further show that leaders’ leadership behaviour and style is influenced by the gender and behaviour of the followers. Thirdly, gender leadership differences emerge as a result of leaders’ age and personality, and not necessarily because of their gender or sex. In summary, both men and women may bring intrinsic benefits to the management of organisational change programmes, and these may have a significant and positive impact on the outcome of organisational change programmes. This is based on the perspective of the larger sample of this study’s respondents and some existing views in the literature. This study suggests a gender-inclusive methodology developed from the empirical findings of this study and existing literature, which provides comprehensive guideline on how organisational change programmes can be approached and managed from a more gender-inclusive perspective. The results from the present study raise many interesting issues for both the academic community and practising managers and agents. This is the first study of its kind that has looked at the impact of gender leadership differences on organisational change management outcome in developing countries like Nigeria

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Turnover at Lockheed Martin: a Study in How to Retain Team Members

Frequent turnover causes the Lockheed Martin Test and Readiness Group to re-train a third of its work force every year. To better understand why employees leave, I plan to conduct an action research project to gather data on employee job satisfaction, a widely-held indicator of turnover intent. Data gathering methods will include questionnaires, interviews, and secondary data. A collaborative team will analyze the data and recommend an appropriate change intervention to ameliorate the turnover issue. By gaining a full understanding of the causes for employee turnover, the group can learn how to retain its talent to improve effectiveness and enhance its ability to achieve mission success

TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY OF AGILE ISD LEADERSHIP

Leadership influences the success of any project, including agile information systems development (ISD) projects. In fact, agile ISD projects are nowadays the ISD method of choice in practice irrespectively of the size of the project - either small or large projects. There, leadership is crucial because it transcends and influences other factors, such as team motivation and commitment. However, knowledge of agile ISD leadership is limited as research in this area is rare. This study aims to reveal how leadership manifests in an agile ISD project, specifically in the setting of large-scale projects. To investigate leadership in an agile ISD project, we conducted a qualitative case study and interviewed 12 agile ISD practitioners from three teams. Preliminary results show that personal attributes, attitudes, and behaviors of the leader are important for agile ISD leadership to be effective. Based on those characteristics, we develop a theoretical framework about leadership for agile ISD projects. Keywords: Leadership, Agile, Large-scale ISD, Case study