Bringing Global Sourcing into the Classroom: Experiential Learning via Software Development Project

Global sourcing of software development has imposed new skill requirements on Information Technology (IT) personnel. In the U.S., this has resulted in a paradigm shift from technical to softer skills such as communications and virtual team management. Higher education institutions must, consequently, initiate innovative curriculum transformations to better prepare students for these emerging workforce needs. This paper describes one such venture between Marquette University (MU), U.S.A. and Management Development Institute (MDI), India, wherein IT students at MU collaborated with Management Information Systems (MIS) students at MDI on an offshore software development project. The class environment replicated an offshore client/vendor relationship in a fully virtual setting while integrating communications and virtual team management with traditional IT project management principles. Course measures indicated that students benefited from this project, gained first-hand experience in the process of software offshoring, and learned skills critical for conduct of global business. For faculty considering such initiatives, we describe the design and administration of this class over two semesters, lessons learned from our engagement, and factors critical to success of such initiatives and those detrimental to their sustenance

Teamwork Quality and Team Performance: Exploring Differences Between Small and Large Agile Projects

Agile principles were originally developed for small projects but are now widely used in larger projects with hundreds of developers. Teamwork quality is essential in any development work, but how does teamwork quality differ in small and large agile projects? We report from an explorative survey with 64 agile teams and 320 team members and team leaders, from 31 teams in small projects and 33 teams in large projects. For small projects, teamwork quality was considered by both team members and team leaders to primarily affect product quality. For large projects, the effect of teamwork quality on product quality was positive when it was rated by team members but was negative when rated by team leaders. At a finer granularity, the six dimensions of teamwork quality that we investigated affected team performance differently in small and large projects. These findings question to what extent findings from previous studies on teamwork in agile development in small projects apply to large projects.publishedVersio

Consequences of Project Team Member Turnover for agile Information Systems Development Teams: A Multiple Case Study

Turnover of IT professionals has been at the center of IT workforce research, mainly focusing on individual level drivers and consequences. This paper explores how turnover events affect the dynamics of agile software development (ISD) teams. We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven cases to understand team-level consequences of turnover events. We found that ISD teams who directly or indirectly experienced turnover events are confronted with the following four consequences on the group level: (1) group dynamics shift, leading to (2) interpersonal voids, and (3) voids of expertise which consequently leads to (4) rebalancing resources. Through our work, we contribute to a better understanding of how coping processes that start after collective turnover occurs in agile ISD teams are shaped at the group level