KNOWLEDGE COORDINATION IN DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF BREAKDOWNS IN MULTIMODAL VIRTUAL MEETINGS

Software organizations are increasingly relying on cross-organizational and cross-border collaboration, requiring effective coordination of distributed knowledge. However, such coordination is challenging due to spatial separation, diverging communities-of-practice, and unevenly distributed resources. We have therefore studied virtual meetings among the managers of a cross-organizational and cross-border joint venture who was highly dedicated to multimodal communication. Since coordination is most clearly noticeable when it is lacking, we investigated knowledge coordination by analyzing communication breakdowns on recordings of their combined teleconferencing and real-time collaborative modeling. As a result, we offer theoretical propositions that explain how distributed software managers can deal with communication breakdowns and effectively coordinate knowledge through multimodal virtual meetings

Vibration of a circular cylindrical tank containing liquid

Interest in the motion of a liquid contained in a circular cylinder has been generated by the desire to predict the response of a liquid propellent in a moving space vehicle

Investigating Multimodal Communication in Virtual Meetings: The Sharing of Dynamic Representations

To manage distributed work, organizations increasingly rely on virtual meetings based on multimodal, synchronous communication technologies. However, despite technological advances, it is still challenging to coordinate knowledge through these meetings with spatial and cultural separation. Against this backdrop, we present a framework for investigating the sharing of dynamic representations of co-created knowledge during such meetings. We illustrate the detailed workings of the framework by analyzing how three software managers coordinated a project over a series of virtual meetings. Grounded in audio recordings of their oral exchanges and video recordings of their shared dynamic representation of the project’s status and plans, our analysis shows how their interrelating of visual and verbal communication acts enabled effective communication and coordination. In conclusion, we offer theoretical propositions that explain how interrelating of verbal and visual acts based on shared dynamic representations enable communication repairs during virtual meetings. We argue that our proposed framework provides researchers with a novel and practical approach to investigate the complex data involved in virtual meetings based on multimodal, synchronous communication

Co-sourcing in software development offshoring: A case study of risk perception and alleviation

Software development projects are increasingly geographical distributed with offshoring, which introduce complex risks that can lead to project failure. Co-sourcing is a highly integrative and cohesive approach, seen successful, to software development offshoring. However, research of how co-sourcing shapes the perception and alleviation of common offshoring risks is limited. We present a case study of how a certified CMMI-level 5 Danish software supplier approaches these risks in offshore co-sourcing. The paper explains how common offshoring risks are perceived and alleviated when adopting the co-sourcing strategy in a mature (CMMI level 5) software development organization. We found that most of the common offshoring risks were perceived and alleviated in accordance with previous research, with the exception of the task distribution risk area. In this case, high task uncertainty, equivocality, and coupling across sites was perceived more as risk alleviation than risk taking. This perception of task distribution was combined with high attention to the closely interrelated structure and technology components in terms of CMMI and the actors’ cohesion and integration in terms of Scrum