Practical programmer: software teams

ABSTRACT

I have often heard the phrase, “We see what we know.” As technicians, we concentrate on technical ways to manage complexity: abstraction, design techniques, high-level languages, and so on. That is what we know best. But when the tale is told of a project that failed, the blame is often laid not on technical difficulties, but on management and interpersonal problems.In the last six months, I have seen firsthand how attention to the social organization of a software team can make a big difference in the success of a development project. I work in a “Research and Development” group. “Research” means that some aspects of the project are experimental—we do not know for sure what is going to work. “Development” means we are expected to produce high-quality software for real users. So while we want to encourage creative thought, we must pay heed to the lessons of commercial software developers in quality assurance, testing, documentation, and project control.Our all-wise project leader decided we also needed to pay heed to the lessons of sociology. In particular, we began to apply the ideas found in Larry Constantine's work on the organization of software teams. Our efforts have resulted in a team that is productive, flexible, and comfortable. I thought these qualities are unusual enough to merit a column on the subject.

REFERENCES

• 1: Constantine, L. Teamwork paradigms and the structured open team. In Proceedings of Software Development '90, Miller Freeman Publications, San Francisco, 1990. (A good introduction and summary of these ideas).
• 2: Doyle, M. and Strauss, D. How to Make Meetings Work. Jove, NY: 1976. (Granddaddies of many of these ideas, including facilitator, scribe, group memory.)
• 3: Thomsett, R. Effective project teams: A dilemma, a model, a solution. Amer. Program. 3, 7/8 July- Aug. 1990. (Discusses structured open ideas in practice, especially personalities and team roles).
• 4: Zahniser, R. A. Building software in groups. Amer. Program. 3, 7/8 July-Aug. 1990. (Concerned with general productive advantage of group process, e.g., JAD, system storyboarding.)
• 5: The social styles test and instructions for administering and interpreting it came from The Tracom Corporation, 200 Fillmore St., Denver, CO 80206. The two principals of Tracom, Roger Reid and David Merrill, have published a book entitled Personal Styles and Effective Performance (Chihon, 1981). U

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Management, Performance