Team Management in Software Engineering

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Team Management in Software Engineering

• Jennifer Weingarten

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Overview of Presentation

• Team Selection
• Team Structure
• Team Motivation

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Team Selection Overview

• Importance of member selection
• Characteristics of potential members
• Measuring member characteristics

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Importance of Member Selection Case Study Xerox
CP6

• Data gathered over 12 years
• Same training, tools, and methodology for all
• Productivity measured by bugs fixed in software
• Top 27 of programmers did 78 of the work

From Not all Programmers are Created Equal by
G. Edward Bryan
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What are the Important Characteristics of
Selecting an Employee?
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Factors Governing Member Selection

• Application Domain Knowledge
• Platform Experience
• Programming Language Experience
• Education
• Communication
• Adaptability
• Attitude
• Personality

From Software Engineering by Ian Somerville
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Measuring Staff Characteristics

• Resources Available to Project Managers
• Interviews
• Resume
• Recommendation
• Programming aptitude tests
• Psychological Tests

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Importance
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Picture from www.bongonews.com
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Why Interviews Not Effective

• Interviewees will say what you want to hear
• Interviewees prepare for questions
• Interviewers dont get good feed back on
  decisions

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Interviews and bias

• Different interviewers different results
• Good impression interviewer talks more /better
• Previous Candidates affect outcome
• bad first impression less credit
• Bad is noticed more than good
• First impressions are important decided in
  first 4 minutes

How to Pick Eagles by Robert Zawacki
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Ways to improve Interview Objectivity

• Use multiple interviewers
• Ask each candidate the same questions
• Try to relax candidates
• No desk between
• Start with interviewees interests

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Problems with Resumes

• Entries may be misleading
• Fail to capture intangibles
• Must be used along with other methods

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Problems With Recommendations

• People say things to be nice
• People may be politically motivated
• Checking recommendations takes a lot of time
• Only use recommendations for few candidates
• Take recommendations with a grain of salt

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Problems with Testing

• Test questions often answered in a time limited
  manner
• Problem solving with large time segments does not
  map directly to this type of testing

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Team Structure

• Why team structure is important
• Types of team structures
• Advantages and disadvantages of team structures

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How much of programming is teamwork?
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Why Team Structure is Important
Figure 28.7 from Software Engineering 5th Edition
by Ian Sommerville
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General Team Structure

• Hierarchal Functional Organization
• Vertical Organization
• Matrix Organization

Organizational alternatives to project managers
by Robert Youker
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Hierarchal Functional Organization

• Standard pyramid with management at the top
• Strength lumps similar recourses together
• Weakness
• there can be conflicts for time between projects
  for resources
• Resources do not see big picture

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Vertical Organization

• Each Project its own organization
• Strengths-
• Ability to see the big picture and focus on
  projects
• Weaknesses-
• Organization is temporary and causes turmoil
• Facilities are duplicated

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Matrix Organization

• Combines the two structures so there is a
  functional boss and a project coordinator
• Strengths-
• Can see big picture and employees have security
• Weaknesses-
• Each employee has two bosses

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When to Choose What

• Choose functional structure when there are many
  small short term projects
• Choose project structure for large long-term
  projects
• For a mix of projects of unknown length use the
  Matrix Structure

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Programming Team Structure

• Egoless Programming
• Chief Programming

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Egoless Programming

• All programmers on one level
• Decisions are made by consensus
• Advantages
• Free flow of information between all programmers
• Generally better solutions to hard problems
• Disadvantages
• Communication takes more time
• Personality conflicts a major issue
• Groupthink

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Chief Programming

• The chief guides the project and makes all
  decisions but consults with specialists
• Advantages
• Fewer personality conflict
• Faster decisions
• Disadvantages-
• Chief can get overloaded with information and
  make incorrect decisions

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When to Choose What?

• Choose Chief programmer when the project is
• Large
• Has a tight schedule
• Not many new technical challenges
• Choose egoless programming
• When the schedule is loose
• Groups are small
• Many technical challenges

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Motivation Overview

• Basics of Motivation
• Personality and Motivation
• A shared vision

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Basics of Motivation

• Most often bottom two needs are satisfied
• So people motivated mostly by social and self
  esteem needs
• Only takes into account individual motivation

Maslows model of needs (1954)
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Personality and Motivation

• Social needs Allow time to meet co-workers
• Self esteem needs Recognize value to the
  organization
• Self Realization needs allow people direction in
  choosing their own work, and make the work
  interesting

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Three Types of Professionals

• Task-Oriented
• Motivated by the intellectual challenge of the
  work
• Self-Oriented
• Motivated by personnel success and recognition
• Interaction-Oriented
• Motivated by coworkers

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A Shared Vision

• Mckinsey Company Survey of 43 top performing
  fortune 500 companies found a shared vision
  common to all of them
• Must know goal
• Team understand this goal
• Team must buy in team verbally or otherwise
  commits to goal

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Case Study The Soul of a New Machine

• During the interview told the interviewee about
  the project to build a completely new computer
  system from the ground up
• Warned the recruit that the project is difficult
  and get them to say that they want in
• Raise the interviewees self esteem
• Said they only let the best in then let them in

• Communicated the Goal/ Reason for goal
• Got Buy in
• Added to motivation by invoking self esteem

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Example Vision Phrases and Goals

• Phrase The best coverage of local sports on
  CABL
• Goal most coverage of sports games
• Phrase Sports are Better on CABL
• Goal technical excellence in broadcasting

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Personal Experience with Shared Vision
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Overview

• Team selection
• Aspects used to pick team members
• Measuring these aspects
• Team Structure
• Why team structure is important
• Advantages and disadvantages of different team
  structures
• Team Motivation
• Why team structure is important
• Advantages and disadvantages of different team
  structures

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Sources

• Bryan, G.E. Not all Programmers are Created
  Equal UCirv-95-PROC-CSS-06
• Zawacki, Robert, How to Pick Eagles DATAMATION
  Magzin, Sept 15, 1985 pp 115-116
• Yoker, Robert, Organizational alternatives for
  project managers Project Management Quartery,
  Vol VIII, No. 1 March 1977
• Sommerville, Ian Software Engineering 5th Edition
  
• Thayer, Richard Software Engineering Project
  Management
• Curtis, Bill Human Factors in Software
  Development