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Coordination and Control • Coordination: act of integrating each task with each organizational unit, so that unit contributes to the overall objective • Control: adhering to goals, policies, standards or quality levels – formal: budget, guidelines, standards – informal: peer pressure • Communication: mediating factor Communication • Communication: exchange of complete and unambiguous information • Two communication dimensions: – Timeliness – Content • Project coordination and control strongly depend on richness and speed of communication channels • Formal & informal communication critical for project success • Intra-unit communication – same place, same time On verbal and nonverbal communication • Words we say is just 7% of content we communicate to the person we are talking to face-to-face • Other content is provided by facial expressions, tone of voice, voice inflections, gestures … Virtual team communication • Affected by both distance and time difference factors • Distance affects communication among different unit members by: – Slowing down communication speed (i.e. response time) – timeliness – Reducing amount of information exchanged - content – Drastically reducing informal (corridor) communication • Time difference reduces the “window of opportunity” for communication among distant units • Communication problems arise at distances above 30 m from door-to-door (long corridors) ! Technology-based communication solutions • Three main groups of technology-based communication solutions: – synchronous: telephone conferences, video conferences – Near-synchronous: messengers … – asynchronous: e-mail, voice mail, newsgroups, web pages … Effectiveness of communication methods High Face-to-face Content Telephone conference Video conference @ E-mail Postal mail Low Low Timeliness High Face-to-face communication • Content rich real-time communication • Quick resolution of ambiguities • In virtual teams this kind of communication is expensive as it involves travel from one unit to another (both time & cost) • Should be part of the project’s kickoff, later on in project on a regular basis • Only way of creating informal (social) contacts between team members Postal mail • Obsolete mean of communication ? • Low timeliness and content properties • Unavoidable if shipping documentation / hardware • It is still much cheaper to send very large amounts of data using postal mail than via network !!! Telephone conferences • Next-best communication method • Real-time interaction • Loses some of the communication content (nonverbal communication) • Teleconferences used for regular meetings, phone calls for resolving current issues • No written trail of communication • VoIP – reduces communication costs • Problem: work interruptions Video conferences • Aims to completely replace face-to-face communication • Still impose too high technical demands for long-distance communication (required bandwidth and QoS) • Turn-based communication • Need more preparation than telephone conferences ! E-mail • Easy, cheap yet relatively rich means of communication • Mailing lists for multiple recipients, grouping according to project roles • Problems: timeliness, amount of received email, security Other tools • Messengers for on-line collaboration (discussions, whiteboards, assistance …) • Newsgroups/forums for off-line discussions • Web for relatively static information – team organization, team member contact information, project status, documentation … Security • Infrastructure level: – Dedicated closed networks (LANs, WANs) – Tunneling traffic through Internet (VPNs) • Application level: – Mail encryption (PGP …) – Digital signatures – HTTPS for web Other ways of alleviating c&c problems • Technology helps us to reduce communication problems caused by location/time distance, but cannot remove them completely • If we cannot gain more by using technology, can we try to use it less ? Reducing collaboration • Lower the need to coordinate = smaller the communication problems ! • Addressed by virtual team task allocation • Follows the principle of OO design: – Loose unit (collaboration) coupling – Strong unit (class) cohesion Collaboration and Task Complexity • Structured tasks: well-defined, easy-to-use methods and unambiguous outcomes – Example: sw port from Windows to Linux – Reduced need for collaboration • Unstructured tasks: iterative and/or unclear solutions – Example: sw design based on other unit’s analysis results, follow-the-sun, R&D – Results in high demand for collaboration between units Software task maturity function Low Visioning Task structurness Ownership Functional specifications High-level design Low-level design Maintenance High Port Time Life-cycle effort • Amount of unit’s involvement in the product’s life-cycle • Relationship between the need of coordination and life-cycle effort not linear ! Coordination – life-cycle effort Complex Follow-the-sun Data center Coordination Ownership Help desk Contract programming Port Simple Life-cycle effort 100%