CIS 3250

A "real" team

a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Pseudo learning group

Often characterized by competitive behaviors that undermine each other's learning or performance.
Students would achieve more working on their own.

Traditional classroom learning group

Members work individually on components, and believe they will be evaluated individually, not as a group. Social loafing often occurs, where student(s) seek to benefit from effort of others. Conscientious members feel exploited and often do less. Output: more than potential of some, less than hard workers

Cooperative learning group

Members are typically happy to work as a group, esp. give complexity of assigned work. Know their success depends on efforts of all members. Goal of maximizing group's output motivates all to work to accomplish something beyond their individual accomplishments. Performs very well.

High-performance cooperative learning group

Has traits of a "cooperative" learning group AND Group members are committed to each other and to the group's success. Trust, respect, caring. Outperforms all reasonable expectations given its members.

Software engineering collaboration can be understood as ...

artifact-based or model-based collaboration, where the focus of activity is on the production of new models, the creation of shared meaning around the models, and elimination of error and ambiguity within the models.

What are some challenges that Whitehead et al. discuss, or that you would expect, related to global and multi-site (i.e. remote) software collaboration?

Global teams find it much harder to develop shared understanding around the evolving software artifacts, the distribution involved makes every aspect of communication more difficult.

Follow-the-sun

Follow-the-sun development is when you have people from different time zones working on a project, organized in such a way that when one time-zone is done there work day, another time-zone is starting theirs. This results in more work to be done in 24 hours.

Good Follow-the-sun practices

daily stand-up meetings, overlap of an hour between teams, using a data repository to exchange information

Pro's of a generalist

They have more career flexibility and are better suited for general leadership roles.

Con's of a generalist

They sacrifice depth for breadth which can result in less job security due to them having loosely defined roles.

Pro's of a specialist

They have more career stability and the opportunity to lead in their area of expertise.

Con's of a specialist

They don't have career flexibility and their opinions on topics outside of their expertise may be seen as invalid.

What is another term for a specialist?

An "I" shaped person. An "I" shaped person usually only has one area of expertise.

What is another term for a generalist?

A "T" shaped person. A "T" shaped person may have a "strongest" area of expertise but still have cross functional awareness.

Tayloristic teams

"Tayloristic" teams have specialists filling specific roles, such as a requirements team, design team, testing team, coding team etc.

Taylor's first principle

Match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency.

Taylor's second principle

Allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently.

Effective Team Meetings: Team meetings should have a clear

purpose

Effective Team Meetings: Set ground rules to maintain

focus and respect

Effective Team Meetings: All participants should

prepare

Effective Team Meetings: Keep conversation

on track

Effective Team Meetings: All participants must

participate

CATME: What does CATME stand for

Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness

CATME: First contribution category

Contributing to the team's work

CATME: Second contribution category

Interacting with teammates

CATME: Third contribution category

Keeping the Team on Track

CATME: Fourth contribution category

Expecting Quality

CATME: Fifth contribution category

Having Relevant Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Verbal Communication

Any form of communication that involves words. Spoken, written, or signed.

Non-verbal Communication

Body language, such as gestures, facial expressions, body orientation, eye contact, and posture.

What's the purpose of informational non-verbal communication?

Passing information from one individual to another.

What's the purpose of integrational non-verbal communication?

It facilitates the process of communication.

Conflict Strategy: Withdrawal

Neither goal nor relationship are important, you withdraw from the interaction.

Conflict Strategy: Forcing

Task is important but not relationship, use all your energy to get the task done.

Conflict Strategy: Smoothing

Relationship is more important than task, you want to be liked and accepted.

Conflict Strategy: Compromise

Both task and relationship are important but there is a lack of time, you both gain and lose something.

Conflict Strategy: Confrontation

Task and relationship are equally important, define the conflict as a problem-solving situation and resolve through negotiation.

Which conflict strategy is the most important to both the goal and relationship?

Confrontation

How do you apply the "X, Y, Z" strategy?

I noticed/heard X (give specific examples of X behavior), it made me feel Y (state the impact), can we talk about it? (Z: the requested action)

What is Burchard's first strategy for having difficult conversations?

Don't enter conversation with emotion, enter with humility and kindness.

What is Burchard's second strategy for having difficult conversations?

Begin with the end in mind, have a direction/purpose.

What is Burchard's third strategy for having difficult conversations?

X, Y, Z strategy.

What is Burchard's fourth strategy for having difficult conversations?

Be more patient than you're used to.

How does Dalhousie recommend you have a conversation about subtle behavior issues?

Give specific examples, state positive intent, identify a pattern of behavior, accept responsibility, acknowledge positive behavior, give timely feedback, call behavior, clarify impact vs intent, intervene early, ensure confidentiality.

How does Dalhousie recommend you address tension?

Address early, describe behavior, state positive intent, keep communication open.

Benefits of cultural diversity:

Diverse cultural perspectives can inspire creativity and drive innovation.

Benefits of cultural diversity:

Local market knowledge and insight provides competitive advantage.

Benefits of cultural diversity:

A diverse skills base allows an organization to offer a broader and more adaptable range of products and services.

Benefits of cultural diversity:

Diverse teams are more productive and perform better.

Benefits of cultural diversity:

Greater opportunity for personal and professional growth

Challenges of cultural diversity:

Team integration can be difficult due to prejudice or cultural stereotypes.

Challenges of cultural diversity:

Communications can be misinterpreted or difficult to understand across languages and cultures.

Challenges of cultural diversity:

Different understandings of professional etiquette.

Challenges of cultural diversity:

Conflicting working styles across teams.

What is the first way to deal with challenges of working in diverse teams:

Identify biases & develop proactive strategies for addressing them.

What is the second way to deal with challenges of working in diverse teams:

Acknowledge issues will arise and develop communication strategies to resolve issues as soon as possible to minimize negative impact.

What is a stereotype?

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

What is stereotype threat?

The risk of under performing because of stereotypes that you know other's hold for your group.

What is explicit bias?

Prejudices that are directly and publicly displayed.

What is implicit bias?

Prejudices that exist in a person's mind and behaviors without their awareness.

What is performance bias?

When you assume how well someone will perform based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

What is performance attribution bias?

When you discredit a minorities accomplishments because you assume they got a hand out or got lucky and when you acknowledge a majorities accomplishments as the result of hard work.

What is the competence vs likability bias?

When it is assumed that men are assertive and confident and women are submissive and friendly. The issue that arises with this is when women are more assertive, they are seen as selfish or aggressive even though the actions they take aren't different than the actions men take. Women often face a tradeoff of being competent or likable.

What is "surfacing" a bias or stereotype

When you actively try to recognize your own and others biases and address them.

The people who are worst at programming are the people who refuse to accept the fact that their brains aren't _______ to the task. Their ______ keep them from being great programmers. The more ______ you are, the faster you'll improve.

equal, egos, humble

What is pair programming?

Pair programming is the process where two people sit at a desk to work on a project. One of the two people uses the keyboard to write code, while the other person watches the code that's being written and helps by making suggestions and trying to catch errors. The pair should switch jobs around every 20 minutes.

What does the "driver" do during pair programming?

The driver is the one who's using the keyboard to type code.

What does the "navigator" do during pair programming?

The navigator is watching the driver code and trying to point out errors and think ahead about how the driver can implement code.

What are some benefits of pair programming?

1. It improves code quality (readability / clarity)

2. It holds up better under stress than solo development

3. It results in quicker development

4. It helps train junior programmers / new employees

5. It fosters "collective ownership"

When pair programming, you should establish a set of _________.

code standards

It's important not to ______ pair programming.

force

It's important to ________ pairs and work assignments.

rotate

Inspections and reviews should involve an assessment of code by one or more people who __________.

did not create it

Why are reviews / inspections important?

They provide a mechanism to detect and prevent defects early on and prevent them from being an issue down the line.

Formal Review: Formal reviews conducted _______________ with the purpose of finding defects.

by technical people for technical people

Formal Review: ___________ is independently assessed by ______________.

Work product, two or more technical people

Formal Review: What do inspections use to guide the defect detection?

Checklists.

Formal Review: Reviewers have a ___________ with the author and moderator to ______________.

formal meeting, discuss defects

Formal Review: The author ________ the defects identified by the _________.

fixes, reviewers

Formal Review: The total review effort is equal to __________ + __________ + _________.

preparation effort, assessment effort, rework effort.

Defect density

The errors found per unit of work product reviewed.

Informal Review: ______ distributes ________ to code readers.

Author, source code listings

Informal Review: How many people read the code?

One or more.

Informal Review: The code reading is done ______ at around _____ lines per day.

independently, 1000

Informal Review: The author ________ the defects identified by the _________.

fixes, reviewers

Definition of a project

A sequence of unique, complex and connected activities that have one goal or purpose that must be completed by a specific time, within budget, and according to specifications

The four key project success factors / measures

1. Budget
2. Client Acceptance
3. Schedule
4. Performance

The Standish Group "Modern" definition of success

1. On Time
2. On Budget
3. Satisfactory outcome

The Statement of Work (SOW)

A narrative description of the work required for the project. Provided by the client.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The internal organization of the work that needs to be done. Created internally.

How the WBS helps scope the project

1. Determining the specific tasks that have to be completed
2. Choosing appropriate groupings for these activities
3. Identifying dependencies

The purpose of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Organizes and defines the total scope of the project

Definition of task

It describes the smallest amount of work tracked by management

Agile task length

A half to a full day

Waterfall task length

Typically 3-10 working days

Contents of a typical task description

1. A role
2. Work product(s) to be produced
3. Start date, planned duration
4. Required resources
5. Acceptance criteria / how you know the task is done

The first step to creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Gather the project team

The second step to creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Provide team members with a pad of sticky notes

The third step to creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Ask team members to write down all the tasks they can think of related to the project description