How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
•Télécharger en tant que PPTX, PDF•
1 j'aime•1,208 vues
Presentation used during the dissertation of the PhD thesis: "How Social Software Supports Communicative and Coordinative Practices in Global Software Development"
Recommandé
Recommandé
Contenu connexe
Similaire à How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
Similaire à How does Social Software support Global Software Development? (20)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
- 1. Rosalba Giuffrida PhD defense August 2014 How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
- 2. Agenda 1- Explain the main research question 2- Illustrate the main contributions of the thesis 3-Wrap-up, limitations and future directions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 3
- 3. Agenda 1- Explain the main research question 2- Illustrate the main contributions of the thesis 3-Wrap-up, limitations and future directions How does Social Software support Global Software Development? 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 4
- 4. Social Software (SoSo) Group of Internet-based applications built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content A. Kaplan and M. Haenlein. Users of the world, unite! the challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1):59–68, 2010. How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
- 5. Global Software Development (GSD) means splitting the development of the same product or service among globally distributed sites. Lanubile, 2009 How does Social Software support Global Software Development?
- 6. Why Global Software Development? Advantages Access to most talented developers Lower development costs Proximity to market … Challenges Geographical distance Temporal distance Socio-cultural distance Cataldo et al. 2007 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 7
- 7. Why Global Software Development? The fundamental problem of GSD is that many of the mechanisms that function to coordinate the work in a co-located setting are absent or disrupted in a distributed project. J.D. Herbsleb. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 8 Lack of physical presence Challenges Geographical distance Temporal distance Socio-cultural distance Cataldo et el. 2007
- 8. How does SoSo support GSD? Methodological Contributions Theoretical Empirical Contributions Contributions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 9
- 9. Agenda 1- Explain the main research question 2- Illustrate the main contributions of the thesis 3-Wrap-up, limitations and future directions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 10
- 10. How does SoSo support GSD? Collaboration with DHI Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida. “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 Agile Dispersed Team H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik. “Information flow within a dispersed agile team: a distributed cognition perspective” In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2012 A theoretical framework Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Under review in Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. Student projects Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. Importance of Observational Studies R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich, H. Sharp. “You Can Not Ask What You Do Not Suspect – an Argument for Observational Studies in GSD” Under review in Empirical Software Engineering Journal Theoretical Contr ibutions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 11 Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Methodological Cont r ibut ions Systematic Mapping Study R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013
- 11. Industrial case at DHI – Case 1 Empirical Contribution s 5 domain experts/software developers in Denmark 6 software developers + 1 tester in India 1 team member in Portland Customers in Ethiopia Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 12 Copenhagen (3 months) New Delhi (2 weeks)
- 12. Ethnographically-inspired study Copenhagen – 3 months New Delhi – 2 weeks Empirical Contribution Data Collection Observations, IM logs, interviews, document analysis, workshop with practitioners Data Analysis Interaction analysis and triangulation s 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 13
- 13. Tools used Empirical Contribution s Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 14
- 14. The Role of Instant Messaging Empirical Contribution s Coordination Collaboration Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 15 Awarene ss Socialization
- 15. An Example – Case 1 Empirical Contribution s Some chats are not related to the work tasks, addressing working conditions, commuting problems or personal topics. Naveen: Hi Gian Gian: hi Naveen Naveen: hows monday treating you? Gian: better than usual. Working from home Naveen: oh we r on the same boat Gian: good to hear :) Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 16
- 16. Another Example – Case 1 Empirical Contribution s Many coordination chats start from the Indian side to inform the task/incident changed status, and is assigned to the counterpart. Naveen: 974 is yours now for verification Gian: thanks Naveen: 1008 Gian: all yours Naveen: your now. Gian: 847 is yours Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 17
- 17. Empirical contributions – Case 1 Ecology of channels IM as a glue articulating other channels Socialization dimension Empirical Contribution s Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida, “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 18
- 18. Dispersed Agile Team – Case 2 Empirical Contribution s Data collection: observations, log analysis, documentation, interviews Data Analysis: Distributed cognition analysis (DiCoT) Tools used: OneNote (Wiki), Lync (IM), TFS, Skydrive 3 teams, 4 countries: UK, Netherland, Argentina and Canada H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik. “Information flow within a dispersed agile team: a distributed cognition perspective” In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2012 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 19
- 19. DiCoT Analysis – Contributions Empirical Contribution s H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik. “Information flow within a dispersed agile team: a distributed cognition perspective” In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2012 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 20
- 20. Systematic Mapping Study 2010 - 2013 R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 21
- 21. Systematic Mapping Study 2010 - 2013 R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 22
- 22. SMS – usage of IM Empirical Contribution s Instant Messaging is used in GSD: - to get quick answers and immediate R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 23 feedback - to communicate with numerous people - as a secondary channel in meetings - to maintain awareness of the entire team
- 23. SMS – Research Directions Empirical Contribution s In the SMS most of the papers: 1. Investigate the usage of one SoSo at a time – Ecology of communication channels. 2. Very few observational studies. – Observations of practices of practitioners would provide a better understanding 3. Socialization usage is seldom reported. – In our cases, socialization is not the main purpose of chats but it appears as a sub-text 4. Appropriation and development of usage structures – SoSo is unstructured, thus there is a need to find rules and agreements on how to use SoSo R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 24
- 24. SMS – Research Directions Empirical Contribution s In the SMS most of the papers: 1. Investigate the usage of one SoSo at a time – Ecology of communication channels. 2. Very few observational studies. – Observations of practices of practitioners would provide a better understanding 3. Socialization usage is seldom reported. – In our cases, socialization is not the main purpose of chats but it appears as a sub-text 4. Appropriation and development of usage structures – SoSo is unstructured, thus there is a need to find rules and agreements on how to use SoSo How can we conceptualize practices in GSD? 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 25
- 25. Practice-based approach The term ‘practice’ is […] used to frame contingent activities as committed to criteria for correct conduct in the form for norms, rules, procedures, plans, etc. The noun ‘practice’ [..] means normatively regulated contingent activity. Software Engineering is a Cooperative Work Cooperative work practices are as observable 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 26 Theoretical Underpinning s K. Schmidt The concept of 'practice': What's the point? COOP 2014: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 27-30 May 2014, Nice, France Y. Dittrich, D. W. Randall, and J. Singer. Software engineering as cooperative work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 18(5):393–399, 2009.
- 26. 27 Theoretical Underpinnings – Coordination Mechanisms How does Social Software Support GSD? Theoretical Underpinning s “A coordination mechanism [...] stipulates and mediates the articulation of cooperative work so as to reduce the complexity of articulation work [...]” K. Schmidt and C. Simone. Coordination mechanisms: Towards a conceptual foundation of cscw systems design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 5(2-3):155–200, 1996. reduces Articulation Work Social Protocols are a set of rules, conventions, policies shared by people involved in the cooperative activity. A Coordination Mechanism consists of a coordinative (social) protocol imprinted upon a distinct artifact. 29 August 2014
- 27. 28 Theoretical Underpinnings – Articulation Work K. Schmidt and C. Simone. Coordination mechanisms: Towards a conceptual foundation of cscw systems design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 5(2-3):155–200, 1996. A. Strauss. The articulation of project work: An organizational process. The Sociological Quarterly, 29(2):163–178, 1988. How does Social Software Support GSD? Theoretical Underpinning s Metawork: articulation work for the development of a protocol Situated articulation: articulation of the state of the current task in order to coordinate this task. Naveen: 974 is yours now for verification Gian: thanks Naveen: 1008 Gian: all yours Naveen: your now. Gian: 847 is yours Articulation Work is a recursive phenomenon: articulating a cooperative effort may itself be conducted as a cooperative effort which, may also need to be articulated. 29 August 2014
- 28. RQ2- How can we conceptualize the development of communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? Theoretical Contributions Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 29 reduces Articulation Work
- 29. A communicative genre is characterized “by a socially recognized communicative purpose and a common form” “social norms are visible in recurrent communicative situation” Social protocol Form and Purpose Naveen: Hi Gian Gian: hi Naveen Naveen: hows monday treating you? Gian: better than usual. Working from home Naveen: oh we r on the same boat Gian: good to hear :) Naveen: 974 is yours now for verification Gian: thanks Naveen: 1008 Gian: all yours Naveen: your now. Gian: 847 is yours 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 30 Theoretical Underpinning s Communicative Genre J. Yates and W. J. Orlikowski. Genres of organizational communication: A structurational approach to studying communication and media. Academy of management review, 17(2):299–326, 1992.
- 30. RQ2- How can we conceptualize the development of communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? Theoretical Contributions Social protocol Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 31 reduces Articulation Work Form and Purpose
- 31. An example – Case 3 Theoretical Contributions Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 32
- 32. RQ2- How can we conceptualize the development of communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? Theoretical Contributions Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 33
- 33. Theoretical contributions A tool for looking at communicative and coordinative practices in GSD projects. Integrates the analytical tools of coordination mechanisms and communicative genres. Allows to explain the role of SoSo within the ecology of channels Theoretical Contributions What is the role of SoSo in GSD practices ? Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 34
- 34. Three student projects – Case 3 Empirical Contribution s 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 35
- 35. Three student projects – Case 3 Copenhagen (4 months) Beijing (10 days) Data Collection: im, forum, wiki logs, interviews, observations and documents Data Analysis: coordination mechanisms and communicative genres Empirical Contribution s 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 36
- 36. Temporal Analysis – Team C Usage of Group Instant Messaging Chats Usage of 1 to 1 Instant Messaging Chats Usage of Forum and Wiki Empirical Contribution CM1 File Sharing CM2 Minutes Sharing CM 3Issue Managing System CM 4 Subversion (SVN) Repository CM 5 Standup Meeting CM 6 Agenda s Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 37
- 37. Temporal Analysis – Team C Usage of Group Instant Messaging Chats socialization Usage of 1 to 1 Instant Messaging Chats Usage of Forum and Wiki Empirical Contribution CM1 File Sharing CM2 Minutes Sharing CM 3Issue Managing System CM 4 Subversion (SVN) Repository CM 5 Standup Meeting CM 6 Agenda s Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 38
- 38. Temporal Analysis – Team C Usage of Group Instant Messaging Chats Usage of 1 to 1 Instant Messaging Chats Usage of Forum and Wiki Empirical Contribution CM1 File Sharing CM2 Minutes Sharing CM 3Issue Managing System CM 4 Subversion (SVN) Repository CM 5 Standup Meeting CM 6 Agenda s metawork Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 39
- 39. Temporal Analysis – Team C Usage of Group Instant Messaging Chats Situated articulation Usage of 1 to 1 Instant Messaging Chats Usage of Forum and Wiki Empirical Contribution CM1 File Sharing CM2 Minutes Sharing CM 3Issue Managing System CM 4 Subversion (SVN) Repository CM 5 Standup Meeting CM 6 Agenda s Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 40
- 40. Empirical contributions – Case 3 Empirical Contribution Social Talk Seem to enable Good Cooperation Metawork for Establishing Effective Coordination Mechanisms The Role of Wiki, Forum and IM s Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 41
- 41. RQ3- What is the role of SoSo for constituting, establishing and maintaining communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? Empirical Contribution SoSo is part of an ecology of channels that has to be explored as a whole; Every team develops its own arrangement of communication channels and tools (ecology of channels or repertoire); SoSo allows the co-construction of social protocols guiding the usage of the tools. Supportive role of SoSo for enacting and maintaining coordination mechanisms s Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Submitted to Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 42
- 42. How does SoSo support GSD? RQ1- How is SoSo used in GSD? RQ2- How can we conceptualize the development of communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? RQ3- What is the role of SoSo for constituting, establishing and maintaining communicative and coordinative practices in GSD? Methodological Reflections Empirical Contribution s Theoretical Contributions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 43 Empirical Contribution s Methodological Contributions
- 43. Reflecting on Observations in GSD Few observational studies in GSD research Recommendations on how to perform observational studies dealing with geographical distance. You Can Not Ask What You Can Not Suspect Methodological Contributions Giuffrida, R., and Dittrich, Y. “You can not ask what you do not suspect - an argument for observational studies in global software development research” Submitted to Empirical Software Engineering Journal. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 44
- 44. Agenda 1- Explain the main research question 2- Illustrate the main contributions of the thesis 3-Wrap-up, limitations and future directions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 45
- 45. Why Global Software Development? The fundamental problem of GSD is that many of the mechanisms that function to coordinate the work in a co-located setting are absent or disrupted in a distributed project. Challenges Geographical distance Temporal distance Socio-cultural distance J.D. Herbsleb. 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 46 Lack of physical presence
- 46. Limitations and Future Work • Not focus on socio-cultural distance • The theoretical framework is developed in connection with SoSo in GSD • Description of practice is not providing suggestions for improvement • Focus on communicative and coordinative practices 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 47
- 47. How does SoSo support GSD? Collaboration with DHI Y. Dittrich and R. Giuffrida. “Exploring the Role of Instant Messaging in a Global Software Development Project,” in Global Software Engineering (ICGSE), 2011 Agile Dispersed Team H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik. “Information flow within a dispersed agile team: a distributed cognition perspective” In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 2012 A theoretical framework Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “A conceptual framework to study the role of communication through social software for coordination in globally-distributed software teams” Under review in Information and Software Technology Journal, 2014. Student projects Giuffrida, R. and Dittrich, Y. “How Social Software Supports Cooperative Practices in a Globally Distributed Software Project”. Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) Workshop at ICSE, 2014. Importance of Observational Studies R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich, H. Sharp. “You Can Not Ask What You Do Not Suspect – an Argument for Observational Studies in GSD” Under review in Empirical Software Engineering Journal Theoretical Contr ibutions 29 August 2014 How does Social Software Support GSD? 48 Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Empir ical Contr ibutions Methodological Cont r ibut ions Systematic Mapping Study R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich. “Empirical Studies on the Use of Social Software in Global Software Development - a Systematic Mapping Study” in Information and Software Technology, 2013
Notes de l'éditeur
- Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this PhD defense. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for being here today. I want to thank the member of the committee for the useful comments and suggestions. In particular, I am grateful to Prof. Walt Scacchi that had to wake up very early this morning to be with us today. Moreover I really want to thank three important people. My supervisor, Yvonne Dittrich, Paolo Tell, a colleague and a friend and my husband Paolo Burelli. I would not be here today without your continuous support during the last four years. In the next hour I will present my PhD thesis that discusses how SoSo support GSD.
- In the following of this presentation, I will explain you the main research question that motivated my PhD project. Most of the presentation consists in the description of the three main contributions of the thesis: empirical, theoretical and methodological. Finally I will conclude my talk providing some discussion points that we will probably deepen in the second hour of this defense.
- Let me start explaining you the main research question of this PhD thesis.
- The main research question is: how SoSo support GSD? First of all, what is SoSo? SoSo has been defined as a group of Internet-based applications built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content Basically SoSo encompasses a wide range of tools such as IM, blogs, forum, wiki, social networking sites, social bookmarking. Often people refer to it as Social Media. However, in this thesis we refer to SoSo rather than to Social Media The media component refers to the broadcasting of information in a website publicly accessible and this perspective in industrial setting is not essential if we consider the internal communication among team members.
- And what is GSD? GSD means…. Essentially, a team that develops software is not co-located in one single location, but it can be spread among globally-distributed sites. The team can be composed for example by several developers dispersed in the globe or by different sub-teams globally distributed.
- However, there are some challenges that teams have to deal with while developing software globally distributed. Some scholars report about the challenges deriving from three kinds of distance: geographical,
- Lack of physical presence encompass the lack of face to face communication, of impromptu discussion, of watercooler conversations. The aim with this PhD thesis is to show that SoSo can fill this gap. In this direction , I will present the empirical contributions of this thesis
- From these studies, we developed a theoretical framework and some methodological reflections…
- This thesis is composed by a collection of 6 research papers and by an introduction that brings things together. Four papers are accepted. Two papers went positively through the first round of reviews and we are now waiting for the comments on the re-submissions.
- Hydraulyc simulation software Decision support system for managing water in the Nile basin WB project
- Collect observations Analysis logs and triangulate with observations Interaction analysis, from a sociolinguistic perspective, is concerned with the structure of social interaction manifested in the conversation. Interaction analysis emphasizes features of social context and is used for analyzing the exchange of messages among team members;
- Socialization chats to open the day and establish the channel
- practitioners know how to use different tools. Follow unwritten rules and they understand when use which tool. We refer to the concept of ecology of channel and the special role of IM IM used as a glue, usage of IM is also shared Socialization as explicit goal or as a sub-text (previous example they did not want automatic notifications)
- 3 team members in seattle with product owner, tester e developer 1 technical writer in UK, one in Netherland 2 developers in Argentina 1 developer and user interface designer in canada Helen is an expert of empirical research with agile teams. I brought my experience with GSD projects and we analysed together the field material adopting a distributed cognition approach
- Thanks to the Distributed Cognition analysis we described How information is propagated and transformed within the team. Information is propagated among the different individuals through communication tool and IM and mediated by artifacts. e.g. Wiki is the main information hub, where all information is stored. In co-located agile teams, the simple and open flow of information makes use of physical space, it relies on face-to-face communication and on physical artifacts. On the contrary, in the dispersed team, information flow needs to be explicit and the team relies on several digital mediating artifacts containing very detailed information. While I was working on the empirical field work, I conducted a study on the existing literature on the topic, Again, the usage of the tools seem to be driven by rules that are visible in the actual practices but that are not fully specified.
- Since the very beginning, it was clear that very few papers focused on SoSo in GSD (In 2010 there were only 13 papers) Therefore we extend the search string to include papers from deistributed teams and from SE. 100 papers included that reports several interesting example of the usage of SoSo in distributed teams and in SE. This work suggests that the usage of SoSo can be beneficial for GSD.
- 100 studies included in the review mostly about Instant Messaging and Wiki From different communicties: mostly cscw, chi, IS, … Potential benefits for the usage of SoSo in GSD
- In line with usage observed in our empirical case. however, we did not find in the papers included in the mapping study any suitable theoretical concept to go beyond these findings and describe in detail the practices observed.
- Finally, the SMS highlights that in different teams SoSo is appropriated in different ways. Some papers mention the need to develop structures, rules or agreements on how to use SoSo in work contexts. For example, in an enterprise wiki that collects the knowledge of the company, is everyone allowed to write and to change the content? What if a new employee edit the content published by the CEO? Is this acceptable? This may depend on the company culture and it is subject to rules and agreement among employees that are often not written but need to be shared and adopt by all team members to not cause misunderstandings. What was clear from the two industrial cases that I described before is that team members had a common understanding on the usage of tools, however, rules on the usage of SoSo were not established a priori. For example, the usage of Spira was described in a manual about the issue tracker system that was available to all team members. However, the usage of Skype chat to complement information shared through Spira was not defined and team members were not aware of that practices they were using until we discussed our findings with them. Therefore, better understanding of the rules that are not explicitly stated, but that are followed by practitioners, need to be better defined. To get this understanding we decided to find suitable theoretical concepts that could guide our research. As none of the paper in the SMS was using compatible concepts to analyse the role of Soso, we searched in the practice-based approach suitable theoretical concepts.
- From all these reflections, it emerged a need for suitable theoretical concepts that could help us to describe and analyze the practices that we observed in our empirical cases. Theoretical lens to look at practice
- Therefore, the observations we did can be analysed through practice-based concepts Within the practice-based approach and driven by these premises, we further investigated the notion of norms according to Kjeld Schmidt’s approach. In the context of cooperative work, Kjeld Schmidt uses the concept of social norms – that he calls coordinative or social protocols –
- According to Schmidt and Simone
- The second research question resulted from this theoretical reflections. How can we…. We do have the analytic tool of coordination mechanism for analyse coordinative artifacts and for describe the social protocols that are visible in the practices. But what about communication? Can we find suitable theoretical concepts to analyse the role of social software? Traditional SE tools provide templates for coordination mechanisms, therefore, coordinative practices based on artifacts can be conceptualized using coordination mechanisms. But we are still lacking a tool to describe the usage of SoSo and to analyse communication in GSD. An approach has been proposed by Yates and Orilkovski for studying communication media in organizations.
- Both chats are Skype chat, therefore they appear in the same medium. However, the purpose and the language used is pretty different as in the first one there are no smileys, the language is essential and firmly supporting to the coding activity. While the second chat is a conversation that initiate the day and open for further communication. The purpose of the two chats is different, as highlighted already in the Dhi paper, however this difference lead to different communicative genres that differ not only for the purpose but also for the form used. Moreover, the social protocol shared between Naveen and Gian in the first chat is really evident in the first case as they perfectly know what they are talking about and they do not need to add anything else than the incident number to understand each other. This is in line with the usage of IM reported in the mapping study – IM can be used for providing immediate feedback – but thanks to the communicative genre concept and to the interaction analysis performed with the chats, it is possible to analyse and better describe the immediate feedback provided through IM.
- Is there a relationship between the two concepts? We know that they are theoretically compatible. However, we have not yet described in detail how they relate with each other in the actual practices. To explain the relationship between CG and CM I will use an example taken from one of the team of the student case. I will now present the example to build together the theoretical framework and afterwards I will present Case 3 and show you how the framework can be used to describe the establishment and maintaining of communicative and coordinative practices.
- Once the coordiantion mechanism got established, both teams were writing the agenda alternatively prior the meeting and they were sharing it through a forum message. Recurrent communicative genres are visible for the sharing of the agenda: Every week the day before the meeting, a situated articulation post was supporting the coordiantion mechanism A situated articulation message was sent in order to support the coordination mechanism. Situated articulation consists in the articulation of the state of the current task in order to coordinate this task.
- The relationship between…
- The theoretical framework offers… To detail this last point
- We chose to follow a student case because it was possible to follow the development of practices from the very beginning until the end of the project Not only established teams as in the two industrial cases. 3 months of development Team members did not know each other Students were acting as practitioners and they were asked to design and develop the sw from
- Pure socialization chats are present only in the beginning of the collaboration in the 1to1 Im chats and in the group chat. Later, the socialization chats disappear to leave space to the encouraging chats. Pure socialization chats are present only in the IM communication, while encouraging chats are visible in all channels. Thank to social chats team members establish initial informal relationships, providing a context for the cooperation The two remote sub-teams established an effective informal channel, where metawork discussions could take place.
- Metawork is visible only at the beginning of the collaboration in Forum and Group chat, therefore in the SoSo that allows to broadcast information to all participant. Initial metawork allows to establish effective coordination mechanisms Metawork later disappears to leave space to situated articulation communication
- Situated communication is visible in all kinds of SoSo, but it is particularly evident in the Forum. These occurrences of situated articulation genres are related to the established coordination mechanisms, such as the sharing of the agenda or the sharing of the minutes of the meetings.
- To summarize the contributions Central role of SoSo as an informal and flexible channel that supports different kinds of communicative genres. Wiki and Forum are use as a persistent repository for the knowledge shared. They serve for situated articulation, that support established coordination mechanisms Instant Messaging is the main media for social talk. Considering the practices obesrved in this study and comparing them with the other cases, it is now possible to answer our third research question.
- That is… The theoretical framework allows to explain the ethereoginity of practices both in established teams and in forming teams. the same communicative genres are visible in different teams and the supportive role of SoSo for enacting coordination mechanisms SoSo is part of an ecology of channels that has to be explored as a whole, not exclusively focusing on the specific functionality of each kind of SoSo. The same communicative genres are visible in different teams
- Extend mapping study including empirical studies in GSD
- In the context of GSD, where the lack of physical presence affects the collaboration, SoSo seems to play an important role allowing informal chats among team members. SoSo is a flexible channel that supports many different communicative genres. We highlighted not only the importance of socialization chats, but we also discussed the role of metawork and situated articulation genres to enact and maintain coordination mechanisms. In particular, if traditional SE tools provide templates for coordination mechanisms, SoSo complements these channels offering a way to develop and maintain social protocols that are necessary for establish and maintain effective coordination mechanisms. Therefore, if some mechanisms that are absent or disrupted in a distributed project, SoSo can support distributed collaboration overcoming the lack of physical presence. The description of successful projects show that this is possible in GSD despite geographical and temporal distance.
- Finally, the Focus is on communicative and coordinative practices. Other practices could be included in the framework, finding suitable theoretical concepts, for example to analyze coding practices.