A comparison of facetoface and virtual software development teams

1
A comparison of face-to-face and virtual software
development teams

• Hayward P. Andres

2
General Hypothesis

• Social presence and media richness associated
  with a communication medium used to support
  geographically dispersed software development
  teams, will have a significant impact on team
  productivity, perceived interaction quality, and
  group satisfaction.

Communication Mediums

• Face-to-Face (FtF)
• Videoconferencing (VC)

3
Hypotheses

• H1. Team productivity FtF gt VC
• H2. Perceived interaction quality FtF gt VC
• H3. Group process satisfaction FtF gt VC

4
Andres Theoretical Framework

• Software Project Success
• Task Outcomes
• Team Productivity
• Psychosocial Outcomes
• Interaction Quality
• Process Satisfaction

• Group Process
• Info exchange
• Clarification of efforts
• Negotiation
• Participation

• Communication Medium
• Face-to-face
• videoconferencing

5
Communication Medium Videoconference Face to Face
Media Richness
Social Presence

• Social Context Backchannel Cues
• Effective turn-taking, smooth info exchange,
  clarification of task assignments/efforts,
  immediate feedback

• Rich Communication
• Better able to facilitate highly interpersonal
  task execution activities

• Better team coordination, optimal productivity
• Increased satisfaction w/ interactions process
  satisfaction

• Role ambiguity reduction, team consensus,
  negotiation of a final alternative

Uncertainty Reduction Equivocality
Reduction Socio-Emotional Communication

• Dependent Measures
• Task Outcome
• Completeness of Design Documentation
• Completeness of file design
• Specification of function prototypes
• Pseudocode for each function
• Psychosocial Outcomes
• Interaction Quality
• Survey
• Negative opinions made by and received by
  individuals
• Degree of frustration with other individuals
• Process Satisfaction
• Survey
• Fairness
• Understandability
• Satisfaction associated w/ method in which task
  execution was conducted

6
Conclusions

• H1. Team productivity FtF gt VC
• H2. Perceived interaction quality FtF gt VC
• H3. Group process satisfaction FtF gt VC