Teams

1
Teams

• CS4911
• Fall 2007

2
What is a 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
• Katzenbach Smith
• When two heads together are better than two
  heads individually McConnell

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Highly Effective Teams

• Interdependence among Team
• Rely on strengths
• Everybody contributes
• Effective communication
• Constant clear
• Mutual understanding
• Bad news too

• Shared vision
• Common big picture
• Builds trust
• Commitment to the Team
• Team supercedes individual
• Desire to contribute

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Software Project Roles

• Programmer
• Project Manager
• Technical Lead
• Tester
• Technical Writer/ Documentation Coordinator

• Analyst
• Designer
• Marketing
• Customer Delivery
• Installation
• Configuration
• Training

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Possible Organization

• Team Leader/Project Manager
• Motivate team members
• Plan/Run Meetings
• Prepare weekly status reports
• Allocate tasks/workload
• Maintain project files
• Act as development engineer

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Possible Organization (2)

• Development Manager
• Lead team in producing development strategy
• Prepare time and size estimates for product
• Lead in development of SRS
• Lead in producing design
• Lead in development of SDS
• Lead in developing test plan for development,
  integration and system testing
• Lead in developing test materials and running
  tests
• Lead in producing user-level documentation
• Act as development engineer

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Possible Organization (3)

• Planning Manager
• Lead the team in producing project plan
• Lead team in developing schedule for next
  iteration
• Lead team in producing the balanced task plan
• Track teams progress against plan
• Act as development engineer

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Possible Organization (4)

• Quality/Process Manager
• Lead team in producing and tracking the quality
  plan
• Alert team leader to quality problems
• Lead team in defining and documenting the
  processes and process improvement plan.
• Establish team development standards
• Review proposed changes to baseline
• Act as moderator for reviews
• Act as recorder at team meetings
• Act as development engineer

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Possible Organization (5)

• Support Manager
• Lead team in defining support needs and obtaining
  tools and facilities
• Chair Configuration Control Board and
  Configuration Control
• Maintain the Configuration Control System
• Maintain system glossary
• Maintain issue and risk tracking system
• Act as reuse advocate
• Act as a development engineer

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Why Teams Can Fail

• Personnel Problems
• Team leaders unwilling to confront and resolve
  problems
• Cover up ignorance
• I dont know how to explain it just works
• Excessive desire for privacy
• I dont need anyone to review my

• Territorial
• No one else can fix the bugs in my code.
• Grumble about team decisions revisit past
  discussions
• Communication
• What we have here is a failure to communicate

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Dysfunctional Team Members

• Hitchhikers
• Couch Potatoes

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Some Advice...

• Class is a lot of work but its worth it
• Faculty Interaction
• Letters of recommendation
• Interview fodder
• Get on a project you have some interest in!!!

• Everyone on your team should not be exactly like
  you
• Remember diversity of project team roles
• Be careful of mixing projects and close friends

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Team Selection