Abstract
High-performing teams (HPT) have been investigated in many fields ranging from manufacturing to knowledge work. With software teams, however, the concept is still incompletely comprehended. Software teams in practice do not reside in isolation but in specific organizational contexts and, consequently, competitive environments. Their performance is thus relative to the particular context. The performance outcomes of the teams are in turn products of their specific capabilities (including agile), provided by the underlying software competencies. This paper proposes a high-performing software team capability analysis approach supported by provisional instrumentation. The aim of such a capability analyzator is to help software teams and organizations to identify their current capabilities and – in case of gaps – to gauge the development of necessary ones. The case exhibits with respect to agile capability demonstrate that it is able to capture team performance drivers of industrial software organizations under different contextual circumstances for further performance analysis.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Cooper, R.G., Edgett, S.J.: Lean, Rapid, and Profitable New Product Development. BookSurge Publishing, North Charleston (2005)
Kettunen, P., Moilanen, S.: Sensing High-Performing Software Teams: Proposal of an Instrument for Self-monitoring. In: Wohlin, C. (ed.) XP 2012. LNBIP, vol. 111, pp. 77–92. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Kleinschmidt, E., de Brentani, U., Salomo, S.: Information Processing and Firm-Internal Environment Contingencies. Performance Impact on Global New Product Development. Creativity and Innovation Management 19(3), 200–218 (2010)
Kettunen, P.: Agile Software Development in Large-Scale New Product Development Organization: Team-Level Perspective. Dissertation, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (2009)
Hackman, J.R.: Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (2002)
Petersen, K.: Measuring and predicting software productivity: A systematic map and review. Information and Software Technology 53, 317–343 (2011)
Chenhall, R.H., Langfield-Smith, K.: Multiple Perspectives of Performance Measures. European Management Journal 25(4), 266–282 (2007)
Stensrud, E., Myrtveit, I.: Identifying High Performance ERP Projects. IEEE Trans. Software Engineering 29(5), 398–416 (2003)
Berlin, J.M., Carlström, E.D., Sandberg, H.S.: Models of teamwork: ideal or not? A critical study of theoretical team models. Team Performance Management 18(5/6), 328–340 (2012)
Ginac, F.P.: Creating High Performance Software Development Teams. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2000)
Sawyer, S.: Effects of intra-group conflict on packaged software development team performance. Information Systems Journal 11, 155–178 (2001)
Narasimhaiah, G., Lam, Y.W.: Who Should Work with Whom? Building Effective Software Project Teams. Communications of the ACM 47(12), 79–82 (2004)
Kasunic, M.: A Data Specification for Software Project Performance Measures: Results of a Collaboration on Performance Measurement. Technical report TR-012, CMU/SEI (2008)
Symons, C.: Software Industry Performance: What You Measure Is What You Get. IEEE Software 27(6), 66–72 (2010)
Lu, Y., Xiang, C., Wang, B., Wang, X.: What affects information systems development team performance? An exploratory study from the perspective of combined socio-technical theory and coordination theory. Computers in Human Behavior 27, 811–822 (2011)
Sudhakar, G.P., Farooq, A., Patnaik, S.: Soft factors affecting the performance of software development teams. Team Performance Management 17(3/4), 187–205 (2011)
Maheshwari, M., Kumar, U., Kumar, V.: Alignment between social and technical capability in software development teams: An empirical study. Team Performance Management 18(1/2), 7–26 (2012)
Bozdogan, K.: A Comparative Review of Lean Thinking, Six Sigma and Related Enterprise Process Improvement Initiatives. Working paper, 060531. MIT, Cambridge (2006)
Winter, M., Szczepanek, T.: Projects and programmes as value creation processes: A new perspective and some practical implications. International Journal of Project Management 26, 95–103 (2008)
Ancona, D., Bresman, H.: X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (2007)
Allee, V.: Value Network Analysis and value conversion of tangible and intangible assets. Journal of Intellectual Capital 9(1), 5–24 (2008)
Buschmann, F.: Value-Focused System Quality. IEEE Software 27(6), 84–86 (2010)
Patanakul, P., Shenhar, A.: Exploring the Concept of Value Creation in Program Planning and Systems Engineering Processes. Systems Engineering 13(4), 340–352 (2009)
Mossman, A.: Creating value: a sufficient way to eliminate waste in lean design and lean production. Lean Construction Journal, 13–23 (2009)
Aoyama, M.: Web-Based Agile Software Development. IEEE Software 15(6), 56–65 (1998)
Cockburn, A.: Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley/Pearson, Boston (2002)
Highsmith, J.: Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley/Pearson, Boston (2002)
Anderson, D.J.: Agile Management for Software Engineering. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2004)
Larman, C.: Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide. Addison-Wesley/Pearson, Boston (2004)
Schuh, P.: Integrating Agile Development in the Real World. Charles River Media, Inc., Newton Center (2005)
Lyytinen, K., Rose, G.M.: Information system development agility as organizational learning. European Journal of Information Systems 15, 183–199 (2006)
Subramaniam, V., Hunt, A.: Practices of an Agile Developer – Working in the Real World. The Pragmatic Bookshelf, USA (2006)
Ambler, S.W.: Disciplined Agile Software Development: Definition, http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileSoftwareDevelopment.htm (accessed December 27, 2012)
Draft Recommended Practice for the Customer-Supplier Relationship in Agile Software Projects. P1648/D5. IEEE (2007)
Staron, M., Meding, W., Karlsson, G.: Developing measurement systems: an industrial case study. J. Softw. Maint. Evol.: Res. Pract. 23, 89–107 (2010)
Agresti, W.W.: Lightweight Software Metrics: The P10 Framework. IT Pro., 12–16 (September-October 2006)
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y.: Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. John Wiley & Sons, New York (2010)
Professional Staff Core Capability Dictionary. University of Adelaide, Australia (2010)
Day, G.S.: The Capabilities of Market-Driven Organizations. Journal of Marketing 58, 37–52 (1994)
Neely, A., Adams, C., Crowe, P.: The performance prism in practice. Measuring Business Excellence 5(2), 6–13 (2001)
von Hertzen, M., Laine, J., Kangasharju, S., Timonen, J., Santala, M.: Drive for Future Software Leverage: The Role, Importance, and Future Challenges of Software Competences in Finland. Review 262. Tekes, Helsinki (2009)
Downey, J.: Designing Job Descriptions for Software Development. In: Barry, C., et al. (eds.) Information Systems Development: Challenges in Practice, Theory, and Education, vol. 1, pp. 447–460. Springer Science+Business Media (2009)
Conboy, K., Fitzgerald, B.: Toward a conceptual framework for agile methods: a study of agility in different disciplines. In: Mehandjiev, N., Brereton, P. (eds.) Workshop on Interdisciplinary Software Engineering Research (WISER), pp. 37–44. ACM, New York (2004)
CMMI for Development. Technical report, CMU/SEI-2010-TR-033. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (2010)
Guidance on use for process improvement and process capability determination. Information technology, Process assessment, Part 4: 15504-4, ISO/IEC (2009)
EFQM Excellence Model. EFQM Foundation, Belgium (2012)
Baldrige National Quality Program: Criteria for Performance Excellence. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (2012)
Drexler, A., Sibbet, D.: Team Performance Model (TPModel). The Grove Consultants International, San Francisco (2004)
Miller, L.M.: Lean Team Management: How to Create Lean Management & Lean Organization. L. M. Miller Consulting (2010)
Humphrey, W.S.: Introduction to the Team Software Process. Addison Wesley Longman Inc., Reading (2000)
Humphrey, W.S., Chick, T.A., Nichols, W.R., Pomeroy-Huff, M.: Team Software Process (TSP) Body of Knowledge (BOK). Technical report, CMU/SEI-2010-TR-020. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (2010)
Boehm, B., Turner, R.: Balancing Agility and Discipline – A Guide for the Perplexed. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2004)
Organization Suitability Risk List. White paper, DSDM Consortium, United Kingdom (2004)
Lappo, P., Andrew, H.C.T.: Assessing Agility. In: Eckstein, J., Baumeister, H. (eds.) XP 2004. LNCS, vol. 3092, pp. 331–338. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Hansson, C., Dittrich, Y., Gustafsson, B., Zarnak, S.: How agile are industrial software development practices? Journal of Systems and Software 79(9), 1295–1311 (2006)
Pettit, R.: An “Agile Maturity Model”? Agile Journal (2006)
Highsmith, J., Wysocki, K.: How Agile Are Organizations Today? Cutter Agile Project Management Executive Report 7(12) (2006)
Pikkarainen, M.: Towards a Framework for Improving Software Development Process Mediated with CMMI Goals and Agile Practices. Dissertation, University of Oulu, Finland (2008)
Pikkarainen, M., Mäntyniemi, A.: An Approach for Using CMMI in Agile Software Development Assessments: Experiences from Three Case Studies. In: SPICE (2006)
Sidky, A.: A Structured Approach to Adopting Agile Practices: The Agile Adoption Framework. Dissertation, Virginia Tech., USA (2007)
Kroll, P., Krebs, W.: Introducing IBM Rational Self Check for Software Teams, http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/edge/08/may08/kroll_krebs/
Oza, N., Abrahamsson, P., Conboy, K.: Positioning Agility. In: Abrahamsson, P., Marchesi, M., Maurer, F. (eds.) XP 2009. LNBIP, vol. 31, pp. 206–208. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Glazer, H.: Love and Marriage: CMMI and Agile Need Each Other. CrossTalk 23(1), 29–34 (2010)
Wirtenberg, J., Lipsky, D., Abrams, L., Conway, M., Slepian, J.: The Future of Organization Development: Enabling Sustainable Business Performance Through People. Organization Development Journal 25(2), 11–22 (2007)
Turley, R., Bieman, J.: Competencies of exceptional and non-exceptional software engineers. Journal of Systems and Software 28(1), 19–38 (1995)
Colomo-Palacios, R., Casado-Lumbreras, C., Soto-Acosta, P., García-Peñalvo, F.J., Tovar-Caro, E.: Competence gaps in software personnel. A multi-organizational study. Computers in Human Behavior 29(2), 456–461 (2013)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kettunen, P. (2013). The Many Facets of High-Performing Software Teams: A Capability-Based Analysis Approach. In: McCaffery, F., O’Connor, R.V., Messnarz, R. (eds) Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2013. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 364. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39179-8_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39179-8_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39178-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39179-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)