Transcript Document

Coordination and Control
• Coordination: act of integrating each task
with each organizational unit, so that unit
contributes to the overall objective
• Control: adhering to goals, policies,
standards or quality levels
– formal: budget, guidelines, standards
– informal: peer pressure
• Communication: mediating factor
Communication
• Communication: exchange of complete and
unambiguous information
• Two communication dimensions:
– Timeliness
– Content
• Project coordination and control strongly depend
on richness and speed of communication channels
• Formal & informal communication critical for
project success
• Intra-unit communication – same place, same time
On verbal and nonverbal
communication
• Words we say is just 7% of content we
communicate to the person we are talking to
face-to-face
• Other content is provided by facial
expressions, tone of voice, voice inflections,
gestures …
Virtual team communication
• Affected by both distance and time difference factors
• Distance affects communication among different unit
members by:
– Slowing down communication speed (i.e. response time) –
timeliness
– Reducing amount of information exchanged - content
– Drastically reducing informal (corridor) communication
• Time difference reduces the “window of opportunity” for
communication among distant units
• Communication problems arise at distances above 30 m
from door-to-door (long corridors) !
Technology-based communication
solutions
• Three main groups of technology-based
communication solutions:
– synchronous: telephone conferences, video
conferences
– Near-synchronous: messengers …
– asynchronous: e-mail, voice mail, newsgroups,
web pages …
Effectiveness of communication
methods
High
Face-to-face
Content
Telephone conference
Video conference
@ E-mail
Postal mail
Low
Low
Timeliness
High
Face-to-face communication
• Content rich real-time communication
• Quick resolution of ambiguities
• In virtual teams this kind of communication is
expensive as it involves travel from one unit to
another (both time & cost)
• Should be part of the project’s kickoff, later on in
project on a regular basis
• Only way of creating informal (social) contacts
between team members
Postal mail
• Obsolete mean of communication ?
• Low timeliness and content properties
• Unavoidable if shipping documentation /
hardware
• It is still much cheaper to send very large
amounts of data using postal mail than via
network !!!
Telephone conferences
• Next-best communication method
• Real-time interaction
• Loses some of the communication content
(nonverbal communication)
• Teleconferences used for regular meetings, phone
calls for resolving current issues
• No written trail of communication
• VoIP – reduces communication costs
• Problem: work interruptions
Video conferences
• Aims to completely replace face-to-face
communication
• Still impose too high technical demands for
long-distance communication (required
bandwidth and QoS)
• Turn-based communication
• Need more preparation than telephone
conferences !
E-mail
• Easy, cheap yet relatively rich means of
communication
• Mailing lists for multiple recipients,
grouping according to project roles
• Problems: timeliness, amount of received email, security
Other tools
• Messengers for on-line collaboration
(discussions, whiteboards, assistance …)
• Newsgroups/forums for off-line discussions
• Web for relatively static information – team
organization, team member contact
information, project status, documentation
…
Security
• Infrastructure level:
– Dedicated closed networks (LANs, WANs)
– Tunneling traffic through Internet (VPNs)
• Application level:
– Mail encryption (PGP …)
– Digital signatures
– HTTPS for web
Other ways of alleviating c&c
problems
• Technology helps us to reduce
communication problems caused by
location/time distance, but cannot remove
them completely
• If we cannot gain more by using technology,
can we try to use it less ?
Reducing collaboration
• Lower the need to coordinate = smaller the
communication problems !
• Addressed by virtual team task allocation
• Follows the principle of OO design:
– Loose unit (collaboration) coupling
– Strong unit (class) cohesion
Collaboration and Task Complexity
• Structured tasks: well-defined, easy-to-use
methods and unambiguous outcomes
– Example: sw port from Windows to Linux
– Reduced need for collaboration
• Unstructured tasks: iterative and/or unclear
solutions
– Example: sw design based on other unit’s analysis
results, follow-the-sun, R&D
– Results in high demand for collaboration between units
Software task maturity function
Low
Visioning
Task structurness
Ownership
Functional specifications
High-level design
Low-level design
Maintenance
High
Port
Time
Life-cycle effort
• Amount of unit’s involvement in the
product’s life-cycle
• Relationship between the need of
coordination and life-cycle effort not linear !
Coordination – life-cycle effort
Complex
Follow-the-sun
Data center
Coordination
Ownership
Help desk
Contract
programming
Port
Simple
Life-cycle effort
100%