An experiment on teaching coordination in a globally distributed software engineering class

Abstract

The importance of planning and management skills in software development is very difficult to convey in software engineering courses. We present the synopsis of an assignment whose purpose is to demonstrate the significance of such skills, including effective communication, team coordination and collaboration, and overall project planning. The assignment is organized in the context of a distributed software engineering course carried out in collaboration with 12 universities in South America, Europe and Africa. The assignment is a globally distributed contest issued before most development activities related to the course's software project are performed, aiming at favoring the collaboration between students prior to project development. The contest does not involve any programming, and is not related to the project development activities. Instead, it consists of making teams in different countries compete in collaboratively solving a set of very simple tasks. The complexity of the activity is in team collaboration and coordination, and their lack is evident when the tasks are not correctly solved, or not solved in time. Despite the simplicity of the assignment, students have found it useful in helping them understand the significance of management and planning challenges in distributed software development. Moreover, the assignment helped in team building, by creating a better team atmosphere and contributing in identifying team members better suited for management.

Managing Diversity in Distributed Software Development Education—A Longitudinal Case Study

“…Some recent studies report on the process and outcomes of introducing agile process in established distributed courses as well as the difficulties encountered by the students new to agile in adhering to it [5,23]. Other works focus on the importance of risk assessment from a teaching perspective when evolving a distributed course over the years [6] and on preparatory exercising for students to prior to distributed project development [18]. Paasivaara et al [20] describe their experience in augmenting distributed Scrum with industry best practices for a course that is jointly run by three universities and with both co-located and distributed student teams.…”

Industry Trends in Software Engineering Education: A Systematic Mapping Study

“…For example, [40] validated Scrumage within a class experiment. Others simulated scenarios in the global software engineering setting [62,63] relied on bare experimental constraints and exploited different approaches (gaming or scrum) for capstone projects. However, many case studies were also conducted in correlation with industry demands and actual implementations evaluated in real-life scenarios.…”

Introducing Team Coordination Framework to Support Globally Distributed Teams for Pakistani Software Industry

“…Lack of face to face communication Video conferencing [27,28] Response delay Email notification [29] Spontaneous informal communication Instant messages [31][32] Knowledge sharing Discussion boards [33][34] Cultural differences Theme based interfaces [27,30] Language difference Language choice or language translator [1,8] Unavailability of project management tools Web based project management systems [34] Data management Database [4,23,35] Managing documentations Wikis and google docs etc. [36] Replicating codes Content versioning system [1,37] Security of network Encryption techniques [4] Avoiding unauthorized access Giving privileges [38][39] Team coordination has a vital impact in the success of any project.…”