Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements

Abstract

Meetings often dominate software projects. Despite frequent dissatisfaction within meetings, many software engineers are not aware of the crucial importance about their behavior. This can set the tone for the entire project and influence the success. In a study based on 32 student development teams with 155 participants, we observed the participants' interactions during the first internal team meeting. Analyzing the observations showed that constructive remarks had a positive impact on positive group affect tone. However, this effect can only be observed when supportive utterances followed constructive remarks. In the article, we show a complete mediation of this statistically significant effect, e.g., about seemingly subtle interaction patterns that influence group affect tone. We also propose practical interventions on how software projects could benefit from supportive meeting behavior. This summary refers to the article "Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements" [Sc18] published in the Journal of Systems & Software in 2018 (vol. 143).

Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements

“…Our results show the importance of appropriate behavior in meetings and its influence on the success of a meeting. In particular, our results show that "a verbal and content-oriented utterance has a measurable impact on positive affect" [Sc18]. Consequently, not only direct and non-verbal stimuli influences positive affect, but also serious constructive statements.…”

“…Proactive statements are mainly given by signalizing interest in change, e.g., "Let's assume we are successful...". Correlation analysis comparing the number of different statements with self-reported data on positive and negative affect leads to three core statements [Sc18]:…”

Are Product Owners communicators? A multi‐method research approach to provide a more comprehensive picture of Product Owners in practice

“…This information exchange often takes place in meetings. 29 When following the scaled Scrum framework (Nexus), a predefined set of formal meetings should be held in order to ensure a fast and wide ranging communication. Although the number of meetings might add up in a scaled project, formal meetings are still the most efficient way to transport information, 30 and the more information is transported during a meeting, the less the team needs other communication channels like e-mail, phone, or chat.…”

“…To maximize the success of a project, information needs to be communicated with certain team members or the entire team. This information exchange often takes place in meetings 29 . When following the scaled Scrum framework (Nexus), a predefined set of formal meetings should be held in order to ensure a fast and wide ranging communication.…”

Sprint Performance Forecasts in Agile Software Development - The Effect of Futurespectives on Team-Driven Dynamics

“…Interpretations of previous sprint dynamics or estimations of follow-up sprints concerning the social nature of agile teams can be challenging [7]. Various human factors, such as mood, communication or meeting manner have a direct effect for the ongoing project, while dysfunctional behavior often remains undetected or hard to grasp until problems enlarge [9] [20].…”