Augmenting an existing software development process with a team building activity - a case study
M. K. Serour, Brian Henderson‐Sellers, Lorraine Dagher · UTS ePRESS (University of Technology Sydney) · 2006
The task of developing software systems not only requires technological aspects but also, and more importantly, human aspects.Here, we argue that every software method/process ought to support the human aspects of software engineering, in terms of 'working teams', as well as the technological aspects.Consequently, we proposed some new process fragments to augment an existing process framework for software development specifically to be able to support the human side of software development that bring together individuals to achieve teamwork for a common purpose.Wefirst discuss the concepts of working teams and team buildingfollowed by an investigation of some of the weaknesses with the current software methods concerning the degree of support for the human side of software engineering with particular emphasis on working teams and the team development lifecycle.An empirical study, using Action Research (AR), with a governmental body in Australia was then executed in order to test and validate our theory of augmenting the OPEN Process Framework (OPF) with a new team building activity and-a number of tasks for enhancing teamwork.At the end of our longitudinal study we have witnessed a major and successful work culture change that been achieved at our study organization as a direct result of their adoption and diffusion of the proposed OPF that was augmented with new support for the human aspects of software development.