Khurshid Sultan, Senior

Consultant, Sociologist

Forming teams for GSD

Contributers

NexGSD Conference

2012.09.10

The concepts of ATGSD

1. Forming GSD teams

2. Modules

3. A tool: Team Poster

Ali Nicolaisen, Information

Psychologist, TEO

Stine Gotved, Cyber

Sociologist, ITU Rene Bach, Executive

Coach, CoCoCo

Zahid Abdullah,

Managing Director,

M. Sc., TEO

za@teo-intl.com

Team Performance Components

Technology skills (Quality of Product)

Team

Performance

Process skills (Quality of Process)

SCRUM practices

Design and Coding guidelines

Requirements management…

Microsoft .NET skills

Development, Test, Architecture and Design skills…

Social skills (Quality of Collaboration)

Language and behaviour understanding,

cultural competencies, teamness,

working environment, global workers…

ATGSD Objectives ATGSD, Accelerated Teambuilding for GSD, is a specialized team building methodology

improving the social skills of a GSD team, addressing (1) the known distances in GSD namely

spatial distance, temporal distance, cultural distance, and (2) the software engineering

environment. It attempts to compensate for the lack of social relations and team cohesion in a

distributed software development team environment.

ATGSD shall increase the quality of collaboration of the distributed team so that a high

quality of collaboration is reached both faster and to a higher level.

ATGSD shall reduce the need for physical relocation of the team members, hence reducing

cost, wasted time, pollution, logistical dependencies and lost productivity.

ATGSD Approach In order to be benificial for SMBs, the ATGSD methodology:

1. Is embedded into the software development process (SCRUM like)

2. Is event based

3. Has low overheads and cost

Ideal Progress

Quality of Team Collaboration (fewer mistakes and misunderstandings)

Team building event

Time

Unassisted GSD

Before

kick-off

At kick-off

After sprint 1 or 2

Before first major

release or milestone

At team changes……..…..……

ATGSD

Some Team Building Events

Before Kickoff At Kickoff After

Sprint 1-2

Personal

introductions

Team Forming Team Norming Team

Performance

Team

Re-norming

Online handshakes Explain what is a

team, team life cycle

and form the team

Update the Team

Poster

Define crisis

management and

high quality of

collaboration

Update the Team

Poster with

redefined roles and

responsibilties

1-to-1 five to ten minutes

personal introductions.

Names, backgrounds,

accent, skype contact data

Who is in the team, what

is our mission, how do we

achive the mission,

practicalities

What did we learn from

the storming, i.e.the first

project deliveries. What is

high quality of

collaboration? Revisit

mission and the team

practices

What is required from the

team during the release

phase, discuss critical

situations and how the

team shall handle a

crisis. Is the team

performing its best?

Why has the change

happened, what are the

consequences, discuss

the measures to take,

revisit the Team Poster

Skype Skype with video and

desktop sharing.

Fill in leaf 2, 3 and 4 of

the Team Poster..

Skype with video and

desktop sharing

Update in leaf 2, 3 and 4

of the Team Poster..

Skype with video and

desktop sharing

Fill leaf 5 and 6.

Skype with video and

desktop sharing

Before major

milestone

At major team

changes

Embed these team building events into the regular team meetings by extending the regular meetings with no more than

1-2 hours. An exception is the ”Personal Introductions” which is planned and carried out on its own.

A person, host, prepares, invites to and leads these events.

Summary

ATGSD, Accelerated Teambuilding for GSD, is a

specialized team building methodology targeting

social skills of a GSD team.

Next: Guide to ATGSD + Supporting Tools

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