Evaluating GSD-Aware

Abstract

Global Software Development (GSD) is currently a strong industry trend. This means that if computer science engineers are to be trained to deal with this model, it is very important to include the topic in software engineering courses, attempting to ensure that students learn about GSD and become familiar with its advantages and challenges. However, software engineering courses do not always consider including it in their curricula. It must also be recognized that it is difficult to find a suitable method to teach/develop the different skills needed for GSD. There is often a lot of content and not a great deal of time available to teach it. In this article, we propose the use of a serious game called GSD-Aware, with which students can “suffer” some of the typical challenges of GSD by interacting with avatars and by using several means of communication to solve a number of problems posed. The article focuses on the description of the game and on the empirical study conducted to analyze whether GSD-Aware helps students to be conscious of GSD challenges. It was discovered that after 50 minutes playing the game, the students were aware of the greater influence that the following factors can have: lack of coordination, lack of trust, cultural differences, lack of face-to-face and informal communication, time difference, and lack of team spirit. In their final analysis, students agreed that the serious game scenarios helped them to understand what GSD is and to grasp the importance of some GSD challenges.

Global virtual teams coordination mechanisms: building theory from research in software development

“…Kayworth and Leidner 2000;Powell, Piccoli, and Ives 2004), such studies have failed to provide a comprehensive understanding of how GVT issues impact the effectiveness of specific coordination mechanisms (Nguyen-Duc, Cruzes, and Conradi 2015). Thus, researchers argue that existing studies shed little light on the practicalities of implementing effective coordination in GVTs (Espinosa et al 2007;Taweel et al 2009;Vizcaíno et al 2019) as the challenge of coordinating ICT-enabled work in GVTs has not been adequately addressed (cf. Dubé and Robey 2009;Medappa and Srivastava 2019;Watson-Manheim, Chudoba, and Crowston 2012).…”

“…Leadership and knowledge sharing were excluded from the study to focus instead on GVT issues that have been predominantly reported as having a direct, negative impact on coordination (Noll, Beecham, and Richardson 2010;Palacio et al 2011). Geographical distance hampers the effectiveness of coordination measures that typically rely on the proximity of team members (Vizcaíno et al 2019). Similarly, time zone differences disrupt the typical coordination processes that ensure team members successfully interact to ensure a successful project outcome (Espinosa and Carmel 2003).…”

“…differently due to locally held practices and assumptions (Maznevski and Chudoba 2000;Niazi et al 2016a;Sutanto, Kankanhalli, and Tan 2004;Zakaria et al 2020). The language typically used as the official working language of the virtual team is not necessarily the first (or in some cases second) language of all team members (Gilson et al 2015;Morrison-Smith and Ruiz 2020;Mortensen and Hinds 2001;Kayworth and Leidner 2000;Vizcaíno et al 2019). Differing levels of language proficiency leads some team members to misuse or misinterpret standards such as templates and data dictionaries.…”

“…Differing levels of language proficiency leads some team members to misuse or misinterpret standards such as templates and data dictionaries. This hinders the understanding by team members of project standards (Vizcaíno et al 2019). Trust is difficult to engender and maintain in a virtual team.…”

“…Trust is difficult to engender and maintain in a virtual team. Team members can mistrust other team members at other project sites and their ability to adhere to standards set out for the team (Chang, Hung, and Hsieh 2014;Mortensen and Hinds 2001;Kayworth and Leidner 2000;Vizcaíno et al 2019). Based on the foregoing analysis of existing research, we present our first proposition: Proposition 1: The effectiveness of standards is impacted by geographical distance, trust, language differences, time zone differences and cultural differences.…”