article

Free access

Coordination in software development

Authors:

Robert E. Kraut,

Lynn A. StreeterAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 38, Issue 3

Pages 69 - 81

https://doi.org/10.1145/203330.203345

Published: 01 March 1995 Publication History

PDF eReader

Abstract

Since its inception, the software industry has been in crisis. As Blazer noted 20 years ago, “[Software] is unreliable, delivered late, unresponsive to change, inefficient, and expensive … and has been for the past 20 years” [4]. In a survey of software contractors and government contract officers, over half of the respondents believed that calendar overruns, cost overruns, code that required in-house modifications before being usable, and code that was difficult to modify were common problems in the software projects they supervised [22]. Even today, problems with software systems are common and highly-publicized occurrences.

References

[1]

Adams, j,S. fhe structure and dynamics of behavior m organizational boundary roles. In M,D. Dtumette, Ed. Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Rand-McNally, Chicago 1976, 1175-1199.

Google Scholar

[2]

Allen, T.J, Managing the Flow of Technology. M IT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1977.

Google Scholar

[3]

Blau, P. and Scott, W.R. Formal organizations, Scott, Foresman, San Francisco, 1962.

Google Scholar

[4]

Blazer, R. Imprecise program,specification. Report ISI/RR-75-36, Information Science Institute, December, 1975.

Google Scholar

[5]

Boehm, B.W. Sottware engineering. Economics. COmput., (Dec. I976), 1226-1241.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Boehm, B.W. Software Engineering Economics. Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[7]

Brewer, M.B. and Kramer, R.M. The psychology of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Annual Review of Psychology 36, 1985, 219-243.

Crossref

Google Scholar

[8]

Brooks, F.P. The Mythical Man-Month. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1975.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

Brooks, F.P. No silver bullet: Essence and accidents of software engineering. IEEE Comput, Soc. 20, (Apr. 1987), 10-18.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[10]

Culnan, M.J. Envircmmental scanning: The eflects of task complexity and source accessibility on information gathering behavior. Decis. Sci. 14 (1983), 194-206.

Crossref

Google Scholar

[11]

Curtis, B., Krasner, H., and Iscoe, N. A field study of the software design process for large systems. Commun. ACM 31, 11, (Nov. 1988), 1268-1287.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[12]

Fox, J.M. Software and its Development. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N J, 1982.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[13]

Georgopoulos, B.S, and Mann, F.C. The Community General Hospital. Macmillan, NY, 1962.

Google Scholar

[14]

Gould, J.D., and Lewis, C. Designing for usability-Key principles and what designers think. In Proceedings of CHI'83. ACM Press, New York, 1983, pp. 50-53.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[15]

Hiltz, S.R., and Turoff, M. The network nation: Human communication via computer. Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1978.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[16]

Kyng, M. Designing fin cooperation: Cooperathtg in design. Commun. ACM 34, 12 (Dec. 1991), 65-73.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[17]

McCloud, P. An assessment of tim experimental literature on electronic support of group work: Results of a meta analysis. Human-Comput. Interaction 7, 3 (1992), 251-280.

Google Scholar

[18]

Newcomb, T.R. The Acquaintance Proces. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, I961.

Google Scholar

[19]

Pelz, D.C. and Andrews, F.M. Scientist. in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development. Wiley, New York, I966.

Google Scholar

[20]

Travis, P. Why the AT&T network crashed. Telephony 218, 4 (January 22, 1990), 11.

Google Scholar

[21]

Tushman, M.I. Special boundary roles in the innovation process, Admin. Sei. Q. 22,i (1977), 587-605.

Google Scholar

[22]

U,S. General Accounting Otlice+ Contracting for Computer Software Development-Serious Problems Require Management Attention to Avoid Wasting Additional Million.,. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service, P880-105638, Washington, D.C, 1979.

Google Scholar

[23]

Van de Ven, A.H., Delbecq, A.L., and Koenig, R. Jr. Determinants of coordination modes within orga.nizations+ Amer+ Soc+ Rev. 41 (1976), 322-338.

Google Scholar

[24]

Zajonc, R+B. Attitudi.ual effects of mere exposu re.}+ Pe~:v+nudit~ and Soc. Psych. 9, 1968, 1-28.

Google Scholar

[25]

Zipf. G.K. Human. Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort. Addison- Wesley, Cambridge, Mass., I949.

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Bock TSchneider NSchmid AApel SSiegmund J(2025)Understanding the low inter-rater agreement on aggressiveness on the Linux Kernel Mailing ListJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2025.112339(112339)Online publication date: Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112339
Zingg Cvon Gernler AArzig CSchweitzer FGote C(2024)Detecting the functional interaction structure of software development teamsPLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.030692319:10(e0306923)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306923
Alyahya SBin-Hezam RMaddeh M(2024)Supporting Remote Customer Involvement in Distributed Agile Development: A Coordination ApproachIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management10.1109/TEM.2021.313196471(688-701)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2021.3131964
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Coordination in software development
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
      2. Software management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Software configuration management and version control systems

Recommendations

Software development: what it is, what it should be, and how to get there

Developing large software systems is notoriously difficult and unpredictable. Software projects are often canceled, finish late and over budget, or yield low quality results --- setting software engineering apart from established engineering ...
Development of a Software Engineering Ontology for Multisite Software Development

This paper aims to present an ontology model of software engineering to represent its knowledge. The fundamental knowledge relating to software engineering is well described in the textbook entitled Software Engineering by Sommerville that is now in its ...
Development of software engineering: co-operative efforts from academia, government and industry
ICSE '06: Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Software engineering

In the past 40 years, software engineering has emerged as an important sub-field of computer science. The quality and productivity of software have been improved and the cost and risk of software development been decreased due to the contributions made ...

Reviews

Reviewer: Richard A. Baker

Kraut and Streeter present an interesting study of the various methods of software project coordination. This study evaluates the effectiveness of these coordination techniques and compares their effectiveness with how frequently each is used. The study is based on interviews with the people involved in 65 software projects at a single company. The paper concludes that there is a strong correlation between interpersonal communication and project success. The paper presents interesting basic research on project coordination techniques and provides conclusions. However, Kraut and Streeter could have extended their conclusions far deeper into management techniques. For instance, their data show the importance of co-locating engineers and of encouraging informal discussions among project members. The data could be further analyzed to show the communications difficulties that arise with telecommuting, and their impact on project success. Another drawback of this paper is the study's restriction to data from a single company. Use of data from more than one corporate culture would better demonstrate that the conclusions drawn here apply to the industry as a whole. Overall, however, this paper is excellent reading for all project managers, because it provides both the data and the analysis to support the use of various coordination techniques.

Access critical reviews of Computing literature here

Become a reviewer for Computing Reviews.

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

Communications of the ACM Volume 38, Issue 3

March 1995

96 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/203330

Editor:
Jacques Cohen
Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 March 1995

Published in CACM Volume 38, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

741
Total Citations
View Citations
7,345
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)302
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)55

Reflects downloads up to 20 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Bock TSchneider NSchmid AApel SSiegmund J(2025)Understanding the low inter-rater agreement on aggressiveness on the Linux Kernel Mailing ListJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2025.112339(112339)Online publication date: Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2025.112339
Zingg Cvon Gernler AArzig CSchweitzer FGote C(2024)Detecting the functional interaction structure of software development teamsPLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.030692319:10(e0306923)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306923
Alyahya SBin-Hezam RMaddeh M(2024)Supporting Remote Customer Involvement in Distributed Agile Development: A Coordination ApproachIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management10.1109/TEM.2021.313196471(688-701)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2021.3131964
Droste JDeters HObaidi MSchneider K(2024)Explanations in Everyday Software Systems: Towards a Taxonomy for Explainability Needs2024 IEEE 32nd International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE)10.1109/RE59067.2024.00016(55-66)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/RE59067.2024.00016
Rodriguez Rodriguez LBustamante Orellana CCooke NDemir MKang Y(2024)Communication dynamics of a two-agent interaction model with applications to human-autonomy teamingJournal of Difference Equations and Applications10.1080/10236198.2024.234383430:8(1222-1252)Online publication date: 3-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10236198.2024.2343834
Li PWu JLi PWu J(2024)IntroductionResearch on Innovation of Express Delivery Network Management10.1007/978-981-99-8982-9_1(1-23)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8982-9_1
Weng YXiong JShen WTang W(2024)Effects of Network Centrality, Expertise Coordination and Administrative Coordination on Communication Efficiency in Construction ProjectsProceedings of the 28th International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate10.1007/978-981-97-1949-5_73(1063-1077)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1949-5_73
Specht AObaidi MNagel LStess MKlünder J(2024)What is Needed to Apply Sentiment Analysis in Real Software Projects: A Feasibility Study in IndustryHuman-Centered Software Engineering10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_6(105-129)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-64576-1_6
Pal K(2023)Impact of Digital Technology Use for Teaching and Learning in Higher EducationTechnology Management and Its Social Impact on Education10.4018/978-1-6684-9103-4.ch007(121-145)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-9103-4.ch007
Vijay HPushp SMittal AGupta PGupta MGambhira SChopra SBaranwal MArya AManchepalli APadmanabhan V(2023)HyWayProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/35962357:2(1-33)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3596235
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Software development: what it is, what it should be, and how to get there

Development of a Software Engineering Ontology for Multisite Software Development

Development of software engineering: co-operative efforts from academia, government and industry

Reviews

Access critical reviews of Computing literature here

Comments

Information

Published In

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View options

PDF

eReader

Login options

Full Access

Figures

Other

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations