A custom software development outsourcing team is a formal team of knowledge workers, with complementary skills around software design and development and certain responsibilities around a shared vision and goals. The software development team is the core organisation of a software company. When the team takes on a new software project, communication and team relations run through the whole project management and execution process and shape the project’s quality. In development, whether it is requirement analysis and communication between developers and the client, or technical coordination inside the team, everything is a process of exchanging information. Studying the communication mechanism offers opportunities for innovative management of outsourcing teams and makes their more scientific management possible.
The traits of software development teams are basically the same, summarised as follows.
Cross-industry and cross-department. Software projects span wide professional fields, and members usually come from different functional departments or different industries.
Unstable member structure. Because task volume and work nature vary hugely across project stages, the number of members and specific candidates keeps adjusting as the project advances and changes, so the team’s composition stays unstable.
The organisation is temporary. An outsourcing development team is set up specially to complete a given software project. Most of its work ends when the project completes and the team is dissolved. Moreover, if a project must be suspended for various reasons, the team may be dissolved and rebuilt when the project is cancelled, frozen or restarted.
High personnel mobility. Fierce market competition and the industry’s rapid growth in recent years give software developers high mobility; they are called the most restless people.
Problems caused by communication in development teams
Cross-department communication gaps. A team drawn from different functions puts a certain partition between members. People from different departments and industries have their own directions and thinking, and many project staff do not work in the same place, so communication carries barriers from the start.
Temporariness lowers the sense of belonging. Most outsourcing teams are formed temporarily, with uncertain personnel and short durations, making collective atmosphere hard to form, let alone team spirit, team culture and a good communication climate. If the technical backbone serves several projects at once, they are busy, feel little belonging to any team and communicate little with other members.
Mobility blocks knowledge sharing. Because personnel move so much, some engineers are unwilling to share their technical knowledge, which has sunk many projects: once the technical backbone leaves, the project easily suffers damage. Many small companies’ teams never standardise work documents or source code during development, so once staff leave, later inspection, handover and maintenance all suffer.
Weak leadership means poor communication. An effective team leader is the basic requirement of an efficient outsourcing team. Real communication between the provider’s project manager and members improves collaboration. If the manager cannot arrange work reasonably, members lose enthusiasm; if they set no clear short- and long-term goals, members flounder wondering how to finish the project well; if they cannot harmonise the team’s atmosphere and create a friendly communication environment, work turns stiff and lifeless; and if they cannot lead the team onto a sound development process, the project cannot be finished efficiently or with quality.
Personality differences breed poor cooperation. The whole development process demands team communication and joint participation, and in the team everyone has different character, attitudes and emotions, so communication barriers arise easily. Even a few bad ideas can trigger dissent, buck-passing, mutual blame and greed. Without a harmonious communication environment and a cohesive team, the project cannot be completed.
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