MANAGING PEOPLE

& TEAMWORK
S O F TWAR E P R O J E C T M AN A G E M E N T

10/2020
1
Contents
Part 1: Managing people
1. Introduction
2. Motivating people
3. Personality types
Part 2: Teamwork
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group

2
Contents – Part 1: Managing people
1. Introduction
2. Motivating people
3. Personality types

3
Introduction
• The people working in a software organization
are its greatest assets.
– It costs a lot to recruit and retain good people.
• In successful companies and economies, this is
achieved when people are:
– respected by the organization and
– assigned responsibilities that reflect their skills and
experience.

4
Introduction
• It is important that software project managers
understand the technical issues that influence the
work of software development.
• Unfortunately, however, good software engineers
are not necessarily good people managers.
– Software engineers often have strong technical skills
but may lack the softer skills that enable them to
motivate and lead a project development team.

5
Introduction
• There are four critical factors in people
management [Sommerville 2011]
– Consistency
– Respect
– Inclusion
– Honesty

6
Introduction
• Consistency
– People in a project team should all be treated in a
comparable way.
– No one expects all rewards to be identical but people
should not feel that their contribution to the
organization is undervalued.

People management, in my view, is something that

has to be based on experience, rather than learned
from a book.
Sommerville
7
Introduction
• Respect
– Different people have different skills and managers
should respect these differences.
– All members of the team should be given an
opportunity to make a contribution. In some cases, of
course, you will find that people simply don’t fit into a
team and they cannot continue, but it is important not
to jump to conclusions about this at an early stage in
the project.

8
Introduction
• Inclusion
– People contribute effectively when they feel that others
listen to them and take account of their proposals.
– It is important to develop a working environment where
all views, even those of the most junior staff, are
considered.

9
Introduction
• Honesty
– As a manager, you should always be honest about
what is going well and what is going badly in the team.
– You should also be honest about your level
of technical knowledge and willing to defer to staff with
more knowledge when necessary.
– If you try to cover up ignorance or problems you will
eventually be found out and will lose the respect of the
group.

10
Contents – Part 1: Managing people
1. Introduction
2. Motivating people
3. Personality types

11
Motivating people
• As a project manager, you need to motivate the
people that work with you so that they contribute
to the best of their abilities.
• Motivation means
– organizing the work and the working environment …
– to encourage people to work as effectively as possible.

12
 If people are not motivated…
• They will not be interested in the work they are doing.
• They will work slowly, be more likely to make mistakes,
• and will not contribute to the broader goals of the team
or the organization.
Image src: https://www.inc.com/drew-hendricks/12-tips-you-can-be-happy-at-a-boring-job.html 13
 How to motivate your employees
Image src: https://www.trophiesplusmedals.co.uk/the-teachers-guide-to-keep-students-motivated-in-class/
14
Motivating people
• To provide this encouragement, you should
understand a little about what motivates people.
– Maslow (1954) suggests that people are motivated by
satisfying their needs.

15
 Concerned with personal development

The need to feel respected by others

The need to feel part of a social

grouping
The need to feel secure in
an environment

Food, sleep...

Human needs hierarchy

(Maslow)
People need to satisfy lower-level needs like hunger
before the more abstract, higher-level needs

16
Motivating people
• Physiological Needs: thức ăn, nước uống, thở…
• Safety Needs: an toàn khi tai nạn, chấn thương, an toàn
tài chính, an toàn sức khỏe và tài sản.
• Social Needs: tình bạn, tình yêu đôi lứa, gia đình, các
hội/nhóm, các nhóm cộng đồng..
• Esteem Needs: nhu cầu được kính trọng, quý mến.
• Self-realization needs: nhu cầu được thể hiện/ chứng tỏ
giá trị bản thân mình (đây là nhu cầu của con người muốn
khai phá các tiềm năng và thể hiện đúng con người mình)
17
Motivating people
• People working in software development
organizations are not usually hungry or thirsty or
physically threatened by their environment.
• Therefore, making sure that people’s social,
esteem, and self-realization needs are satisfied is
most important from a management point of view.

18
Motivating people
• To satisfy social needs, you need to give people
time to meet their co-workers and provide places for
them to meet.
– This is relatively easy when all of the members of a
development team work in the same place but, increasingly,
team members are not located in the same building or even
the same town or state. They may work for different
organizations or from home most of the time.
– Social networking systems and teleconferencing can be
used to facilitate communications but my experience with
electronic systems is that they are most effective once
people know each other.

19
Motivating people
• To satisfy social needs…
– You therefore need to arrange some face-to-face
meetings early in the project so that people can
directly interact with other members of the team.
– Through this direct interaction, people become part of
a social group and accept the goals and priorities of
that group.

20
Motivating people
• To satisfy esteem needs, you need to show
people that they are valued by the organization.
– Public recognition of achievements is a simple yet
effective way of doing this.
– Obviously, people must also feel that they are paid at a
level that reflects their skills and experience.

21
Motivating people
• To satisfy self-realization needs, you need to
give people responsibility for their work, assign
them demanding (but not impossible) tasks, and
provide a training programme where people can
develop their skills.
– Training is an important motivating influence as people
like to gain new knowledge and learn new skills

22
Case study: Motivation
• Problem:
– A competent group member loses interest in the work
and in the group. The quality of her work falls and
becomes unacceptable.
– This situation has to be dealt with quickly. If you don’t
sort out the problem, the other group members will
become dissatisfied and feel that they are doing an
unfair share of the work.
– Dorothy’s motivation problem is one that is quite
common when projects develop in an unexpected
direction.

23
Case study: Motivation
• Solution: in those circumstances, you may
decide that:
– The team member should leave the team and find
opportunities elsewhere.
– In this example, however, Alice decides to try to
convince Dorothy that broadening her experience is a
positive career step.
• She gives Dorothy more design autonomy and organizes
training courses in software engineering that will give her
more opportunities after her current project has finished.

24
Contents – Part 1: Managing people
1. Introduction
2. Motivating people
3. Personality types

25
Personality types
• Personality type also influences motivation. Bass
and Dunteman (1963) classify professionals into
three types:
– Task-oriented people
– Self-oriented people
– Interaction-oriented people

26
Personality types
• Task-oriented people
– Who are motivated by the work they do. In software
engineering, these are people who are motivated by the
intellectual challenge of software development.
• Self-oriented people
– Who are principally motivated by personal success and
recognition. They are interested in software development as
a means of achieving their own goals.
– This does not mean that these people are selfish and think
only of their own concerns. Rather, they often have longer-
term goals, such as career progression, that motivate them
and they wish to be successful in their work to help realize
these goals.

27
Personality types
• Interaction-oriented people
– Who are motivated by the presence and actions of
co-workers.
– As software development becomes more user-
centered, interaction-oriented individuals are becoming
more involved in software engineering.

28
Personality types
• Interaction-oriented personalities usually like to
work as part of a group,
• Whereas task-oriented and self-oriented people
usually prefer to act as individuals.
• Women are more likely to be interaction-oriented
than men. They are often more effective
communicators.

29
TEAMWORK
S O F TWAR E P R O J E C T M AN A G E M E N T

10/2020
31
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group

32
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group

33
Introduction
• Most professional software is developed by
project teams that range in size from two to
several hundred people.
• Large teams are usually split into groups:
– Each group is responsible for developing part of the
overall system.
– Groups should not have more than 10 members.
• Why we should split into small groups?

34
• When small groups are used, communication
problems are reduced.
– Everyone knows everyone else and the whole group
can get around a table for a meeting to discuss the
project and the software that they are developing.

35
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
– Benefits of a cohesive group
– How to encourage group cohesiveness
– Case study: Team spirit
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group

36
A good group
• A good group is cohesive and has a team spirit.
– The people involved are motivated by the success of
the group as well as by their own personal goals.

37
A good group
• In a cohesive group, members think of the
group as more important than the individuals
– Members of a well-led, cohesive group are loyal to the
group. They identify with group goals and other group
members.
– They attempt to protect the group from outside
interference.
• This makes the group robust and able to cope
with problems and unexpected situations.

38
Benefits of a cohesive group
• The benefits of creating a cohesive group are:
1. The group can establish its own quality
standards: Because these standards are established
by consensus, they are more likely to be observed
than external standards imposed on the group.
2. Individuals learn from and support each other:
People in the group learn from each other. Inhibitions
caused by ignorance are minimized as mutual
learning is encouraged.
Example: a rule of a team:
when fixing bug, comment [who], date, reason of changing
// [SLV] 20/10/2019 Fix issue #123
39
Benefits of a cohesive group
• The benefits of creating a cohesive group are:
3. Knowledge is shared: Continuity can be maintained
if a group member leaves. Others in the group can
take over critical tasks and ensure that the project is
not unduly disrupted.
4. Refactoring and continual improvement is
encouraged: Group members work collectively to
deliver high-quality results and fix problems,
irrespective of the individuals who originally created
the design or program.

40
How to encourage group
cohesiveness
• Good project managers should always try to
encourage group cohesiveness.
– They may organize social events for group members
and their families.
– Try to establish a sense of group identity by:
• naming the group
• establishing a group identity and territory
• or they may get involved in explicit group-building activities
such as sports and games.

41
How to encourage group
cohesiveness

‘Working with parents’ Day (a FPT event)

42
How to encourage group
cohesiveness

TMA Parents’ Day

43
How to encourage group
cohesiveness

TMA Parents’ Day 44

Team building

45
How to encourage group
cohesiveness
• One of the most effective ways of promoting cohesion
is to be inclusive.
• This means that you should treat group members as
responsible and trustworthy, and make information
freely available.
– Sometimes, managers feel that they cannot reveal certain
information to everyone in the group. This invariably creates
a climate of mistrust.
– Simple information exchange is an effective way of making
people feel valued and that they are part of a group.

46
Case study: Team spirit
• Alice arranges regular informal meetings where
she tells the other group members what is going
on.
• She makes a point of involving people in the
product development by asking them to come up
with new ideas derived from their own family
experiences.
• The ‘away days’ are also good ways of promoting
cohesion — people relax together while they help
each other learn about new technologies.
47
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a
group
– Group composition – Case study
– Group organization
– Group communications

48
Factors influence the
effectiveness of a group
• There are three generic factors that affect team
working:

Group composition

Group organization

Group communications
49
Factors influence the
effectiveness of a group
• There are three generic factors that affect team
working:
– The people in the group: You need a mix of people in
a project group as software development involves
diverse activities such as negotiating with clients,
programming, testing, and documentation.
– The group organization: A group should be
organized so that individuals can contribute to the best
of their abilities and tasks can be completed as
expected.

50
Factors influence the
effectiveness of a group
• There are three generic factors that affect team
working:
– Technical and managerial communications: Good
communications between group members, and between
the software engineering team and other project
stakeholders, is essential.
• As with all management issues, getting the right team
cannot guarantee project success.
• However, if you don’t pay attention to group
composition, organization, and communications, you
increase the likelihood that your project will run into
difficulties.

51
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group
– Group composition
– Group organization
– Group communications

52
Selecting group members
• A manager or team leader’s job is to create a
cohesive group and organize their group so that
they can work together effectively.
• This involves creating a group with the right
balance of technical skills and personalities, and
organizing that group so that the members work
together effectively.

53
Selecting group members
• Sometimes, people are hired from outside the
organization;
• More often, however, software engineering
groups are put together from current employees
who have experience on other projects.
• However, managers rarely have a completely free
hand in team selection.
– They often have to use the people who are available in
the company, even when they may not be the ideal
people for the job.

54
Selecting group members
• Many software engineers are motivated primarily
by their work. Software development groups,
therefore, are often composed of people who
have their own ideas about how technical
problems should be solved.
• This is reflected in regularly reported problems of:
– interface standards being ignored,
– systems being redesigned as they are coded,
– unnecessary system embellishments, and so on.

55
Selecting group members
• A group that has complementary personalities
may work better than a group that is selected
solely on technical ability.
– People who are motivated by the work are likely to be
the strongest technically.
– People who are self-oriented will probably be best at
pushing the work forward to finish the job.
– People who are interaction-oriented help facilitate
communications within the group.

56
Selecting group members
• [Sommerville] think that it is particularly important
to have interaction-oriented people in a group.
– They like to talk to people and can detect tensions and
disagreements at an early stage, before these have a
serious impact on the group.

57
However...

58
Case study: Group composition
• Alice has tried to create a group with complementary
personalities. This particular group has a good mix of
interaction- and task-oriented people.
– Alice — self-oriented
– Brian — task-oriented
– Bob — task-oriented
– Carol — interaction-oriented
– Dorothy — self-oriented
– Ed — interaction-oriented
– Fred — task-oriented

59
Case study: Group composition
• However, there are some problems:
– Dorothy’s self-oriented personality has caused
problems because she has not been doing the work
that she expected.
– Fred’s part-time role in the group as a domain expert
might also be a problem. He is mostly interested in
technical challenges, so he may not interact well with
other group members. The fact that he is not always
part of the team means that he may not relate well to
the team’s goals.

60
Selecting group members
• It is sometimes impossible to choose a group
with complementary personalities.
– If this is the case, the project manager has to control
the group so that individual goals do not take
precedence over organizational and group objectives.
– This control is easier to achieve if all group members
participate in each stage of the project.
– Individual initiative is most likely when group members
are given instructions without being aware of the part
that their task plays in the overall project.

61
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group
– Group composition
– Group organization
– Group communications

63
Group organization
• The way that a group is organized affects
– the decisions that are made by that group,
– the ways that information is exchanged, and
– the interactions between the development group and
external project stakeholders.

64
Group organization
The 5 Types Of
Organizational Structures
by Jacob Morgan
at Forbes.com

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/07/06/the-5-types-of-
organizational-structures-part-1-the-hierarchy 65
Group organization

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/07/06/the-5-types-of-
organizational-structures-part-1-the-hierarchy 66
Group organization
• Important organizational questions for project
managers include:
1. Should the project manager be the technical leader of the
group?
2. Who will be involved in making critical technical decisions,
and how will these be made?
3. How will interactions with external stakeholders and senior
company management be handled?
4. How can groups integrate people who are not colocated?
5. How can knowledge be shared across the group?

67
Group organization
1. Should the project manager be the technical
leader of the group?
– The technical leader or system architect is responsible
for the critical technical decisions made during
software development.
– Sometimes, the project manager has the skill and
experience to take on this role. However, for large
projects, it is best to appoint a senior engineer to be
the project architect, who will take responsibility for
technical leadership.

68
Group organization
2. Who will be involved in making critical
technical decisions, and how will these be
made?
– Will decisions be made by the system architect, the
project manager, or by reaching consensus amongst a
wider range of team members?

69
Group organization
3. How will interactions with external
stakeholders and senior company
management be handled?
– In many cases, the project manager will be
responsible for these interactions, assisted by the
system architect if there is one.
– However, an alternative organizational model is to
create a dedicated role concerned with external
liaison, and appoint someone with appropriate
interaction skills to that role.

70
Group organization
4. How can groups integrate people who are
not colocated?
– It is now common for groups to include members from
different organizations and people to work from home
as well as in a shared office. This has to be taken into
account in group decision-making processes.

71
Group organization
5. How can knowledge be shared across the
group?
– Group organization affects information sharing as
certain methods of organization are better for sharing
than others.
– However, you should avoid too much information
sharing as people become overloaded and excessive
information distracts them from their work.

72
Group organization - informal
• Small programming groups are usually organized
in a fairly informal way.

In an informal group,
the work to be
carried out is
discussed by the
group as a whole,
and tasks are
allocated according
to ability and
experience. 73
Group organization - informal
• The group leader gets involved in the software
development with the other group members.
• More senior group members may be responsible
for the architectural design.
• However, detailed design and implementation is
the responsibility of the team member who is
allocated to a particular task.

74
Group organization - informal
• Extreme programming groups (Beck, 2000) are
always informal groups.
• XP enthusiasts claim that formal structure inhibits
information exchange.
• In XP, many decisions that are usually seen as
management decisions (such as decisions on
schedule) are devolved to group members.
• Programmers work together in pairs to develop
code and take joint responsibility for the programs
that are developed.
75
Group organization - informal
• Informal groups can be very successful, particularly
when most group members are experienced and
competent.
• Such a group makes decisions by consensus, which
improves cohesiveness and performance.
• However, if a group is composed mostly of
inexperienced or incompetent members, informality
can be a hindrance because no definite authority
exists to direct the work, causing a lack of
coordination between group members and, possibly,
eventual project failure.
76
Group organization - Hierarchical
• Hierarchical groups are groups that have a
hierarchical structure with the group leader at the
top of the hierarchy.

The group leader has

more formal authority
than the group members
and so can direct their
work.

77
There is a clear organizational
structure and decisions are
made towards the top of the
hierarchy and implemented by
people lower down the
hierarchy.
Communications are
primarily instructions from
senior staff and there is
relatively little ‘upward’
communication from the
lower levels to the upper
levels in the hierarchy.

78
Group organization - Hierarchical
• This approach can work well when a well-
understood problem can be easily broken into
subproblems with subproblem solutions
developed in different parts of the hierarchy.
• In those situations, relatively little communication
across the hierarchy is required. However, such
situations are relatively rare in software
engineering for the following reasons:

79
Group organization - Hierarchical
• Reasons:
– Changes to the software often require changes to several
parts of the system and this requires discussion and
negotiation at all levels in the hierarchy.
– Software technologies change so fast that more junior staff
often know more about the technology than experienced
staff. Top-down communications may mean that the project
manager does not find out about the opportunities of using
new technologies. More junior staff may become frustrated
because of what they see as old-fashioned technologies
being used for development.

80
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• Democratic and hierarchic group organizations do not
formally recognize that there may be very large
differences in technical ability between group
members.
• The best programmers may be up to 25 times more
productive as the worst programmers.
• It makes sense to use the best people in the most
effective way and to provide them with as much
support as possible.
• An early organizational model that was intended to
provide this support was the chief programmer team.

81
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• To make the most effective use of highly skilled
programmers, Baker (1972) and others (Aron, 1974;
Brooks, 1975) suggested that teams should be built
around an individual, highly skilled chief programmer.

82
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• The underlying principle of the chief programmer
team is that:
– The skilled and experienced staff should be
responsible for all software development.
– They should not be concerned with routine matters
and should have good technical and administrative
support for their work.
– They should focus on the software to be developed
and not spend a lot of time in external meetings.

83
 Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team

Read more in Structured Programming, HARVEY M. DEITEL, BARBARA

DEITEL, in An Introduction to Information Processing, 1986 84
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• The chief programmer:
– who does it all from problem definition to programming,
testing, debugging, and even documentation.
– In every sense, the chief must be a “super
programmer,” most likely with 10 or more years'
experience in computing, plus considerable expertise in
the area of the application being designed.
• The copilot,
– The copilot is less experienced than the chief but is
able to take over in the chief's absence.

85
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• The administrator, a skilled person designated
to handle administrative matters that the chief
can't attend to because of limited time.
• The editor, who frees the chief from much of the
tedium of the clerical work, proofreading, and edit
corrections associated with producing the
documentation. The chief writes or dictates the
generalized versions of the documentation.
 Two secretaries, one to serve the administrator
and the other to serve the editor.
86
Group organization –
Chief Programmer Team
• The program clerk, who handles all inputs, outputs,
program files, backup files, and the like.
• The toolsmith, who constructs the special programs
that support the chief's efforts. The toolsmith builds
programs, called utilities or software tools, that make
the chief's job easier.
• The tester, who prepares test cases and appropriate
test data to ensure that the programs written by the
chief run properly.
• The language lawyer, an expert in the structured
programming language being used in the project.

87
Contents
1. Introduction
2. A good group
3. Factors influence the effectiveness of a group
– Group composition
– Group organization
– Group communications

89
Group communications
• It is absolutely essential that group members
communicate effectively and efficiently with each
other and with other project stakeholders.
• Group members must exchange information on the
status of their work, the design decisions that have
been made, and changes to previous design
decisions.
• They have to resolve problems that arise with other
stakeholders and inform these stakeholders of
changes to the system, the group, and delivery plans.
90
Group communications
• Good communication also helps strengthen group
cohesiveness.
• Group members come to understand the
motivations, strengths, and weaknesses of other
people in the group.

91
Group communications
• The effectiveness and efficiency of
communications is influenced by:
– Group size
– Group structure
– Group composition
– The physical work environment
– The available communication channels

92
Group communications
• Group size As a group gets bigger, it gets harder
for members to communicate effectively.
– The number of one-way communication links is n * (n -
1), where n is the group size, so, with a group of eight
members, there are 56 possible communication
pathways. This means that it is quite possible that
some people will rarely communicate with each other.
– Managers and experienced engineers tend to
dominate communications with less experienced staff,
who may be reluctant to start a conversation or make
critical remarks.

93
Group communications
• Group structure People in informally structured
groups communicate more effectively than people
in groups with a formal, hierarchical structure.
– In hierarchical groups, communications tend to flow up
and down the hierarchy. People at the same level may
not talk to each other. This is a particular problem in a
large project with several development groups.
– If people working on different subsystems only
communicate through their managers.

94
Group communications
• Group composition People with the same
personality types may clash and, as a result,
communications can be inhibited.
– Communication is also usually better in mixed-sex
groups (Marshall and Heslin, 1975) than in single-sex
groups.
– Women are often more interaction-oriented than men
and may act as interaction controllers and facilitators
for the group.

95
Group communications
• The physical work environment The
organization of the workplace is a major factor in
facilitating or inhibiting communications.

96
97
98
Group communications
• The available communication channels
– There are many different forms of communication —
face-to-face, e-mail messages, formal documents,
telephone, and Web 2.0 technologies such as social
networking and wikis.
– As project teams become increasingly distributed, with
team members working remotely, you need to make
use of a range of technologies to facilitate
communications.

99
Group communications
• Project managers usually work to tight deadlines
and, consequently, they may try to use
communication channels that don’t take up too
much of their time.
• They may therefore rely on meetings and formal
documents to pass on information to project staff
and stakeholders.

100
Group communications
• Although this may be an efficient approach to
communication from a project manager’s
perspective, it is not usually very effective.
– There are often good reasons why people can’t attend
meetings and so they don’t hear the presentation.
– Long documents are often never read because
readers don’t know if the documents are relevant.
When several versions of the same document are
produced, readers find it difficult to keep track of the
changes

101
Group communications
• Effective communication is achieved when
communications are two way, and the people
involved can discuss issues and information and
establish a common understanding of proposals and
problems.
• This can be done through meetings, although these
are often dominated by powerful personalities. It is
sometimes impractical to arrange meetings at short
notice.
• More and more project teams include remote
members, which also makes meetings more difficult.
 How to counter these problems?

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Group communications
• To counter these problems, you may make use of
web technologies such as wikis and blogs to support
information exchange.
– Wikis support the collaborative creation and editing of
documents, and blogs support threaded discussions about
questions and comments made by group members.
– Wikis and blogs allow project members and external
stakeholders to exchange information, irrespective of their
location. They help manage information and keep track of
discussion threads, which often become confusing when
conducted by e-mail.

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Group communications
• You can also use instant messaging and
teleconferences, which can be easily arranged, to
resolve issues that need discussion.

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Key points
• Software development groups should be fairly small
and cohesive.
• The key factors that influence the effectiveness of a
group are the people in that group, the way that it is
organized, and the communication between group
members.
• Communications within a group are influenced by
factors such as the status of group members, the size
of the group, the gender composition of the group,
personalities, and available communication channels.
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References
As described in the Introduction slide.

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