Software Development Teams: Performance, Productivity and Innovation

The book, Software Development Teams, offers a new and unique approach to developing software project teams. It guides IT experts and managers for forming, assessing and developing successful project management teams for effective performance and productivity. Focusing on the management side of the software industry, this text-cum-reference book discusses key aspects of the management such as performance measurement, organisational structure and development, motivation of the team with awards and rewards to bring innovative ideas, and the best practices followed in the modern software industry for measuring the team effectively. The book begins with an introduction of software teams, explaining how software projects are different. It then discusses the characteristics, skills and competencies that are required for a perfect programmer or a project manager, in addition to many other dimensions of software development teams. It further includes empirical studies on team climate, team performance, team productivity and team innovation. Next, it explores the factors that are important for maintaining the software development team climate, and the impact of conflicts on teams, which may ultimately have negative impact on the organisation. Tools and techniques to measure performance of software development team are explained along with the factors that influence the teams' performance, relationship between team cohesion, productivity and finally the performance. Different types of possible innovation in software teams and organisations, innovation cycle and framework, role of top management and leadership in team management are also given due weightage.