Joel F. Farber

Supporting the social processes of software development

One key to improving team‐based software development is to support the developers’ ability to work together. Sets out one site’s response to this challenge. Developers at this site have a facility, which we will call the “team room”, allowing team members to work together. This is a computer‐supported meeting room that arose from the voluntary, and reflective, efforts of software developers to make it easier for them to work together. The team room’s popularity shows up in its extensive use for meetings and its acceptance as an integral part of software development at this site. When people use the team room, they work on a shared screen, making it easier to work together. Because they can work together, meetings become a time of work, not a pause between work sessions. Explains how these positive work outcomes have had some unexpected effects. For example, developers at this site now rely on room use to help deal with intra‐group conflict, so that the team room has become a buffer to social interaction, serving as a conduit for action.