Sunila Modi

Negotiating Common Ground in Distributed Agile Development: A Case Study Perspective

Distributed Agile Development is gaining prevalence in the global software engineering field. However establishing and negotiating common ground across geographical, temporal and cultural borders can be a challenging process for distributed team members. This paper reports on early findings of one case study and investigates how common ground or mutually shared understanding takes place within one globally distributed agile team. The paper presents an extended version of the 3C Collaboration model, drawing upon existing literature of raising awareness cues through the use of boundary objects. The research seeks a greater understanding of how common ground is negotiated across boundaries. The case study data was obtained from semi-structured interviews within a financial context. The findings suggest that team members use multifaceted techniques to enhance common ground for better collaborative practices to take place.

An intercultural study of HCI education experience and representation

The discipline of human-computer interaction has become a subject taught across universities around the world, outside of the cultures where it originated. However, the intercultural implication of its assimilation into the syllabus of courses offered by universities around the world remains under-researched. The purpose of this ongoing research project is to provide insights for these implications in terms of the student and teacher experience of HCI. How this subject is socially represented across the different universities studied is a key question. In order to develop intercultural awareness of these questions universities from UK, Denmark, Namibia, Mexico and China are collaborating in a multiple case study involving students and lecturers engaged in evaluation and design tasks. Findings will then be used to propose an international HCI curriculum more supportive of design for intercultural collaboration. This paper describes the initial steps of this study and some preliminary findings from Namibia.

Information Systems Undergraduate Degree Project: Gaining a Better Understanding of the Final Year Project Module

The place of an individual project in the final year of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degrees at UK universities is well established. In this paper we compare the final year project modules at four UK universities: the University of Brighton, the University of South Wales, University of West London and the University of Westminster. We find that the aims of the projects are similar, emphasising the application of the knowledge and skills from the taught element of their course in a complex development project, often including interactions with a real client. Although we show in this analysis that projects serve a similar purpose in the IS degree courses, the associated learning outcomes and the assessment practice varies across the institutions. We identify some gaps in the skills and abilities that are not being assessed. In further work we are planning to consult final year students undertaking their projects and their supervisors, in order to gain an understanding of how project assessment criteria are actually put to use.

Understanding Collaborative Practices in Distributed Agile Development: Research Proposal

Agile methodologies in software development are gaining prominence in global settings where distributed cross-cultural software teams collaborate on projects, addressing the needs of dynamic business environments. However, undertaking collaborative work in distributed settings can create significant challenges, especially as a number of agile principles and practices rely on physical proximity and face-to-face interactions. An interpretative qualitative approach using case studies has been adopted to gain deeper insights into how such teams work. The analysis is being informed by theoretical concepts of awareness, common ground and boundary objects. Early findings suggest that distributed team members use multifaceted techniques, such as shared software artifacts that evolve over time to negotiate and enhance common ground for better collaborative practices to emerge. It is expected that research undertaken will provide a framework to understand this process. Practically, the research will propose guidelines for global software teams planning to adopt agile methods in distributed environments.