Social Aspects of Software Management
Social Aspects of Software Management
Content
- Theory Z
- Related Practices
- Related Principles
- Theory W
- Related Practices
- Related Principles
- Theory Y
- Related Practices
- Related Principles
- Theory Pi
- Social Exchange Theory
Blogs
- Commitment -Driven Sprint Planning
- How Scrum Created the Greatest Team in the World
- Building the trust inside the team
Overview
Picture 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [23]
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a model representing the stages of human development.Drawn as a pyramid, the most fundamental physiological needs lie at the bottom, and the psychological needs linear the top. For each need to be realized, all of the levels below it in the hierarchy need to be satisfied as well.An important theory related to the social aspect of LeSS is neatly embedded in this model.
If one were to look at a scrum team members’ satisfaction with their job and their contributions to their team, it would be fairly straightforward to argue that in order to extract meaning from their work, to achieve a sense of belonging, and to actualize the potential of their contributions, that they should require approval and association with their peers. Hence, the importance of a well socialized workplace is self evident. —
Picture 2. Theory X, Y and Z compared together [22]
Theories X, Y, and Z model human management and motivation. According to X and Y,two contrasting managerial styles are formed from the diametrically opposed assumptions of how workers are motivated. While X emphasizes strict supervision, external rewards, and negative reinforcement, Theory Y implies that job satisfaction is the motivation that encourages workers to take on tasks without supervision. Theory Z focuses on employee loyalty and a holistic life balanced approach to job satisfaction.
Picture 3. Theory X, Y and Z illustration [22]
Related Theories
Theory Z
William Ouchi’s theory taken from Japanese management style. William Ouchi theorized that the key to better performance is employee loyalty.[1] [10]
More information read here
Make Everyone a winner: Theory W
Software project managers can only be successful if they make all project participants a winner[2] [6]
More information read here
Theory Y
Trust your employees and they will perform better. People perform best when they are allowed to be self-directed, and perform work they have committed to. [25]
More information read here
Theory Pi
In Theory Pi, Mallette asserts that engineers and scientists as a group tend to have characteristics that require a different management style than the average worker.[9]
Social Exchange Theory
People develop relationships with others they exchange with. The way this exchange occurs and how frequently can affect relationship quality [24]
More information read here
Alignment
Team that is going in the same direction towards the same goal will make better progress.[16]
More information read here
Cohesion
Team works together, and can reach decisions that all team members support.[17]
More information read here
Commitment
Team members are “all in”. Everyone is willing to work toward the common goal[18]
More information read here
Transparency
Team members share what they are doing to other team members. [19]
More information read here
Responsibility
Each team member takes responsibility for their contribution.[20]
More information read here
Collaboration
Team members actively seek out help, opinions, or advice from other team members.[21]
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Define roles and tasks of team members
For productivity, roles of team members should be defined clearly. These roles may be project manager, team lead, developer, tester etc. Furthermore, authorizations and responsibilities of these roles should be defined very clearly. Task-assignment based development should also be applied for avoiding redundant efforts and chaos. Theories related: Theory Z, Theory X and Y, Theory-W.[4] [5]
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Define meeting types
Meetings are very important if we are talking about software process management and should be defined in detail (meeting participants, context, average duration etc.).[4] Theories related: Theory X and Y
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Save “lessons learned” info for your projects
Even if there are experienced staff in projects, there may be unforeseen events which may obstruct or retard development process. This can be a complex item configuration, error, production experience etc. Those happenings are highly preferred to be written in “lessons learned” documents and shared in public locations. This will avoid recurrence of time loss and provide more productive software process management. [4] Theories related: Theory X and Y, Theory-W.
More information read here
Related Blogs
Commitment-Driven Sprint Planning – An exploration on the effects social cohesion has on the process of committing to project components.
How Scrum Created the Greatest Team in the World – A list of the social attributes of high-functioning teams using rugby as an analogy.
Building the trust inside the team – An exploration on the productivity changes experienced when a manager tries trust-building activities with her team.
References .[1]:https://www.boundless.com/business/textbooks/boundless-business-textbook/motivation-theories-and-applications-11/theories-of-motivation-75/ouchi-s-theory-z-359-8432/
.[2]:http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=29489&isnumber=1257
.[3]:https://www.wrike.com/blog/need-record-project-management-lessons-learned-tips-templates/
.[4]:https://dzone.com/articles/10-software-process-management
.[5]:https://www.dataone.org/best-practices/define-roles-and-assign-responsibilities-data-managementtt
.[6]:B. W. Boehm, & R. Ross. (1989). Theory-W software project management principles and examples. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 15(7), 902-916. doi:10.1109/32.29489
.[7]:A. Chagas, M. Santos, C. Santana, & A. Vasconcelos. (2015). The impact of human factors on agile projects. Paper presented at the Agile Conference (AGILE), 2015, pp. 87-91. doi:10.1109/Agile.2015.11
.[8]:S. Kumar, L. C. Ureel, & C. Wallace. (2015). Agile communicators: Cognitive apprenticeship to prepare students for communication-intensive software development. Paper presented at the Agile Conference (AGILE), 2015, pp. 71-75. doi:10.1109/Agile.2015.22
.[9]:L. A. Mallette. (2005). Theory pi - engineering leadership not your theory X, Y or Z leaders. Paper presented at the 2005 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 4389-4397. doi:10.1109/AERO.2005.1559744
.[10]:W. G. Ouchi. (1981). Theory Z, How American Business can Meet the Japanese Challenge. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
.[11]:V. Santos, A. Goldman, & C. De Souza. (2015). Fostering effective inter-team knowledge sharing in agile software development. . Empirical Software Engineering., 20(4), 1006-1051.
.[12]:R. Zhang, X. Liu, X. Shang, C. Cheng, Z. Lu, & Y. Ma. (2013). Quantitative simulation and qualitative analysis of theory X, Y and Z. Paper presented at the Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics (SOLI), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, pp. 215-219. doi:10.1109/SOLI.2013.6611412
.[13]:http://www.altfeldinc.com/pdfs/maslow.pdf
.[14]:https://mercureaace2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/volunteer_3_di_motivationincentives-behavioral-science-part-ii/
.[15]:http://theprojectmgmt4u.blogspot.com/2012/12/motivation-theories.html .[16]http://www.industryweek.com/companies-amp-executives/your-team-aligned. .[17]http://www.idalko.com/display/IW/Separation+of+specifications+and+tasks .[18]https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/groups-teams-and-teamwork-6/factors-influencing-team-performance-54/team-cohesiveness-272-3948/ .[19]https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/commitment-driven-planning .[20]http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-69566-0_28 .[21]https://scholar.google.com/scholar?output=instlink&q=info:82xJOWPfZcgJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,48&as_vis=1&authuser=1&scillfp=10914206937382963954&oi=lle .[22]https://mercureaace2013.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/volunteer_3_di_motivationincentives-behavioral-science-part-ii/ .[23]http://theprojectmgmt4u.blogspot.com/2012/12/motivation-theories.html .[24]http://www.jstor.org/stable/2946096?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents .[25]McGregor, D. (2000). The human side of enterprise. Reflections, 2(1), 6-15. doi:10.1162/152417300569962