Evaluating intra-project knowledge growth and its effect on co-located software team output

Abstract

Knowledge of the team members of a co-located software project grows with increasing interaction with the business client. It also grows with the subsequent intra-project knowledge transfer among the team members. The challenge lies in forming a project team in such a manner that it helps the team members to enhance their individual knowledge as well as improve the overall team output during the project execution. In this paper, a quantitative model is formulated to quantify the intra-project knowledge growth and the overall team output in a co-located software project team. The model is developed with the help of a set of focus group studies and previous literature. Six different policies or scenarios are then formulated with the help of the model to assess the impact of team composition on knowledge growth and team output by using case-data from 3 different real-world co-located software teams. The model is validated by comparing the model results with the estimated results in terms of team output. An insight obtained from the model results is that the initial project set up and the team composition act as key inputs towards the increased knowledge growth and improved team output. The team composition should stress upon the initial knowledge level and the knowledge processing ability of the team members. We recommend that the model may act as a decision support system to the software project managers during the initial project set up to improve the knowledge level and to reach the desired team output within the specified time.