Abstract
Negotiation is best accomplished in collocated settings, and negotiation in geographically distributed settings is prone to failure with a risk of conflicts. Investigating distributed software development, we were surprised to discover that a software development team, located in different parts of Brazil, was able to negotiate successfully and reach an agreement to change from ticket-oriented processes towards release-oriented processes for bug fixing activities using only chat technology. In this paper, we explore how the chat technology allowed the distributed software team (including both vendor and client team members) to successfully negotiate and reach agreement about adopting and implementing a new collaborative workflow in the governmental IT-project. Our research method is based upon an ethnographically informed empirical study of the software development involved in a Brazilian software company. Thus, the data collected shows that the chat technology provided a platform for the team to engage informally in important discussions across locations. The chat technology allowed participants to navigate both within and across diverse subgroups (collocated client-developers; distributed clientdeveloper, and distributed developers-developers), which supported successful subgroup dynamics avoiding the risk of conflicts emerging from faultlines.
Highlights
Software projects are often done in distributed settings, where clients and the software development team are geographically distributed
The research question we explore in this paper is: How did the geographically distributed software development team successfully negotiate and establish a new workflow structure changing their work arrangement, using primarily group chat technology? To answer that, we performed an ethnographically informed empirical study of the software development involved in a Brazilian software company, and we collected data observing chat groups which had fifty-five negotiation cases
We found that the software developers overcame the risk of faultlines in their negotiations, because of the affordances of chat technology allowed them to navigate across and within the diverse subgroups breaking down the barrier of demographic attributes and organizational belonging
Summary
Software projects are often done in distributed settings, where clients and the software development team are geographically distributed. Despite the geographical distance participants often work in closely-coupled work arrangements (ESBENSEN; BJØRN, 2014; CRAMTON, 2001; JENSEN, 2014), structured by different types of agile methodologies (ESBENSEN; BJØRN, 2014; ŠMITE; MOE; ÅGERFALK, 2010) Such projects depend upon participants ability to navigate, coordinate, and communicate using diverse collaborative technologies (BJØRN et al 2014; BJØRN; HERTZUM, 2006; BODEN et al, 2014; MARK et al, 2002) in which the majority of the interaction is accomplished, i.e., chat group, online forums, video conferences, document repositories, and emails (CHRISTENSEN; BJØRN, 2014; GUO et al, 2009; SEGENREICH, 2008; DABBISH et al, 2005; HERBSLEB et al, 2002). Technology-based negotiation activities have been identified as being prone to failure in geographically distributed settings In this sense, researchers have pointed to working across time zones, culture, and professional language are some of the reasons for the challenges (MARK et al, 2002; OLSON; OLSON, 2000; VALLEY; MOAG; BAZERMAN, 1998). That team implemented a new collaborative work structure using primarily text-based chat group technology
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