International Group Work in Software Engineering Julian M. Bass, J. T. Lalchandani and R. McDermott Collaboration between  Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK  IIIT-Bangalore, India Changing software procurement processes Global software market, characterised by  Offshore development  Outsourcing relationships  Distributed development models Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Global Software Development Pedagogical challenge for software engineering educators Traditional software engineering  Software development in-the-large  Programming plus  Software processes (lifecycle, orchestration)  Software practices (requirements analysis, design, testing)  Team working (collaboration, planning)  Use modern, so called agile, development methods  Iterative and incremental approaches  Focus on delivering value software Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Research Questions How can universities provide opportunities for students to gain first-hand experience of geographically distributed software development projects How can such project experiences be harnessed to improve employability skills in the commercial and global software sector? In short  Learn about geographically distributed teams  Learn skills for commercial practice Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Research Method Classroom-based action research  Iterative process comprising  Problem identification  Planning  Action  Evaluation Open-ended student questionnaire  Returned by 10 out of possible 12 students  One student had no prior experience of group working Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Research Method Action Research Cycle 1  Initial pilot, feasibility study, volunteers  Small selected cohort (Feb 2012 – June 2012) Action Research Cycle 2  Credit bearing pilot, volunteers  Small selected cohort (Feb 2013 – June 2013) Action Research Cycle 3  Credit bearing  Scaled-up to full class (Feb 2014 – June 2014)  Beyond scope of today’s presentation Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Initial Pilot Objectives To enable students to:  Explore software development in an international team  Use social computing (collaboration) software tools to enable communication  Use scrum, an agile software development methodology  Assess the impact of culture on communication between team members 2 groups of 6 students (3 from UK, 3 from India) Groups produced: requirements and design documents, implemented software, testing results, and a project report Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Credit-Bearing Pilot Group project replaced another credit bearing activity Iterations scheduled through semester Team meetings in timetabled class time Intensive training workshop on agile methods  Based on commercial short course offered by RGU Supervisors act as product owners  Defining requirements  Prioritising needs  Monitoring progress Academic support also available Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Findings Students have  Used range of Internet collaboration technologies  Google groups, Skype, Github, Asaana and Whatsapp  Trello, Rabbit svn, Dropbox, Jabbr etc.  Learned need for precise communication  Worked with diverse groups  Welcomed agile software development methods  Welcomed employability opportunities of simulated global team Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Findings Main challenges for students  Communication problems  Time zone differences  Aligning prior experience of different team members  Conflict resolution  Selecting software tools and technologies  Some differences in preferred skill sets Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen

Concluding Remarks Software development increasingly globalised Virtual student teams can provide  Valuable learning about modern practices  Experience of software processes  Exposure to collaboration technologies  Group working under challenging circumstances Future work  Action Research Cycle 3  Roll out to class of ~30 students in UK  Need to balance technical challenge against project realities Julian Bass, RGU, Aberdeen