Effective Software Project Management

Traditional Versus Adaptive Teams

As I discussed earlier, the Traditional projects can work with distributed teams of specialists and junior technical staff. The details will not be repeated. Recall, however, that the junior technical team members work under the direct supervision of the more senior members of the team. It is not necessary for the Traditional team members to be co-located. The requirements specification document and project schedule are their guides.

Ideally, Adaptive projects should have co-located teams of senior technical staff. When that is possible, the team should have its own team “war room.” It is an area that they own for the duration of the project. They work side by side. They share ideas in real time rather than by e-mail or voice mail. The walls of their war room are covered in risks, issues, solution ideas, the updated project schedule, and other relevant information. They hold daily 15-minute team meetings in the war room. This is ideal but not always or often possible. When this is not possible, adjustments have to be made. Real-time meetings are still possible, but now some of the members are conferenced in from remote locations. The walls of the team war room are replaced by e-mails, chat rooms, instant messaging, and shared files of status, problems, risks, and so on. Time zones present a particular challenge. Some team members will be inconvenienced but even that can be rotated around by adjusting meeting times.

Little or no supervision of an ...