The increase in software complexity led to the realisation that individuals cannot develop software in isolation and hence introduced the need for software development groups.
Software development organisations are often geographically distributed. High travel costs and the local availability of skilled technical staff increase the demand for distributed
software development efforts. In some instances it also means that development efforts can continue around the clock due to differences in time zones.
I am currently interested in investigating/researching group behaviour. The main points of interest are listed below:
1. The nature distributed and co-located group work (e.g. communication model, communication network model and information flow).
2. The nature of leadership in distributed groups (e.g. choice of leaders, location of leaders and leader decision making process).
3. The social behaviour of co-located and distributed groups (e.g. generation and adoption of ideas).
I have collected data through an empirical study of these areas and activities within the context of a systems development groups working on developing computer based systems in a multi-national organisation.
The targeted outcomes of this research will be a hypotheses of effective group work strategies.
The main beneficiaries are expected to be practitioners employed in the organisation, research community and students enrolled in the faculty of IT and participating in group work.