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behavior delves deeply into the concept of programming as a social con-
struct and offers advice on dealing with team dysfunction.
Much of the literature on the psychology of software development con-
cludes that most of the social problems inherent in development teams
can be solved by a critical analysis of the dynamics between the people
involved. This sort of introspective analysis (Ahmadi et al. 2008) can be
helpful to explain:
• Why certain people are excluded from group decision making
• Why there is always someone who resists the decisions of project
leadership
• Why certain kinds of people should never be grouped together to
avoid group fragmentation
• Why groups often divide themselves into subgroups
• What is the difference between the real chain of command and the
formal one
Fischer (2005) has discussed the individual and social perspectives that
affect design. Individuals often worry about whether they are interested
enough to be effective during the span of the project. They also worry
about whether they have something relevant to add to the group, and
whether they can express it clearly so that others might understand them.
On the other hand, the group is interested in hearing from a wide variety
of stakeholders. Thus, the group is concerned with encouraging individu-
als to contribute; preventing voices from being lost because there might
be too much information; avoiding illegitimate voices; preventing getting
stuck in groupthink; and eliminating sources of exclusion.
There have been a multitude of studies that discuss the vast amount of
time spent on communication and collaboration with others. Because
software development is an inherently collaborative and distributed pro-
cess, with teams of developers working intra- and inter-organizationally
and globally, it is logical that these teams would require tool sets designed
specifically for the collaborative, distributed nature of their work.
Collaborative Applications
The computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) community has been
studying computer-assisted collaboration for quite some time. CSCW
researchers have developed a number of frameworks that seek to categorize
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