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Managing Chapter people
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Objectives
1. To describe simple models of human cognition and their relevance for software managers 2. To explain the key issues that determine the success or otherwise of team working 3. To discuss the problems of selecting and retaining technical sta 4. To introduce the people capability maturity model (P-CMM)
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Introduction
Managing people working as individuals and in groups. People in the process People are an organisations most important assets. The tasks of a manager are essentially people oriented. Unless there is some understanding of people, management will be unsuccessful. Software engineering is primarily a cognitive activity. Cognitive limitations eectively limit the software process.
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Management activities
Problem solving- using available people Motivating - people who work on a project Planning - what people are going to do Estimating - how fast people will work Controlling - peoples activities Organising - the way in which people work
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Limits to thinking
People dont all think the same way but everyone is subject to some basic constraints on their thinking due to: 1. Memory organisation 2. Knowledge representation 3. Motivation inuences If we understand these constraints, we can understand how they aect people participating in the software process.
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Limits to thinking
From senses Shortterm memory
Working memory
Longterm memory
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1. Memory organisation
A. Short-term memory.
Fast access, limited capacity. 5-7 locations. Fast decay time. Holds chunks of information where the size of a chunk may vary depending on its familiarity.
B. Working memory.
Larger capacity, longer access time. Relatively fast decay time. Memory area used to integrate information from short-term memory and long-term memory. C. Long-term memory. Slow access, very large capacity. Unreliable retrieval mechanism. Slow but nite decay time - information needs reinforced. Relatively high threshold - work has to be done to get information into long-term memory.
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Information transfer
Problem solving usually requires transfer between short-term memory and working memory. Information may be lost or corrupted during this transfer. Information processing occurs in the transfer from short-term to long-term memory.
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2. Knowledge modelling
A. Semantic knowledge Knowledge of concepts such as the operation of assignment, concept of parameter passing etc. B. Syntactic knowledge Knowledge of details of a representation e.g. an Ada while loop. Semantic knowledge seems to be stored in a structured, representation independent way.
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Knowledge acquisition
Semantic knowledge through experience and active learning the ah factor. Syntactic knowledge acquired by memorisation. New syntactic knowledge can interfere with existing syntactic knowledge. Problems arise for experienced programmers in mixing up syntax of dierent programming languages.
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Semantic knowledge
1. Computing concepts - notion of a writable store, iteration, concept of an object, etc. 2. Task concepts - principally algorithmic - how to tackle a particular task. Software development ability is the ability to integrate new knowledge with existing computer and task knowledge and hence derive creative problem solutions. Thus, problem solving is language independent.
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Problem solving
Requires the integration of dierent types of knowledge (computer, task, domain, organisation). Development of a semantic model of the solution and testing of this model against the problem. Representation of this model in an appropriate notation or programming language.
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Problem solving
Problem
Partial solution
Solution
New knowledge Existing knowledge
Working memory
Longterm memory
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3.Motivation
An important role of a manager is to motivate the people working on a project. Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that there are dierent types of motivation based on: Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.) Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem) Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a group) Example: Human needs hierarchy
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3.Motivation
Selfrealisation needs Esteem needs Social needs Safety needs Physiological needs
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Motivating people
Motivations depend on satisfying needs. It can be assumed that physiological and safety needs are satised. Social, esteem and self-realization needs are most signicant from a managerial viewpoint.
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Need satisfaction
1. Social: means allowing people time to meet their co-workers and providing places fro them to meet. Provide communal facilities. Allow informal communications (e.g. email). 1. Esteem: show people that they are valued by the organisation. Public recognition is a simple yet eective way of doing this. People must feel that they are paid at a level that reects their skills and experience.az 2. Self-realization: give people responsability for their own work. Assign them demanding (not impossible) tasks. Provide a training programme -people want to learn more.
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Personality types
The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-simplication. Motivation should also take into account dierent personality types: A. Task-oriented: The motivation for doing the work is the work itself. B. Self-oriented: The work is a means to an end which is the achievement of individual goals. (e.g. to get rich, to play tennis, to travel etc.) C. Interaction-oriented: The principal motivation is the presence and actions of co-workers. People go to work because they like to go to work.
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Motivation balance
Individual motivations are made up of elements of each class. Balance can change depending on personal circumstances and external events. However, people are not just motivated by personal factors but also by being part of a group and culture. People go to work because they are motivated by the people that they work with.
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Group working
Most software engineering is a group activity. The development schedule for most non-trivial software projects is such that they cannot be completed by one person working alone. Group interaction is a key determinant of group performance. Flexibility in group composition is limited. Managers must do the best they can with available people.
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1. Group composition
Group composed of members who share the same motivation can be problematic: Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own thing. Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss. Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough work. An eective group has a balance all of types. Can be dicult to achieve because most engineers are task-oriented. Need for all members to be involved in decisions which aect the group.
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2. Group leadership
Leadership depends on respect not titular status. There may be both a technical and an administrative leader. Democratic leadership is more eective that autocratic leadership. A career path based on technical competence should be supported.
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3. Group cohesiveness
In a cohesive group, members consider the group to be more important than any individual in it. Advantages of a cohesive group are: Group quality standards can be developed. Group members work closely together so inhibitions caused by ignorance are reduced. Team members learn from each other and get to know each others work. Egoless programming where members strive to improve each others programs can be practised.
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Developing cohesiveness
Cohesiveness is inuenced by factors such as the organisational culture and the personalities in the group. Cohesiveness can be encouraged through: Social events Developing a group identity and territory Explicit team-building activities Openness with information is a simple way of ensuring all group members feel part of the group.
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Group loyalties
Group members tend to be loyal to cohesive groups. Groupthink is preservation of group irrespective of technical or organizational considerations. Management should act positively to avoid groupthink by forcing external involvement with each group.
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4. Group communications
Good communications are essential for eective group working. Information must be exchanged on the status of work, design decisions and changes to previous decisions. Good communications also strengthens group cohesion as it promotes understanding. Status of group members: Higher status members tend to dominate conversations. Personalities in groups: Too many people of the same personality type can be a problem. Sexual composition of group: Mixed-sex groups tend to communicate better. Communication channels: Communications channelled though a central coordinator tend to be ineective.
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Group organisation
Software engineering group sizes should be relatively small (< 8 members). Break big projects down into multiple smaller projects. Small teams may be organised in an informal, democratic way. Chief programmer teams try to make the most eective use of skills and experience.
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Democratic team organisation
The group acts as a whole and comes to a consensus on decisions aecting the system. The group leader serves as the external interface of the group but does not allocate specic work items. Rather, work is discussed by the group as a whole and tasks are allocated according to ability and experience. This approach is successful for groups where all members are experienced and competent.
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Extreme programming groups
Extreme programming groups are variants of democratic organisation. In extreme programming groups, some management decisions are devolved to group members. Programmers work in pairs and take a collective responsibility for code that is developed.
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Chief programmer teams
Consist of a kernel of specialists helped by others added to the project as required. The motivation behind their development is the wide dierence in ability in dierent programmers. Chief programmer teams provide a supporting environment for very able programmers to be responsible for most of the system development. This chief programmer approach, in dierent forms, has undoubtedly been successful. However, it suers from a number of problems.
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Problems
Talented designers and programmers are hard to nd. Without exception people in these roles, the approach will fail. Other group members may resent the chief programmer taking the credit for success so may deliberately undermine his/her role. High project risk as the project will fail if both the chief and deputy programmer are u...