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Knowledge withholding intentions (KWI), defined as the likelihood an individual will give less than full effort on knowledge contribution. If every member withholds knowledge in a software development team, it results in poor project performance. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the factors that influence knowledge withholding intentions. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model based Social Cognitive Theory and extends it with Social Exchange Theory to analyze the antecedents of knowledge withholding intentions from personal cognitions and contextual factors. Furthermore, the contextual influencers are subdivided into dimensions of rational choice, normative conformity, and affective bonding with a comprehensive view. Through a survey of 227 participants who have experience in software development, task interdependence, procedural justice, leader-member exchange, team-member exchange were found to have negative influences on knowledge withholding intentions. On the contrary, knowledge withholding outcome expectations and knowledge withholding self-efficacy were found to have positive influences on knowledge withholding intentions.

We mainly study development velocity in agile teams in this dissertation. The concept of development velocity relates to the classical problem of time estimation in software development and software development planning. Building on previous literature as well as a case study, we explore and theorize the factors that cause ‘velocity flux’, i.e. fluctuations in development velocity through studying the relationship between development velocity and the rate of incoming customer feature requests. The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of what causes velocity flux in agile development, and discusses the implications of the findings for research and practical implications for agile planning. As a result, we propose nine factors that cause velocity flux, and provide some strategies to overcome them in order to make a more effective sprint planning in agile teams.

The focus of this study is based on a web development team working within the confines of a Swedish authority. It has been recognized that web development teams are struggling to cooperate and work in high capacity efficiency, mostly due to the nature of the multifarious tasks at hand and their lack of understanding of each respective roles within the team. In lieu of this major downfall, establishing a mental model faceted way of thinking and working may improve effectiveness, communication and collaboration amongst all members of a functioning team. A shared mental model is developed through four stages of cognitive processes; knowing, learning, understanding and executing. The purpose of this study is to examine and show an example of how shared mental models can be developed in an existing web development team. By analyzing two workshop practices, this study aims to answer the following questions: How can workshop practices “visualizing user stories” as well as facilitating “design studio sessions” be used to establish common understanding within the web development team? How can four stages of cognitive processes (knowing, learning, understanding and executing) for developing shared mental models be understood? Participant observation and interviews are among research methods used. The ‘Shared Mental Model’ by Cannon-Bowers et al. (1993) is the primary theoretical framework used here. The results of this study indicate how workshop practices such as visualizing user stories well as conducting design studio sessions contribute to a common understanding due to increased social interaction among team members. The results also indicate that the web development team has been unable to process and exchange relevant information with each other during the initial stages of learning and development due to the lack of team building activities. This, in return affects further development of the shared mental model in the following steps. / I denna studie undersöks en svensk myndighets webbutvecklingsteam som i dag arbetar med att göra om myndighetens webbsida vilket inkluderar framtagning av nya gränssnitt och funktioner. I många fall har det visat sig att system- och webbutvecklingsteam har problem med att förhandla fram en gemensam förståelse. Dels på grund av de olika roller som ingår i ett team men även på grund av arbetsuppgifternas komplexitet och struktur. Svårigheter med att kommunicera, koordinera och samarbeta effektivt upplevs vara centralt i system- och webbutvecklingsprojekt. Att utveckla en gemensam förståelse tillika delade mentala modeller (hädanefter DMM, eng. Shared Mental Models) för lag- och uppgiftsarbetet kan förenkla kommunikation, koordination och samarbete inom ett team. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att illustrera ett exempel på hur DMM skulle kunna utvecklas inom ett webbutvecklingsteam. Webbutvecklingsteamet studeras och analyseras utifrån fyra steg av kognitiva processer (vetande, lärande, förståelse och verkställande) som demonstrerar hur DMM utvecklas steg för steg. Uppsatsen ämnar därmed att besvara följande frågor: Hur kan workshoppraktikerna ”visualisering av användarresa” och ”designstudio” bidra till etableringen av den gemensamma förståelsen inom myndighetens webbutvecklingsteam? Hur kan webbutvecklingsteamet förstås utifrån de fyra stegen av kognitiva processer; vetande, lärande, förståelse och verkställande om hur DMM utvecklas? Studien rymmer inom ramen för en fallstudie där deltagande observationer och intervjuer har nyttjats som metoder för insamling av empiriskt material. Teorin om DMM av Cannon-Bowers et al. (1993) är studiens primära teoretiska utgångspunkt. Sammanfattningsvis har studien lett fram till att de två workshoppraktikerna – visualisering av användarresa och designstudio – har bidragit till etablering av den gemensamma förståelsen i det stora hela genom social interaktion. Vidare har studiens resultat visat att webbutvecklingsteamet brister i vetandefasen eftersom teamet inte har utbyt relevant information om sig själva genom team building aktiviteter. Detta påverkar sedermera vidareutvecklingen av DMM i nästkommande steg.

Context. In practice, software projects frequently fail in many fields, which causes the huge loss for the human being. Assumption faults are recognized as a main reason for the software project failures. As the world is changing fast, environment assumptions of software can be easily wrong. The daily assumption-related activities show not enough effectiveness and efficiency to deal with assumption faults. For example, no documenting of key assumptions, inappropriate assumption validation, lack of knowledge. In research, there is no empirical research about assumption management practice. Two assumption management frameworks were outlined. They both support the assumption formulation and assumption management. The formal assumption management framework provides an assumption-component mapping function to analyze assumption failures. Objectives. Our goal is figuring out how development team members handle environment assumptions today in practice and how they might handle them better tomorrow. To be specific, I test the applicability of the so far theoretical assumption management frameworks and investigate the assumption type, assumption formulation and assumption management in practical software development Methods. An interview-based survey was implemented with 6 product managers from Chinese software companies. They have rich experiences on assumption management and software development. I used directed content analysis to analyze the qualitative data. The result of the research is intended to be a static validation of the assumption management frameworks. Results. Interviewees consider that the assumption-component mapping function of the formal assumption management framework is useful in making decisions and analyzing the problems. However, using these frameworks takes too much effort. The functions of frameworks are covered by the development team members and the existing tools. Assumptions tend to be discovered when they frequently change and are important to the requirements. The main assumption types are user habit assumptions and quality attribute assumptions, which are both requirement assumptions. The user habit assumptions consist of name, description and value, while the quality attribute assumption formulation is name and value. The major assumption treatment activities are figuring out the value of assumptions, assumption monitoring, assumption validation and handling assumption failures. Assumption failures result in the loss of users and benefits. Assumption failures are always caused by the poor ability and experience of development team members. Conclusion. I create an assumption management model based on my result, and find out the advantages and disadvantages of the formal assumption management framework and semi-formal assumption management framework. The research could help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of assumption management practice. Also. The research can be treated as the starting point to study assumption management practice deeper.

Title: Developing the explosive strength of the lower extremities of the players of the extra league team in volleyball. Subject: Measuring the jump height of twelve players of the extra league team. Objectives: Measure to see if it is possible, by systematically training the explosive strength of the lower extremities, to increase the jump height for volleyball players after a period of three months. Results: To compare the results of each single measurement with the first measurement performed prior to systematic training of the explosive strength of the lower extremities Key words: Development, explosive strenght, lower extremities, player, volleyball, team.

How to make teams Flexible without sacrificing their Efficiency? This is an important question especially in the context of Product Development (PD) organizations, as they operate in a dynamic environment and are highly team-driven. The answer to this question lies in understanding the role of all individual constituents that contribute to building Team Flexibility. One such constituent is teams’ Structure. This research work examines the role of Structural antecedents in building Flexibility into PD teams. This study considers PD Team Flexibility as a means to deal with both change and uncertainty. A conceptual framework of structural practices was developed to reflect this perspective. An ex-post facto survey based research design with Convenient Sampling technique was adopted for this study. Data was collected from 108 PD teams (both public and private sector) about their current structural practices, complexity of product development activity and their performances. The information collected from these teams was analysed to determine the key factors which would result in building Team Flexibility. The analysis of the data resulted in producing five antecedents. The results from the study suggest that, in general, designing structural practices centered on team ‘Participation and Control’ and ‘Time Bound Formalization’ antecedents helps in simultaneously achieving high Flexibility and Efficiency. The result also hints at the possibility of Large teams achieving both Flexibility and Efficiency with the introduction of appropriate practices designed around these antecedents. A caveat to the above claim is that complexity of PD activity would moderate the effectiveness of these antecedents and hence should be borne in mind before implementing them.

Context. Industry is moving from co-located form of development to a distributed development in order to achieve different benefits such as cost reduction, access to skillful labor and around the clock working etc. This transfer requires industry to face different challenges such as communication, coordination and monitoring problems. Risk of project failure can be increased, if industry does not address these problems. This thesis is about providing the solutions of these problems in term of effective roles and responsibilities that may have positive impact on GSD team. Objectives. In this study we have developed framework for suggesting roles and responsibilities for GSD team. This framework consists of problems and casual dependencies between them which are related to team’s ineffectiveness, then suggestions in terms of roles and responsibilities have been presented in order to have an effective team in GSD. This framework, further, has been validated in industry through a survey that determines which are the effective roles and responsibilities in GSD. Methods. We have two research methods in this study 1) systematic literature review and 2) survey. Complete protocol for planning, conducting and reporting the review as well as survey has been described in their respective sections in this thesis. A systematic review is used to develop the framework whereas survey is used for framework validation. We have done static validation of framework. Results. Through SLR, we have identified 30 problems, 33 chains of problems. We have identified 4 different roles and 40 different responsibilities to address these chains of problems. During the validation of the framework, we have validated the links between suggested roles and responsibilities and chains of problems. Addition to this, through survey, we have identified 20 suggestions that represents strong positive impact on chains of problems in GSD in relation to team’s effectiveness. Conclusions. We conclude that implementation of effective roles and responsibilities in GSD team to avoid different problems require considerable attention from researchers and practitioners which can guarantee team’s effectiveness. Implementation of proper roles and responsibilities has been mentioned as one of the successful strategies for increasing team’s effectiveness in the literature, but which particular roles and responsibilities should be implemented still need to be addressed. We also conclude that there must be basic responsibilities associated with any particular role. Moreover, we conclude that there is a need for further development and empirical validation of different frameworks for suggesting roles and responsibilities in full scale industry trials.

I en allt mer digitaliserad värld där systemutveckling sker i snabbare iterationer, uppstår ökade behov som behöver mötas av IT-konsultbolag i systemutvecklingsprojekt. Agila systemutvecklingsmetoder uppstod vid behov av lättrörliga systemutvecklingsmetoder. En av de mest tillämpade metoderna är Scrum, som är anpassad för små, samlokaliserade projekt. Den agila utvecklingsmetoden Scrum är en erkänd metodik inom systemutveckling som möjliggör noggrann utvärdering, testning och iteration inom utvecklingsprojekt. Populariteten av Scrum-metoden har ökat och det har medfört att organisationer med olika typer av strukturer blivit intresserade av att tillämpa Scrum-metoden på nationell och internationell nivå, vilket utmanar Scrum-metodens gränser och teorier. Meningen med Scrum-metoden var ursprungligen att effektivisera systemutvecklingsprojekt på lokal nivå. Distribueringen av Scrum-metoden utmanar därför gränserna och påverkar Scrum-metodens projekteffektivitet.   Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats i Informatik är att identifiera, beskriva och förklara förhållanden i en nationellt distribuerad Scrum-process som påverkar den inre projekteffektiviteten. Fallstudiemetoden brukades för denna uppsats, vilken har baserats på ett observationstillfälle hos fallföretaget samt intervjuer med fyra olika rollinnehavare inom fallföretaget. De viktigaste slutsatserna från denna uppsats visar att det finns ett antal förhållanden som påverkar det nationellt distribuerade teamets projekteffektivitet. Valet av releasecykelns struktur påverkar den inre projekteffektiviten, liksom valet av ett mer linjärt team. Fokus på specialkompetens och isolering gentemot kommunikation och samarbete kan påverka hur ett nationellt distribuerat team arbetar över kontorsgränserna. Det visar sig att förhållandena som uppstår ursprungligen har sin grund i hur teamets medlemmar enskilt uppfattar situationerna och att ett team med delade åsikter kan skapa liknande situationer. Slutligen kan synkroniseringen mellan det nationellt distribuerade teamets kontor ha en påverkan på förhållandena.

To seize and make use of knowledge in organizations is important for their competitiveness, amongst other things. To do this is, however, not entirely straightforward and therefore the use of so called knowledge management systems is common. There are different kinds of systems for managing knowledge, for example systems that are known as traditional knowledge management systems. However, a number of difficulties and problems with the traditional knowledge management systems has led to the usage of other systems, for example wikis, for knowledge management. We have, in this thesis, studied the role of a wiki as a knowledge management system in a distributed software development team. We have also studied how a wiki can relate to a traditional knowledge management system. A case study was conducted and five software developers were interviewed. The study showed that the usage of wikis can be versatile and that there are both similarities and differences to traditional knowledge management systems, both regarding the use and the content. The study also showed that wikis and traditional knowledge management systems can be used combined. The conclusions of the study shows that both wikis and traditional knowledge management systems can support and facilitate the management and dispersion of knowledge in organizations. / Att kunna ta vara på kunskap som finns inom organisationer och omsätta denna är viktigt bland annat för organisationers konkurrenskraft. Att göra detta är dock inte helt enkelt och därför tar man ofta hjälp av så kallade kunskapshanteringssystem. Det finns olika typer av system för att hantera kunskap, exempelvis de som benämns som traditionella kunskapshanteringssystem. Ett antal svårigheter och problem med dessa system har lett till att man börjat använda andra system för kunskaphantering, exempelvis wikis. I denna uppsats har vi undersökt en wikis roll som kunskapshanteringssystem inom ett distribuerat mjukvaruutvecklingsteam. Vi har även undersökt hur wikis förhåller sig till traditionella kunskapshanteringssystem. För att undersöka detta genomfördes en fallstudie där fem mjukvaruutvecklare intervjuades. Studien visade att användningen av wikis kan vara mångsidig och att det finns både likheter och skillnader med traditionella kunskapshanteringssystem, både gällande användningen och dess innehåll. Det visade sig också att wikis och traditionella kunskapshanteringssystem kan användas samverkande. Slutsatserna visar att både wikis och traditionella kunskapshanteringssystem kan vara ett stöd och underlätta hanteringen och spridningen av kunskap i organisationer.