Effective team coordination is essential for the success of global software projects. Boundary spanning is an important team coordination mechanism that has not been inefficiently explored in GSD literature. This paper presents a descriptive case study of how boundary spanner role and boundary spanning activities are adopted to resolve coordination gaps among organizationally distributed development teams. The qualitative data were collected and compared among four types of global software projects. Internal team’s recognition, inter- features technical expertise and task assignment are three common capacities. Task negotiation, conflict resolution, task- related information navigation and boundary object setups are common effective boundary spanning activities. We also identified some differences in coordinating a inter-firm and inner-firm project.

1. !1
On the role of boundary spanners as a team
coordination mechanism in organisationally
distributed projects
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Anh, Nguyen Duc
Daniela S. Cruzes
IDI, NTNU

2. !2
Agenda!
!
❑ Motivation
❑ Research question
❑ Terminology
❑ Research approach
❑ Results
❑ Discussion
❑ Conclusions

3. !3
Motivation
• GSD continues to face many coordination
challenges across global boundaries
• Many coordination approaches are assumed to
work in a homogeneous environment:
Collaborative attitude
Synchronized communication and development tools
Commitment on development practices
Engineering process

4. !4
Motivation
• Research on GSD has little focus on organisational
boundary offshore/onshore: whether development
activities in the same country
insource/ outsource: whether
development activities in the same
company
organisational boundary
geographical, temporal
cultural boundary
Darja et al. 2014, An empirically based terminology and taxonomy for global software engineering

5. !5
Motivation
• Crossing boundary is critical for team coordination
• One mechanism to address these boundary issues is to rely on
boundary spanner* - little explored in SE literature
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!
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Natalia et al. 2005, The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice:
Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems

6. !6
Motivation
• Crossing boundary is critical for team coordination
• One mechanism to address these boundary issues is to rely on
boundary spanner* - little explored in SE literature
!
!
!
!
Natalia et al. 2005, The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice:
Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems

7. !7
Motivation
• Crossing boundary is critical for team coordination
• One mechanism to address these boundary issues is to rely on
boundary spanner* - little explored in SE literature
!
!
!
!
*liaison, knowledge mediators, information broker, bridge engineer,
networker, collaborator
Natalia et al. 2005, The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice:
Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems

8. !8
Research questions
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!
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RQ1. What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute
to effective coordination in distributed software projects?
RQ2. In which way boundary spanners handle
dependencies in distributed software projects?
Organizational
boundary
Coordination
problems
Project outcomes
Boundary
spanners

9. !9
Terminology
• Boundary spanner
• Coordination
• Dependencies
• Organisational boundary
• Distributed software project

10. !10
Study design & analysis
• Exploratory multiple case studies
• Project as a unit of analysis
• Extreme case, typical case & convenience case
• With-in case analysis
• Thematic analysis
• Cross-case analysis
• Cross case comparison

11. !11
Study design & analysis
16
interviews:
project
manager,
technical
leader and
developers
Axial coding
Selective coding
Concept
categorization
Cross case
comparison
Identify organizational
boundary
Identify coordination
challenges
Identify boundary
spanners
Coordination
capability
Coordination
activities
Data collection Data analysis Research purpose

12. !12
Case 1: Offshore insourcing
Context
•Market driven project
•5 years old project
•Search engine system
•150 developers
Interdependency
•Technical dependency
•Temporal dependency
•Process dependency
Coordination infrastructure
•TFS, daily virtual meeting,
teleconferencing, email
•GIT, informal talk, frequent
visit

13. !13
Context 2: Onshore outsourcing
Interdependency
•Technical dependency
!
Coordination mechanism
•TFS, email, telephone
conference, face to face
meeting,
Context
•Outsourcing bespoken
•5 years old project
•Ship management system
•13 developers

14. !14
Case 3: Offshore outsourcing
Interdependency
•Technical dependency
!
Coordination mechanism
•Email, regular meeting, site
visit, bridge engineer
Context
•Outsourcing bespoken
•10 years old project
•MIS system
•13 developers

15. !15
Case 4: Opensourcing
Interdependency
•Technical dependency
!
Coordination mechanism
•TFS, email, telephone
conference, face to face
meeting,
Context
•Outsourcing bespoken
•6 years old project
•Network analyzer tool
•20+ developers
!
Community

16. !16
Result
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?

17. !17
Result
• Internal team recognition
• Multiple area expertise
• Decision making ability
• Work and time flexibility
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?
I believe that the project owner
trust us deeply… They trust so
much that the way of working with
us that let to [Team leader name]
as an assumption part of technical
insight. If [Team Thames] exploded
and disappear the customer will
have problem. I don’t think [Team
Thames] is easy to replace at this
time

18. !18
Result
• Internal team recognition
• Multiple area expertise
• Decision making ability
• Work and time flexibility
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?
One capacity of a bridge engineer is
to be keen on the technology and the
development framework, but also be
fast on learning business domain and
requirement from customers …

19. !19
Result
• Internal team recognition
• Multiple area expertise
• Decision making ability
• Work and time flexibility
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?
When you run the projects and try to
resolve the conflict and
dependencies, that happening up
here at management level. A lot of
project tracking is done up here. For
a big project if this one is late what
consequences to the other team? I
need to involve in all these stuffs

20. !20
Result
• Internal team recognition
• Multiple area expertise
• Decision making ability
• Work and time flexibility
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?
A bridge engineer needs to be ready
for a frequent onsite trips. Last year
I stayed 6 months in the [Team
Baltic]. This year, I have visited them
3 times, but in a shorter trips…

21. !21
Result
What characteristics of boundary spanners contribute to effective
coordination in distributed software projects?

22. !22
Result
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?

23. !23
Result
• Mediating status information
• Mediating task dependency
• Managing global boundaries
• Mediating practice flow
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?
I need to be sure that everyone got
what they needs, nothing more. We
often have indirect contact with
[Team Danube] via customers. We
almost always send email with the
copy to relevant product owners and
vice versa. For some tasks, I am
informed about [Team Danube] from
the customer

24. !24
Result
• Mediating status information
• Mediating task dependency
• Managing global boundaries
• Mediating practice flow
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?
I know nothing about them [Team
Danube, Project River]. Actually I
receive tasks from [the team leader
name, Team Thames, Project River],
he is not exactly a project manager
but more like a project organizer. So
he received the tasks from [Danube
team] and split the tasks for us ...

25. !25
Result
• Mediating status information
• Mediating task dependency
• Managing global boundaries
• Mediating practice flow
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?
One of my tasks is to translate
requirement documents into a
friendly and localized document for
the development team at home ...

26. !26
Result
• Mediating status information
• Mediating task dependency
• Managing global boundaries
• Mediating practice flow
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?
We have a policy that people should
visit [Team Everest] once per year.
… to understand the other site how
they are work. Seating far away you
may ask why they are doing that?
You don’t know how the team
organized….

27. !27
Result
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in
distributed software projects?

28. !28
Discussion
What are common capacities of boundary spanners as a project
coordinator in organizationally distributed software projects?
• Commercial vs. Open source project
• Work and time flexibility
• Small vs. large company
• External team recognition,
• Knowledge of business logic and
technical expertise
• Insourcing vs. Outsourcing
• Ability of team configuration

29. !29
Discussion
In which way boundary spanners handle dependencies in distributed
software projects?
• Commercial vs. Open source
• Comprehending and transferring tasks
• Site visit
• Enforcing practices around
boundary object
• Small vs large company
• Task integration
• Insourcing vs Outsourcing
• Facilite exchanged practices
• Sharing knowledge and expertise

30. !30
Conclusions
• Boundary spanner obtains internal team recognition, multiple
technical expertise and ability of task assignment to be an effective
coordinator
• Boundary spanner does negotiating and navigating task information,
resolving conflicts and setting boundary objects.
• Boundary spanner needs to be supported with other coordination
mechanisms, i.e. standardization, boundary objects.
• Boundary spanner also faces some issues, such as knowledge silos,
role conflicts and stress.
• Boundary spanner’s goals should be recognized and aligned with
organization’s goal

31. !31