Enhancing collaboration with IBM's rational Jazztm

Abstract

This paper describes our experience with IBM's Rational Jazztm platform for collaboration and for coordinating software development in the context of a medium sized service research and development project. We discuss the observed advantages of Jazz in systematizing the development process, especially when we are operating with extreme agility and the team is widely distributed around the world. We cover both narrative observations and quantitative measurements of Jazz usage. We demonstrate an objective measure of the value of such a software development management system. And we study the extent to which Jazz interfaces can replace ad hoc communication. While Jazz provides sufficient structure to replace all other communication within a geographically distributed research and development team, we conclude that redundant team communication in the forms of email and telephone meetings is necessary to maintain team motivation. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.