An SNA-BI based system for evaluating virtual teams: A software development project case

Abstract

The dependence of today's collaborative projects on knowledge acquisition and information dissemination emphasizes the importance of minimizing communication breakdowns. However, as organizations are increasingly relying on virtual teams to deliver better and faster results, communication issues come to the forefront of project managers' concerns. This is particularly palpable in software development projects which are increasingly virtual and knowledge-consuming as they require continuous generation and upgrade of shared information and knowledge. In a previous work, we proposed an SNA-BI based system (Covirtsys) that supplements the Analytics modules of the collaborative platform in order to offer a complementary analysis of communication flows through a network perspective. This paper concerns the application of this system on a software development project virtual team and shows how it can bring new insights that could help overcome communication issues among team members.