Software development teams: the challenges of meeting global complexity with self assessment and process control

Globalization of the market for products and services produced by software engineering efforts place increasing amounts of pressure on software development teams to deliver high-quality, complex products in a highly competitive, complex environment. Complexity, while a compelling reason for a team, is also a hindrance. Concurrent with the increased complexity of software development and the reduced time to market is the drive for higher quality which is increasingly being measured by process assessments. This paper describes research that is examining indicators of volatility in organizations and the stabilizing mechanisms that organizations have developed to cope with this volatility. The goal of this research is to determine the key challenges facing software development teams and organizational management at different stages of volatility and recommend best practices for each stage.