Kai Stapel

Kai Stapel, Eric Knauss, Kurt Schneider et al.

Distributed software development is more difficult than co-located software development. One of the main reasons is that communication is more difficult in distributed settings. Defined processes and artifacts help, but cannot cover all information needs. Not communicating important project information, decisions and rationales can result in duplicate or extra work, delays or even project failure. Planning and managing a distributed project from an information flow perspective helps to facilitate available communication channels right from the start - beyond the documents and artifacts which are defined for a given development process. In this paper we propose FLOW Mapping, a systematic approach for planning and managing information flows in distributed projects. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach with a case study in a distributed agile class room project. FLOW Mapping is sufficient to plan communication and to measure conformance to the communication strategy. We also discuss cost and impact of our approach.

Kai Stapel, Kurt Schneider

Information of many kinds is flowing in software projects and organizations. Requirements have to flow from the customer to the developers. Testers need to know the requirements as well. Boundary conditions and design decisions have to be at the right place at the right time. Information flow analysis with FLOW facilitates modeling of mode and route of the flow of information and experience independent of the development methodology. Experience often acts as a control factor, because experienced developers can process and route information more efficiently. Therefore, experience needs to be at the right place at the right time, too. However, most valuable experiences never get documented. Since information and experience is flowing in agile as well as in traditional environments, the FLOW method does not distinguish between agile and traditional, but only between how the flows are shaped. ---- In Softwareprojekten fließen vielerlei Informationen. Anforderungen müssen vom Kunden zu den Entwicklern gelangen. Auch Tester müssen die Anforderungen kennen. Randbedingungen und Entwurfsentscheidungen müssen zur rechten Zeit am rechten Ort sein. Die Informationsflussanalyse mit FLOW ermöglicht es, unabhängig von der Entwicklungsmethode zu modellieren, wie und auf welchem Wege Informationen und Erfahrungen fließen. Erfahrungen spielen dabei oft die Rolle von Steuergrößen, denn erfahrene Mitarbeiter können Informationen kompetenter bearbeiten und weiterleiten. Auch die Erfahrungen müssen in geeigneter Form zur rechten Zeit am rechten Ort sein. Viele Erfahrungen werden aber nie dokumentiert. Da Informationen und Erfahrungen sowohl in agilen als auch in traditionellen Umgebungen fließen müssen, wird in FLOW ein Modell aufgebaut, das nicht nach agil, traditionell oder anderen Bezeichnungen unterscheidet, sondern einzig danach, wie die Flüsse gestaltet sind.