A Decision Support System for Global Team Management: Expert Evaluation

Context: The literature is rich in examples of both successful and failed global software development projects. However, practitioners do not have the time to wade through the many recommendations to work out which ones apply to them. To this end, we developed a prototype Decision Support System (DSS) for Global Teaming (GT), with the goal of making research results available to practitioners. Aims: We want the system we build to be based on the real needs of practitioners: the end users of our system. Therefore the aim of this study is to assess the usefulness and usability of our proof-of-concept in order to create a tool that is actually used by practitioners. Method: Twelve experts in GSD evaluated our system. Each individual participant tested the system and completed a short usability questionnaire. Results: Feedback on the prototype DSS was positive. All experts supported the concept, although many suggested areas that could be improved. Both expert practitioners and researchers participated, providing different perspectives on what we need to do to improve the system. Conclusion: Involving both practitioners (users) and researchers in the evaluation elicited a range of useful feedback, providing useful insights that might not have emerged had we focused on one or the other group. However, even when we implement recommended changes, we still need to persuade practitioner to adopt the new tool.