Improving teamwork in students software projects

Abstract

The software industry and the academia have recognized the importance of teamwork as a driver to succeed in software projects. Therefore, the industry expects that new engineers are able to work in teams. Unfortunately, teamwork is a skill that cannot be transferred in a simple way, and there is not a clear recipe for doing that. This paper proposes the use of particular ThinkLets (a process pattern to address collaboration recurrent problems) to help overcome particular problems that jeopardize teamwork. This proposal has been evaluated through software developments in the academia involving computer science undergraduate students.