Improving Software Team Communication Through Social Interventions in Project Management Tools

Abstract: Productive software engineering teams require effective communication and balanced contributions between team members. However, teams are often ineffective at these skills, which is detrimental to project success. Project-based university courses are an opportunity for students to practise these skills, but we have yet to establish how we can guide students towards improving their communication and coordination. We aim to develop project management tool features, informed by social network analysis, that nudge students in software engineering group projects towards beneficial behaviours. To do this, we will first evaluate the suitability of social network analysis techniques for identifying areas of improvement in teams' communication. Then, we will develop features in a project management tool that aid students in identifying and addressing these areas of improvement, and evaluate them in the context of a software engineering group project.