Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams

Samer Faraj () and Lee Sproull ()
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Samer Faraj: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Lee Sproull: Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012

Management Science, 2000, vol. 46, issue 12, 1554-1568

Abstract: Like all teams, knowledge teams must acquire and manage critical resources in order to accomplish their work. The most critical resource for knowledge teams is expertise, or specialized skills and knowledge, but the mere presence of expertise on a team is insufficient to produce high-quality work. Expertise must be managed and coordinated in order to leverage its potential. That is, teams must be able to manage their skill and knowledge interdependencies effectively through expertise coordination, which entails knowing where expertise is located, knowing where expertise is needed, and bringing needed expertise to bear. This study investigates the importance of expertise coordination through a cross-sectional investigation of 69 software development teams. The analysis reveals that expertise coordination shows a strong relationship with team performance that remains significant over and above team input characteristics, presence of expertise, and administrative coordination.

Keywords: software development; team performance; team processes; distributed cognition; expertise coordination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (140)

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