The Influence of Teamwork Quality on Software Team Performance

Traditionally, software quality is thought to depend on sound software engineering and development methodologies such as structured programming and agile development. However, high quality software depends just as much on high quality collaboration within the team. Since the success rate of software development projects is low (Wateridge, 1995; The Standish Group, 2009), it is important to understand which characteristics of interactions within software development teams significantly influence performance. Hoegl and Gemuenden (2001) reported empirical evidence for the relation between teamwork quality and software quality, using a six-factor teamwork quality (TWQ) model. This article extends the work of Hoegl and Gemuenden (2001) with the aim of finding additional factors that may influence software team performance. We introduce three new TWQ factors: trust, value sharing, and coordination of expertise. The relationship between TWQ and team performance and the improvement of the model are tested using data from 252 team members and stakeholders. Results show that teamwork quality is significantly related to team performance, as rated by both team members and stakeholders: TWQ explains 81% of the variance of team performance as rated by team members and 61% as rated by stakeholders. This study shows that trust, shared values, and coordination of expertise are important factors for team leaders to consider in order to achieve high quality software team work.