The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams

Kevin Crowston; James Howison; Chengetai Masango; U. Yeliz Eseryel

doi:10.1109/TPC.2007.902654

The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams

Kevin Crowston, James Howison, Chengetai Masango, U. Yeliz Eseryel

School of Information Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

37 Scopus citations

Abstract

We examine the role of face-to-face meetings in the context of technology-supported self-organizing distributed (or virtual teams), specifically Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which developers meet face-to-face, and we point out the activities performed in these settings and the benefits obtained. Contrary to conventional wisdom about distributed teams, FLOSS developers generally do not meet face-to-face until the project is well under way. An additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job and speed of interaction for certain kinds of tasks.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	185-203
Number of pages	19
Journal	IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Volume	50
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2007.902654
State	Published - 2007

Keywords

Face-to-face meetings
Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development
Technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams
Virtual teams

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Communication
Industrial relations
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
Linguistics and Language

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10.1109/TPC.2007.902654

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title = "The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams",

abstract = "We examine the role of face-to-face meetings in the context of technology-supported self-organizing distributed (or virtual teams), specifically Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which developers meet face-to-face, and we point out the activities performed in these settings and the benefits obtained. Contrary to conventional wisdom about distributed teams, FLOSS developers generally do not meet face-to-face until the project is well under way. An additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job and speed of interaction for certain kinds of tasks.",

keywords = "Face-to-face meetings, Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development, Technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams, Virtual teams",

author = "Kevin Crowston and James Howison and Chengetai Masango and Eseryel, {U. Yeliz}",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the two anonymous FLOSS developers and reviewers for this TRANSACTIONS for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants 03-41475, 04-14468, and 05-27457.",

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The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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