Investigating Development Team Performance: Research Methods

A central concept in studies of teams is their performance.1 Some studies refer to team performance as the process of conducting teamwork and to team effectiveness as the teamwork’s outcome.2 Some studies also consider learning to be a team-performance indicator. For our purposes, performance is teamwork’s outcome, such as meeting project goals, budget, and schedule; the quality of the software developed; and development effectiveness and efficiency. Our definition of performance also includes team members’ motivation to work together, often measured by job satisfaction.