Team support for software development

Companies who thought they were manufacturing or service companies are increasingly finding they are software companies as they realize that software is an integral and often critical component of their product(s). Problems in software development with particular emphasis on programming productivity and quality are pervasive. These problems become even more acute in large scale software development which quickly becomes a team activity. Ironically, while the individual work of software engineers is supported by many software tools, the only tools typically available for engineering meetings and teams are paper and pencil. This paper describes research in progress to enable the efficient use of group support software extending the bounds of same-time/same-place support to address issues of software development productivity.