Organizing for Software Product Development: The Effects of Team Structure, Product Complexity, and Cross-Team Coordination

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Hahn, Jungpil; Zhou, Junjie; Lee, Gwanhoo; Zorin, Vasilii
• 署名单位: National University of Singapore; American University
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.2023.0154
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: organizational architectures; mirroring hypothesis; KNOWLEDGE; Agile; systems; modularity; flexibility; performance; search

摘要

Despite prior studies on managing the development of software products, it remains unclear which organizational structure is effective in delivering software products to market. In this study, we examine two common approaches to forming software development teams: feature teams that are customer-centric and component teams that are focused on systems architecture. Drawing on the mirroring hypothesis, we propose that feature teams and component teams can mirror the problem space and solution space of the software product, respectively. We investigate which team structure is better suited for building software products with different levels of design space complexity and with varying frequencies of cross-team coordination. Our analysis is enabled by computer simulation based on the NK fitness landscapes model. The findings highlight the critical role of achieving structural mirroring between the team and the design space. The results also identify specific conditions under which the mirrored team structure is effective, as well as circumstances where mirroring the problem space outperforms mirroring the solution space. We find that mirroring of the problem (solution) space is mostly constrained by the complexity of the problem (solution) space, whereas mirroring of the problem (solution) space is less (more) sensitive to the complexity of the solution (problem) space. We also find that structural mirroring of the problem (solution) space is substituted by frequent coordination and can be enhanced by setting broad focus and responsibility. Interestingly, component teams derive greater benefits from cross-team coordination and maintaining a broad focus because of their sensitivity to complexity in both the problem space and solution space. By integrating the simulation results, we propose a theoretical framework that explains the impact of mirroring different spaces on software development performance.