Presenting the Lero GSD research to Peri Loucopoulos

In an effort to get an outsider expert's view on the different GSD projects going on within Lero, Brian Fitzgerald, the GSD research area leader invited prof. Peri Loucopoulos from Loughborough University.


The different research strands within the GSD prepared presentations of their work. We were lucky to give ours this morning, in the second slot. We got 90 min, and we squeezed in 5 presentations which were supposed to take 10 min each:

• Overview (Liam)
• Mapping the GSD domain (Anne)
• Learning in the context of OS sprints (Anne)
• Defect reports as communication and articulation mechanisms (Daniel)
• Collaborative work practices in GSD (Gabriela)

We used a lot more time - because I was the last before Liam had to conclude, and there were only 15 min left for Q&A and discussions.

The comments of our guest (and of the audience as well) were encouraging and appreciative of our work. We might have been taken for the ugly duckling for a while, but I have the feeling we're slowly evolving into the beautiful swan we were meant to be ;)

Brian Nicholson's visit

For the last two days, we had Brian Nicholson from Manchester Business School as guest. We all knew Brian Nicholson as one of the outstanding names in the GSD field and author of the well-known Global IT Outsourcing book. But it was captivating to meet him in person and to have the chance to discuss our work with him! During the first part of Wednesday, we invited Brian to the Interaction Design Centre and spoke to him about the GSD research going on within Lero.

As the new Living Bridge was just opened the week before and we had a mild autumn day, we invited Brian for a walk over the bridge. The picture was taken in front of the Health Sciences building on the Clare side of the campus!

In the afternoon, Brian visited Lero and gave a talk titled "Embedded Knowledge and Offshore Software Development".
A recording of the talk is available here, thanks to Gerard Mulligan and the technical team at Lero.

This morning we had the chance to discuss our work with Brian in more detail. The interest he showed in our studies was for us a sign that we're on the right track, and the suggestions he made helped us to see new opportunities and new directions.