Coping with Cultural Diversity in GSE Environments

High performing teams are composed of members who are committed to team success and to each other [1]. These high-performance teams develop over a period of time and are capable of delivering outstanding performance results. Theirmembers often have complementary problemsolving, technical, and interpersonal skills [1]. These teams have learned how to leverage the strengths of its members and usually have developed very sophisticated styles of communication. Teams that are formed to support global software development are usually brought together to support a specific mission. These global software development teams are usually composed of members that come from several continents, speak several languages, subscribe to different cultural accepted management structures, and may have a different perceptions of the global software development team ultimate mission. In addition, each team member brings to these global software development teams different expectations of acceptable team behaviors, and may be used to different levels of formality in their communication styles.