Improving Collaboration via Automated Intelligent Nudges

Solomon Ubani, Rodney Nielsen

Abstract: Micromanagement is one of the major obstacles of effective collaboration and therefore, pair programming. This is the first research to investigate a computational method that provides intelligent real-time nudges to avoid micromanagement with the aim of improving collaboration. We conducted human experiments using the computational method and statistically evaluated the effect of the method. Our method (implemented as a video chat system) resulted in 24% less micromanagement during pair programming when compared to scenarios without our method.