How to benefit from newbies' domain ignorance in software development projects

Abstract

• Some say that ignorance of the domain of a computer-based system to be built helps in doing some development tasks. • A survey of software development managers determined what development tasks are perceived as helped by domain ignorance. • New hires and immigrants, i.e., newbies, are generally initially ignorant of the domain of their new project. • Mining third-party interviews of newbies determined what tasks were assigned to newbies that had successful immigrations. • It appears that newbies who are assigned tasks perceived as helped by domain ignorance might have successful immigrations. A big problem in a computer-based systems (CBSs) development organization is how to improve the immigration of a newbie (a new hire to the organization or a mover within the organization) into a CBS development project of the organization that is already in progress. The newbie, who is ignorant of the domain of the CBS, must be brought to the same awareness of the domain that the project veterans have (1) without becoming a drain on his or her mentor and (2) while becoming useful to the project as soon as possible. Based on other work that shows that some CBS development activities benefit from the out-of-the-box thinking of a domain ignorant, it is hypothesized that a newbie who starts his or her immigration with CBS development activities requiring or enhanced by domain ignorance has a more successful immigration than a newbie who starts with other activities. The current paper reports a two-part empirical test of the hypothesis. First, a survey was conducted among CBS development managers of varying experience to determine what CBS development activities they thought were helped by domain ignorance. Second, transcripts from fourteen interviews of domain-ignorant immigrants to new CBS development projects at one large company were examined to determine if the activities performed by those with the most successful immigrations were activities that are considered by CBS development managers to be helped by domain ignorance. In the end, there is some modest support for the hypothesis, despite all the opportunities for the data to show a different conclusion because of the existence of many other factors that influence immigration success. Following a discussion of the threats to the validity of the result, the paper concludes with recommendations for tasks to assign to newbies to improve their immigrations, recommendations for project staffing in general, and recommendations for future research.