Software Development Team Members Research Articles

Revisiting the Digital Plumber: Modifying the Installation Process of an Established Commercial IoT Alarm System

The ‘digital plumber’ is a conceptualisation in ubicomp research that describes the work of installing and maintaining IoT devices. But an important and often understated element of commercial IoT solutions is their long-term socio-technical infrastructural nature, and therefore long-term installation and maintenance needs. This adds complexity to both the practice of digital plumbing and to the work of design that supports it. In this paper we study a commercial company producing and installing IoT alarm systems. We examine video recordings that capture how a digital plumbing representative and software development team members make changes to both the installation process and supporting technology. Our data enables us to critically reflect on concepts of infrastructuring, and uncover the ways in which the team methodically foreground hidden elements of the infrastructure to address a point of failure experienced during field trials of a new version of their product. The contributions from this paper are twofold. Firstly, our findings build on previous examples of infrastructuring in practice by demonstrating the use of notions of elemental states to support design reasoning through the continual foregrounding and assessment of tensions identified as key factors at the point of failure. Secondly, we build on current notions of digital plumbing work. We argue that additional responsibilities of ‘reporting failure’ and ‘facilitation of change’ are part of the professional digital plumbing role and that commercial teams should support these additional responsibilities through collaborative troubleshooting and design sessions alongside solid communication channels with related stakeholders within the product team.

Critical success factors in Software Development Projects

Irrespective of the software development methodology, projects still fail at any development stage. Some of the factors that may affect project success or failure include process-related factors, such as an unrealistic budget and schedule, or technical-related factors like the methodology. The study aims to determine the influence of the most critical success factors of each category (people, process, and technical) on the overall outcome of software projects in the South African context. This study surveyed members of software development teams from across South African organisations and gathered information about software development project success and factors that contribute to project outcomes. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the study data. According to the results, software development projects need: (1) a committed and motivated team; (2) the client must be involved all the time; (3) specifications/requirements must be clear; (4) leadership must be good; (5) the project’s goals and objectives must be well-defined. The critical success factors are ranked by their strength in relation to success criteria. The study further found that most of the perceived factors are related to non-technical factors. This research contributes to the current software industry debate about critical success factors categories in the South African context.

Perceptions of the human and social factors that influence the productivity of software development teams in Colombia: A statistical analysis

This research aims to know if software engineering professionals consider that social and human factors (SHF) influence the productivity of a work team. A survey-based study was conducted among 112 members of software development teams. Empirical results show professionals agree with the SHF in the context of software development influence in the productivity of work teams. It was identified that the 13 SHFs have a weak or moderate correlation with each other. Additionally, the results of the exploratory factorial analysis suggest categorizing the factors into those associated with the individual, those associated with team interaction, and those related to capabilities and experience. This categorization reduced the number of items in the original questionnaire while preserving the variability explained in the latent variables, which will require a shorter response time. Our results broaden the understanding of the SHFs that influence software development team productivity and open up new research opportunities. Measuring the perception of these factors can be used to identify which SHFs should be prioritized in a strategy to improve productivity. In addition, this knowledge can help software organizations appropriately manage their development teams and propose innovative work approaches that have a positive impact on the success of their projects.

Towards to Transfer the Directives of Communicability to Software Projects: Qualitative Studies

The software artifacts developed in the early stages of the development process describe the proposed solutions for the software. For this reason, these artifacts are commonly used to support communication among members of the development team. Miscommunication through software artifacts occurs because practitioners typically focus on their modeling, without reflecting on how other software development team members interpret them. In this context, we proposed the Directives of Communicability (DCs) to support practitioners analyzing characteristics that affect the artifact’s content on communication via artifact. We conducted preliminary studies in a controlled environment with our proposal. However, we noticed that new studies are necessary to evaluate the DCs concerning practitioners’ perceptions before transferring them to the industry. In this paper, we present two studies performed aiming to transfer the DCs to the software industry. In the first study, we evaluated the practitioners’ perception about the DCs. In the second study, we evaluated the feasibility of the DCs in a software development team. The studies’ results indicated that DCs have the potential to support improvements in artifacts’ content to reduce miscommunication via artifact. To facilitate the use of our proposal in the software industry, we created procedures that support the adoption of the DCs and checklists for the application of each directive in the software artifacts. We noticed positive perceptions of practitioners about the application of DCs in software artifacts. We hope that our contribution support software development teams that use artifacts in your projects.

Mathematical model of software development project team composition optimization with fuzzy initial data

Increasingly frequent changes in demand for products, reducing product life cycles, changes in the business environment during a crisis, the innovative nature of projects, the complexity of forecasting external and internal conditions, the impact of the human factor lead to increased uncertainty and inability to plan team activities with a given degree of accuracy. In this regard, the subject matter of the article is the task of creating an adaptive project team that can work effectively in the mentioned above conditions. This task is especially relevant for the sphere of software development. The sphere is dynamic and characterized by frequent changes in product requirements, technologies, working conditions, and restrictions on project implementation. Agile approaches are used to manage such projects, which can help the team respond to uncertainties and frequent changes. To date, there are many agile approaches to project management, but the issue of selecting team members in such approaches is insufficiently covered. Therefore, this work formalizes the task of deciding on the selection of software development team members, considering the uncertainty and subjectivity of the information that affects the selection of candidates for the team. The task of the work is to create a decision-making model based on the use of the mathematical apparatus of fuzzy sets and methods of operations research. Such a model should allow considering the uncertainty of estimates of project requirements and the level of competence of team candidates. The result is a mathematical model of a two-criterion constrained optimization problem. The first objective function is aimed at finding a team composition that maximizes the maximum competencies of its members. The second criterion is aimed at forming a team with the maximum sum of competencies for all indicators, considering the weight of each indicator. The first constraint assumes that at least one team member meets the competency requirements expressed by a specific indicator. Additionally, it is required that the available time fund of the team members allows the project to be completed on time. It considers the limitation on the salary of the team. Conclusions. Solving the problem in accordance with the proposed mathematical model will allow making a team as readily as possible to meet the existing and new requirements for the project staff. The last circumstance is especially important when implementing a software development projects.

Assessing Effects of Media Affordances and Information Security Awareness on Knowledge-Sharing in Global Software Development

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effects of media affordances and information security awareness on knowledge-sharing behavior among global software development (GSD) team members. Using survey data collected from 214 GSD team members, we identify three organizational media affordances based on prior affordance literature: awareness, searchability, and editability. Positive relationships are found between perceived media affordances and actualized media affordances. Two actualized affordances, awareness and editability, have significant relationships with knowledge-sharing behavior that are moderated by awareness of information security. We further find that occupational culture due to region affects some relationships among media affordances and knowledge-sharing behavior. This study contributes to the affordance literature by identifying the organizational media affordances related to knowledge-sharing behavior and showing that users' awareness of information security moderates the relationships of these media affordances on knowledge-sharing. This study provides managerial insights into how media's technical properties and users' awareness of information security shape members' knowledge-sharing.

An Instrument for Measuring Perception about Social and Human Factors that Influence Software Development Productivity

In terms of productivity in software development, there is specific interest in identifying its influencing factors. For this purpose, several classification approaches have been previously used, which have already recognized technical factors, organizational factors, product factors, project factors, and personal factors. However, these approaches often focus on technical factors over social and human factors (SHFs). Nevertheless, in addition to the obvious technical aspects, the software development process involves problem-solving skills and cognitive aspects and social interaction. In this sense, determining SHFs can lead to software organizations designing strategies for improving team productivity. In this study, we first conducted a preliminary classification of the SHFs identified in the literature. Because this study seeks to assess the factors from the standpoint of software development professionals, we developed and validated an instrument to measure the perception of software development team members about SHFs that may be affecting their productivity. For this purpose, the first four stages of survey-based research were followed: objective definition, survey design, instrument construction, instrument validity, and reliability assessment. The instrument included 79 items assessing 13 different SHFs. After assessing both their validity and reliability, the results demonstrated that the instrument is a valid and reliable tool for measuring SHFs perception among software development team members.

Satisfaction and its correlates in agile software development

In this paper we address the topic of software development team members satisfaction with their development process. We present an in-depth analysis of the results of a nationwide survey about software development in Switzerland. We wanted to find out if satisfaction relates to the applied development method, and to the use of various practices, and impacts on business, team and software issues. We found that higher satisfaction is reported more by those using Agile development than with plan-driven processes. We explored the different perspectives of developers and those with a management role and found a high consistency of satisfaction between Agile developers and Agile management, and differences with those using working plan-driven methods. We found that certain practices and impacts have high correlations to satisfaction, and that collaborative processes are closely related to satisfaction. We then explored the relationship between satisfaction and various other perspectives. Our results in this analysis are principally descriptive, but we think they can be a relevant contribution to understand the challenges for everyone involved in Agile development.

Knowledge management in the software industry:how Scrum activities support a knowledge management cycle

Knowledge is the primary asset of the software industry which increases the complexity of the software development activities. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important practice that offers processes namely KM cycles and addressed to knowledge capture, creation, storage, dissemination, sharing, and use. Thereby, understanding different means to consolidate individual’s knowledge within the software industry is relevant to software development practitioners and researchers. Therefore, this article discusses how Scrum activities support KM cycle to convert the individual’s knowledge into common knowledge within software development teams. Our analysis points out that KM cycle combined with Scrum practices is a potential tool to disseminate individual knowledge across software development team members.

ARSENAL-GSD: A framework for trust estimation in virtual teams based on sentiment analysis

ContextTechnology advances has enabled the emergence of virtual teams. In these teams, people are in different places and possibly over different time zones, making use of computer mediated communication to interact. At the same time distribution brings benefits, it poses challenges as the difficulty to develop trust, which is essential for team efficiency. ObjectiveIn this paper, we present ARSENAL-GSD, an automatic framework for detecting trust among members of global software development teams based on sentiment analysis. MethodsTo design ARSENAL-GSD we made a literature review to identify trust evidences, especially those that could be captured or inferred from the automatic analysis of data generated by members’ interactions in a versioning system. We applied a survey to validate the framework and evidences found. ResultsOn a scale of 0–9, evidences were evaluated as having importance greater or equal to 5.23, and the extraction techniques used to estimate them were considered as good enough. Regarding differences between subjects profile, no difference was found in responses of participants with theoretical knowledge/none and those with medium/high knowledge in GSD, except for the evidence mimicry, which was considered more important for the group of participants with medium/high knowledge in GSD. ConclusionWe concluded that our framework is valid and trust information provided by it could be used to allocate members to a new team and/or, to monitor them during project development.

Review of approaches to manage architectural knowledge in Agile Global Software Development

Nowadays, Agile and Global Software Development (AGSD) has brought benefits and new challenges to the software industry. Among the main challenges is Architecture Knowledge Management (AKM), due to the following reasons: (i) in Agile Software Development team members prefer to convey knowledge in a face-to-face manner, over transmitting it through formal documents; and (ii) an efficient AKM in Global Software Development involves managing explicit knowledge. These opposite paradigms turn AKM into an unsolved issue in AGSD. In this study, the authors present a systematic mapping review about AKM in AGSD. From this review, they identified nine approaches that AGSD companies use to overcome the AKM challenge, which are grouped in three areas: (i) documentation artefact-based, (ii) communication-based, and (iii) methodological-based. Also, they found that the selected papers evenly support the three phases of the integrated knowledge management cycle (creation/capture, sharing/dissemination and acquisition/application), although only 7% of them support the capture of architectural knowledge in a formalised way. Finally, they conclude proposing critical points to consider in the implementation of AKM solutions in AGSD, and presenting their directions of future work.

Software Standards and Software Failures: A Review With the Perspective of Varying Situational Contexts

Software Engineering is a discipline that provides a systematic approach to develop software in a cost-effective manner. Successful software development is challenged by various challenges, such as varying situational contexts, conformity with standards, changing requirements, optimism of schedule, schedule pressure, software complexity, and software invisibility. Varying situational contexts are the changed circumstances that are resulted due to varying situational factors. These situational factors are the root cause of varying situations, which need to be discovered in detail. If these situational factors are left unattended, they can cause software failures. Software standards can help to deal with software failures. In this paper, we have reviewed various software engineering standards from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standard Association. These software engineering standards were investigated for the factors and sub-factors that can lead to varying situations among software development team members. As a result we found 12 factors grouped with 52 sub-factors that can lead to varying situations among software development team members. These resulted factors and sub-factors can act as a source for varying situations among team members. Unattended identified situational factors can lead to software failures. This paper provides a guideline for the practitioners to consider these factors and sub-factors while performing software development in order to have a successful software development.

The effect of software engineers’ personality traits on team climate and performance: A Systematic Literature Review

ContextOver the past 50years numerous studies have investigated the possible effect that software engineers’ personalities may have upon their individual tasks and teamwork. These have led to an improved understanding of that relationship; however, the analysis of personality traits and their impact on the software development process is still an area under investigation and debate. Further, other than personality traits, “team climate” is also another factor that has also been investigated given its relationship with software teams’ performance. ObjectiveThe aim of this paper is to investigate how software professionals’ personality is associated with team climate and team performance. MethodIn this paper we detail a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of the effect of software engineers’ personality traits and team climate on software team performance. ResultsOur main findings include 35 primary studies that have addressed the relationship between personality and team performance without considering team climate. The findings showed that team climate comprises a wide range of factors that fall within the fields of management and behavioral sciences. Most of the studies used undergraduate students as subjects and as surrogates of software professionals. ConclusionsThe findings from this SLR would be beneficial for understanding the personality assessment of software development team members by revealing the traits of personality taxonomy, along with the measurement of the software development team working environment. These measurements would be useful in examining the success and failure possibilities of software projects in development processes. General termsHuman factors, performance.

Software Quality and Development Speed in Global Software Development Teams

The paper draws on information processing theory to propose that national diversity creates barriers to the integration of information among members of global software development teams, negatively impacting software quality and development speed. However, the effect of such relationships was expected to be contingent upon the amount of time that team members had worked together in the past (i.e., previous working ties). Hypotheses were tested in a field study involving 62 global software development teams distributed across Europe and Central and South America. Teams with high levels of previous working ties developed greater quality software at a faster pace. National diversity had a positive effect on software quality in teams with high levels of previous working ties, but a negative effect in teams with low levels of previous working ties. National diversity also had a negative impact on software development speed, but the effect was less pronounced among teams with high levels of previous working ties than on teams low in previous working ties.

Editorial

Editorial

Satisfaction and Motivation

Job satisfaction and motivation are traditional areas of organizational psychology research. Nevertheless, within Software Engineering (SE), these concepts continue to be in the research agenda. These concepts are interrelated between them and with other important management aspects within SE: productivity measurement. In this paper, the job satisfaction and the motivation of software development team members are analyzed using a qualitative exploratory approach. Results are presented under the point of view of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s dual factor theory. Moreover, the factors that participants considered as improvers of their productivity are also analyzed. And also, links between productivity factors and motivation are analyzed. Finally, results points to a high presence of hygienic factors that should be covered if organizations what to improve the job satisfaction of software project team workers.

Proposal of Implicit Coordination Model for Performance Enhancement Using Sprint Zero

Abstract —Scrum model always welcome the new requirements from customer at any stage of software development. This situation creates problem for development team to meet estimated timelines. The Scrum development team is always under heavy workload and stress because of this situation. A high level of coordination among team members is required in order to overcome this work pressure and meet quality demands within estimated time and cost. Scrum model emphasis to coordinate through communication to cope with changing requirements. Scrum development is facing new challenges to meet high quality demands with critical timeline environment. The ability of a team to act intelligently in such situation is gaining key position for the survival and success of an organization. The goal of this paper is to highlight the role of implicit coordination helping the software development team members to act intelligently in time demand environment to achieve common goals. Implicit coordination among team members during sprint zero development can show significant improvement in team performance. This will help to achieve high quality product under heavy workload within estimated time period. A survey is conducted to validate the research i.e., implicit coordination has strong impact for successful implementation of Scrum methodology.

Extending the job design perspective on individual innovation: Exploring the effect of group reflexivity

Extending previous research on group reflexivity as a group level predictor of individual innovation, we examined group reflexivity as a possible moderator of the effect of job control and task complexity on individual innovation. We obtained data on job and group characteristics from 135 members of software development teams; line managers provided ratings on individual innovation. Data were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling. Results lend further support to a positive effect of job design on individual innovation, but no effect was found for group reflexivity. The interplay between job design and group reflexivity reveals a more complex picture. While the positive effect of job control is augmented in the presence of high reflexivity, in contrast, task complexity is negatively associated with innovation in teams with high reflexivity. Results are discussed from a time and cognitive resource perspective. Furthermore, the development of context‐specific models on group reflexivity is proposed.

Goals and Requirements for Supporting Controlled Flexibility in Software Processes

Software processes are dynamic entities that are often changed and evolved by software development team members. Consequently, flexibility is one of the most important features within software processes and related tools. However, in the everyday practice, team members do not wish for total flexibility. They prefer to learn about and follow controlled flexibility advice, that is, previously defined information on which, where, how and by whom they can change software process representations to match real-world situations. In this paper, the authors define a set of goals and requirements for a language and supporting software tool to control the flexibility within software processes. They follow a two-step approach, where 1) process engineers use the language constructs and supporting tool to define controlled flexibility-related information within software process models, and 2) software tem members browse and learn from this information, and perform changes accordingly.

Software development team flexibility antecedents

The ability to respond to changes in the environment during the development of software is crucial in achieving a quality product. Putting the project team together to achieve the ability to react effectively requires an understanding of the nature of flexibility and capabilities that might promote the ability to respond to changing requirements and conditions. Based on dynamic capability theory, we build a model of software quality that is dependent on the flexibility of the team, with the flexibility of the team dependent on reactive and anticipatory capabilities of the team members. A questionnaire administered to 119 software development team members indicates strong linkages from reactive capabilities and mixed results for anticipatory capabilities to team flexibility. Both flexibility components of a comprehensive response and efficient response to changes are critical in achieving quality software. The items comprising the capabilities can serve to guide management in building flexible development teams.