Workshop 4: Studying Work Practices

in GLOBAL SOFTWARE ENgineering

17 August 2008

ICGSE 08 - Bangalore, India

Organization Committee

Gabriela Avram, Interaction Design Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland

Liam Bannon, Interaction Design Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland

Alexander Boden, University of Siegen, Germany Volker Wulf, University of Siegen / Fraunhofer Institute

for Applied Information Technology, Germany

Background and rationale The field of Global Software Engineering has emerged as a

transdisciplinary research arena bringing together software engineers as well as social scientists and organization theorists involved in examining various aspects of how globally distributed software teams function.

experimental studies on problem-solving in teams interview studies with management referring to problems in

distributed coordination and management, extensive participative field study material on actual workplace

practices -relatively meagre. there is still a dearth of well-designed studies in Software

Engineering and CSCW that provide good examples of field research in the area.

By bringing together researchers who are actively involved in such field studies of distributed software practices the workshop aims at contributing to a broader understanding of GSE.

Goals and objective “Methods are not simply techniques to be chosen and deployed at will, but

are constructed from particular conceptual worldviews, and entail theoretical commitments. Actual use of methods also requires training and a sensitivity to the local situation. These issues are often not adequately dealt with before the researcher enters the field.”

The purpose of this workshop = to bring together researchers in the GSE field who wish to examine the strengths and limitations of empirical research methods

to discuss this topic in a concrete fashion - papers from researchers who are actively engaged in empirical studies of GSE.

collect empirical findings and relate them to the methods applied. Discussion on:

• the strengths and limitations of particular approaches, • the variety of ways in which methods can be used in practice, grounded

in a series of specific GSE case studies. • field studies of actual in situ practices of software engineers

Related workshops

"Beg, Borrow or Steal: Using Multidisciplinary Approaches in Empirical Software Engineering Research", ICSE workshop, June 5, 2000, Limerick , Ireland (2000)

"The Challenges of Collaborative Work in Global Software Development" - collocated with the ECSCW 07 conference, Limerick , Ireland , 25 Sept  2007

"Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)" - collocated with ICSE 2008, 13 May 2008, Leipzig , Germany

Accepted papers Jonas Helming, Maximilian Kogel and Helmut Naughton, TU Munich -

PAUSE: A Project Analyzer for a Unified Software Engineering Environment

Mario Eberlein, TU Dresden - Culture as a Critical Success Factor for Successful Global Project Management in Multi-National IT Service Projects

Jayakanth Srinivasan, Malardalen University, Sweden - Studying Customer-Supplier Relationships in Global Software Development

Allen Milewski(Monmouth University), Felix Kobler(TU Munich), Richard Egan(NJIT), Suling Zhang(Kean University) and Marilyn Tremaine(Rutgers University) - Methodological Diversity in Global Software Engineering

Anders Sigfridsson, Anne Sheehan and Gabriela Avram, University of Limerick, Ireland - Mixing research methods to unveil work practices of dispersed Open Source communities: lessons learned from the PyPy study

Alexander Boden, Bernhard Nett and Volker Wulf, University of Siegen, Germany - Researching into Global Software Development. Experiences and Challenges from an Ethnographic Field Study on Distributed Work Practices

Workshop schedule

Introduction Paper presentations – 30 min slots (20min

for the presentation, 5 for discussion, 5 for Q&A)

Discussion

Ideas for discussion (A.Boden) The initial choice of methods and the general research

approach seems to be very important for the evolution of research projects.

There is a need to learn more about which methods are suitable for which kinds of questions / research interest.

The evolution seems to be an important aspect of consideration and self-critique in the context of researching into GSD.

What are the general shortcomings / benefits of exploratory and evolutionary research designs compared to more statistical approaches with predefined hypothesizes? (I.e., why is it important for the GSD community to take into account this kind of research instead of doing experiments and such?)

More ideas for discussion

Are student groups a good proxy for this kind of studies?

Studying the same topic in different environments gaining access to the field site; access to digital artefacts; particular issues with

source code how to go beyond the one-sided local view? possible methods and tools for disentangling

complex work trajectories and situating artefacts

More ideas for discussion possible methods for a speedy familiarisation with the

context: participation in social events, regular meetings, recruiting informants

possible roles the researcher could adopt dealing with micro-political conflicts in the field dealing with different languages and cultural issues to what extent and in which circumstances is a consulting

role desirable? possible opportunities for engaging in a shared

commitment with the practitioners in order to identify potentials for change and conjoint learning (e.g. concept of "business ethnography").