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Software Factory 

Software Factory 

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Conference Paper
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Managers recognize that software development project teams need to be developed and guided. Although technical skills are necessary, non-technical (NT) skills are equally, if not more, necessary for project success. Currently, there are no proven tools to measure the NT skills of software developers or software development teams. Behavioral markers...

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... events in surgery. OTAS has been found to be a valid measure of the NT performance of surgical teams [18]. Our goal is to develop and validate a BM system that can improve software professional team member performance by providing feedback in the form of an objective and documented assessment of the NT skills of the team members. We wanted to create a tool that is very usable by practitioners: it requires little or no training to use and does not require unreasonable effort to use. It is a concern of the researcher that if the tool took a lot of training or was too difficult to use, that the potential practitioners, such as project managers and team leads for whom the tool was meant to assist, would not find the tool useful because of the amount of effort required. III. B EHAVIOR M ARKER S YSTEM D EVELOPMENT The development process for our behavioral marker system for software developers is detailed in our previous work [19]. As a first step, we performed a systematic literature review to develop NT skill inventory. The high-level question addressed by the review was: “What are the NT skills required of software Details on the review protocol (sources searched, search execution, inclusion and exclusion criteria, quality assessment, data extraction) can be referred to in a report [20]. The output of this step was an initial list of 35 NT skills that were clustered into four major categories: communication, interpersonal, problem solving, and work ethic (see Fig. 1). The detailed desription of each skill can be referred [20]. During the second step, the initial list of NT skills had their quality assessed and were validated by focus group of experts in industry and academia. Two surveys (and focus groups) were conducted online (using a cross sectional design) to gather NT skill priorities, missing NT skills, description clarifications, and examples of examples of good and poor behaviors for the top rated NT skills of software developers. So that we could prioritize our efforts, focus group ranked the importance of each NT skill to software professionals during the first survey. After the survey analysis, we had a reduced list of 16 skills to focus on. During the second focus group survey, we gather a total of 408 examples of observable actions that indicated good performance and behavior of each NT skill as well as examples of observable actions that indicate poor performance and behavior of each NT skill. These examples were reviewed, clarified, and redundancies were eliminated. The final set of NT skills consisted of: teamwork , initiative/motivation to work , listening , attitude , critical thinking , oral communication , problem solving , attention to detail , flexibility , integrity/honesty/ethics , time management , and questioning . Some behavioral examples, such as “ being a good team player ” and “ body language and persona emitting that you do not enjoy your work ”, were too ambiguous and removed. It was also felt that the “ Leadership ” skill did not have enough observable behaviors that would be able to be clearly identified, so that NT skill was removed. The result of the second survey was a behavior-based software engineer NT skills taxonomy. Fig. 2 shows the resultant examples of good and poor behavior for the “ Listening ” skill. The same process was used to create examples of good and poor behavior for each NT skill. During the third step, the behavior marker systems being used in aviation, health care, rail transport and maritime transport were examined. Each system’s structure was examined to select which elements would have the most potential for use in software development and our final tool was a composition of several systems. The NT skills validated by the focus group along with the good and bad behavior examples for those skills were structured into a BM audit tool for software development. For reference, we refer to the BM audit tool as the Non- Technical Skill Assessment for Software Developers (NTSA). The NTSA is designed to be used by an observer (i.e. manager, team leader, coach) during routine team interactions or meetings. It is intended that each time a behavior is observed, a mark is placed in the appropriate column by placing a tick mark in that column: observed and good, or expected but not observed. Observations can be clarified by placing explanations in the comments section. The observer can see skill definitions and examples of good and poor behavior for a particular behavioral marker by viewing the second page. A manager is allowed to list as many or as few skills as desired in the behavioral marker column. The observer will score the behaviors based on how well the behavior meets the behavioral examples and its definition. IV. E MPIRICAL V ALIDATION OF B EHAVIOR M ARKER In order to evaluate our BM tool, an empirical study rated video clips of student software development teams that were working on industrial strength projects within the Software Factory (as shown in Fig. 3 and explained). The Software Factory is a software development laboratory created by the University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science. All research was performed in Finland due to the requirements of international privacy laws. The University of Helsinki is consistently ranked in the top 100 out of world's 15,000 universities, in part because the university promotes science and research together with European's top research- intensive universities. The master’s degree programs are taught in English in order to support the large number of international students who study at the university. The Software Factory’s primary participants are students, but the businesses provide team members who work with the students, and university faculties oversee the projects, although the faculty involvement is kept to a minimum. Almost all project communication is in English. Faculty involvement consists primarily of project orientation and project intervention if problems cannot be resolved by the students, coach, and customer. The coach is generally an upper level student with Software Factory project experience. University students take on the role of the development team for projects provided by businesses. The customer has company representatives that take on the role of the product owner and represents the interests of the company. Although these representatives are not co-located, they do come by the Software Factory for weekly demos, sometimes for meetings, and are generally available via telephone and email. Researchers are able to observe what happens in the project due to the seven cameras that provide multiple angles of view and four microphones that record activities in the Factory room. In Software Factory projects, the participants take on the core roles of a typical Scrum project. Projects at the Software Factory last for seven to eight weeks; the students work approximately 6 hours per day, 4-5 days per week. This study investigates whether the BM system can be used with consistency by different raters to capture a measurement of the NT skills of software developers, thus facilitating objective feedback to software development teams and individuals. This study used a blocked subject-project study. This type of analysis allows the examination of several factors within the framework of one study. Each of the non-technical skills to be studied can be applied to a set of projects by several subjects and each subject applies each of the non-technical skills under study. In this study, raters evaluated the NT skills of project teams using the NTSA tool. The project teams worked together using state- of-the-art tools, modern processes and best practices to prototype and develop software for real business customers in an environment that emulates industry. Video tapes of the projects were evaluated to rate the student team’s NT skill performance. The details of the study are provided as follows. Independent and dependent variables : The experiment manipulated the following independent variable: a) Behavioral Marker System tool and Example Behaviors: Each non-technical skill has its own set of good and poor behavioral examples that are used by the raters to evaluate team performance of each non-technical skill. The following dependent variable was measured: b) Rater’s Evaluations: The behavioral rating for each non-technical skill by each rater. This measure includes the percent positive for each rater for each non-technical skill. Participating Subjects : The participant subjects (students in the Computer Science master’s degree) were software developers from two different projects. There were two different projects that were evaluated. One project had five team members and the other had seven team members. The students worked together to develop a software solution to a project posed by the business customer. Artifacts : Although the NTSA tool could be used to evaluate the NT skills of both individuals and teams, it was decided to test for team skills first. Because we were primarily interested in how the team member’s NT skills manifested when interacting with others, it was decided that the first clips to be evaluated would be of team meetings, and so standup meetings, impromptu team meetings, and customer demos were targeted. After extracting all of these clips, it was determined that we would focus on standup meetings because of the consistency and quantity of footage. Two raters used the NTSA tool to independently rate each clip. The NTSA was in the form of a spreadsheet on a computer. Experiment Procedure : Study steps as described below: Step 1 – Project Selection : We decided to focus on two projects. We selected one project that had gone well and one that had not gone well (as the first project) in the expectation of producing diverse scorings. Step 2– Video Clip Collection : Video and audio recordings of the entirety of each project were collected. The Software Factory deployed 7 ...

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... Then, the proper allocation of people in a software development project is crucial for success, productivity control, and improvement. As such, technical factors are decisive, but also non-technical skills which are undergoing in an increasing number of studies [1][2][3][4][5]. Non-technical skills, denominated also as people skills, transferable skills, social skills, generic competencies, or as will be referred to here, soft skills, have been tried to defined and characterized without reaching consensus [1]. ...
Chapter
Software development is the result of human endeavor, then the impact of the human factor would support its success. It has been observed that people consistently behave when facing a similar situation, revealing interaction styles. In the interaction styles observation, the use of games that engage the players facilitates behavior analysis beyond self-evaluations. In this study, video games were applied to analyze selected interactive styles expected to be present during software development, that is, a situation that requires persistency, that present ambiguity, or generate frustration. This study aims to present an approximation for the evaluation of the interactive style, and at the same time to understand the video game characteristics suitable for such situations. Results show that the selected video games are an alternative to evaluate persistency and ambiguity, however for frustration different alternatives should be explored.
... It was considered as relevant by around 75% of the respondents (HR=38%). [39], [85], [86], [87]. The dominant measure among them was listening skills. ...
... o In relation to interpersonal skills of a person, the measure concerning attitude of professionals [IC.S. 3.4] was discussed by four studies [39], [84], [85], [87], and this measure was considered as relevant by around 90% of the respondents (HR=58%). Further, a person's state of being prepared to work collaboratively with a group, towards achieving a common goal (team work oriented [IC.S.3.5]) was discussed by three studies [86], [87], [85]. This measure was considered as relevant by around 95% of the respondents (HR=63%). ...
... Around 11% of the respondents indicated extroversion to be HR for characterizing the capability of an agile team member. [86], [87]. The dominant measure among them was creative problem solving. ...
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Context: In the light of the swift and iterative nature of Agile Software Development (ASD) practices, establishing deeper insights into capability measurement within the context of team formation is crucial, as the capability of individuals and teams can affect team performance and productivity. Although a former Systematic Literature Review (SLR) synthesized the state of the art in relation to capability measurement in ASD with a focus on selecting individuals to agile teams, and capabilities related to team performance and success, determining to what degree the SLR's results apply to practice can provide progressive insights to both research and practice. Objective: Our study investigates how agile practitioners perceive the relevance of individual and team level measures for characterizing the capability of an agile team and its members. Furthermore, to scrutinize variations in practitioners' perceptions, our study further analyzes perceptions across stratified demographic groups. Method: We undertook a Web-based survey using a questionnaire built based on the capability measures identified from a previously conducted SLR. Results: Our survey responses (60) indicate that 127 individual and 28 team capability measures were considered as relevant by the majority of practitioners. We also identified seven individual and one team capability measure that have not been previously characterized by our SLR. The surveyed practitioners suggested that an agile team member's responsibility and questioning skills significantly represent the member's capability. Conclusion: Results from our survey align with our SLR's findings. Measures associated with social aspects were observed to be dominant compared to technical and innovative aspects. Our results can support agile practitioners in their team composition decisions.
... However, no studies have looked at explicit connections between agile practices and individual non-technical skills. As we assume technical skills to always be a precondition for a successful software development endeavour, non-technical skills seem to be important in such endeavours as well [5]. Such non-technical individual skills have been stated as especially important in agile practices, since they focus more on individuals than processes [10]. ...
Preprint
Context: Existing knowledge in agile software development suggests that individual competency (e.g. skills) is a critical success factor for agile projects. While assuming that technical skills are important for every kind of software development project, many researchers suggest that non-technical individual skills are especially important in agile software development. Objective: In this paper, we investigate whether non-technical individual skills can predict the use of agile practices. Method: Through creating a set of multiple linear regression models using a total of 113 participants from agile teams in six software development organizations from The Netherlands and Brazil, we analyzed the predictive power of non-technical individual skills in relation to agile practices. Results: The results show that there is surprisingly low power in using non-technical individual skills to predict (i.e. explain variance in) the mature use of agile practices in software development. Conclusions: Therefore, we conclude that looking at non-technical individual skills is not the optimal level of analysis when trying to understand, and explain, the mature use of agile practices in the software development context. We argue that it is more important to focus on the non-technical skills as a team-level capacity instead of assuring that all individuals possess such skills when understanding the use of the agile practices.
... However, no studies have looked at explicit connections between agile practices and individual non-technical skills. As we assume technical skills to always be a precondition for a successful software development endeavour, non-technical skills seem to be important in such endeavours as well [5]. Such non-technical individual skills have been stated as especially important in agile practices, since they focus more on individuals than processes [10]. ...
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Context: Existing knowledge in agile software development suggests that individual competency (e.g. skills) is a critical success factor for agile projects. While assuming that technical skills are important for every kind of software development project, many researchers suggest that non-technical individual skills are especially important in agile software development. Objective: In this paper, we investigate whether non-technical individual skills can predict the use of agile practices. Method: Through creating a set of multiple linear regression models using a total of 113 participants from agile teams in six software development organizations from The Netherlands and Brazil, we analyzed the predictive power of non-technical individual skills in relation to agile practices. Results: The results show that there is surprisingly low power in using non-technical individual skills to predict (i.e. explain variance in) the mature use of agile practices in software development. Conclusions: Therefore, we conclude that looking at non-technical individual skills is not the optimal level of analysis when trying to understand, and explain, the mature use of agile practices in the software development context. We argue that it is more important to focus on the non-technical skills as a team-level capacity instead of assuring that all individuals possess such skills when understanding the use of the agile practices.
... Similarly, humans are more complicated and less predictable due to which high leadership and soft skills are required to manage and control them [14]. According to [15] non-technical skills encapsulates almost all cognitive and social skills of any individual. It is easy to find people with good technical skill than finding the individuals with strong non-technical skills [16]. ...
... The above table15 shows that the cost & budget management is ranked as the top most priority by 33.3% of the experts, scheduled management & human resource management expertise are second most important administrative expertise, both are preferred by 22.2% of organizations & experts in the country.V. CONCLUSION ...
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Good skills and expertise of employees in an organization are the key factors for producing the quality products and completing projects successfully. Keeping the skills and knowledge of employees updated is one of the toughest and challenging tasks of the project management process. In developing countries like Pakistan, this task becomes more challenging due to lack of training and skill building institutes. The factors like changes in technology and increased demand for rapid development are addressed in this paper. Most required expertise and skills are identified. Our team has collected data by filling the questionnaires from IT professionals working on different projects in different organizations of the country. All expertise are divided into two main categories technical expertise or skills and non-technical / soft skills. Then characterized these skills according to the roles of employees. Finally, analysis of the whole data is performed by the statistical software like the SPSS and the Minitab, to find out which are the significant expertise and skills which really affects the performance of software organizations. We also identified what type of skills should employees have according to their role in the organization. The information developed by conducting this study is useful for many stakeholders in the local perspective, including professionals, project managers, and the Pakistan Software Export Board.
... The success of software projects developed in information technology (IT) and information and communication technology (ICT) companies largely depend on the success of the individuals and teams who take part in the software development process (Acuña et al., 2015). Even though the software development process is mainly considered to be a team activity along with the collaboration, coordination and conflicts among the team, the individual performance of the team members also contribute to the success of the project at hand (Balamohan et al., 2015;Bender et al., 2014). Software project managers demand 199 Employers' performance expectations different competencies from graduates when they need to work independently; this is in contrast to when they are expected to work as a team member. ...
... Since software development is mainly considered to be a team activity (Bender et al., 2014), the success of software projects rely on individual competencies as well as effective team work. The team members working on a software project are responsible for interdependent tasks (Acuña et al., 2015) and, in addition to the technical competencies, the personal skills of the team members are key factors that contribute to the collaboration or conflicts within the team, all together affecting the project outcome. ...
... Similarly, Hinchliffe and Jolly (2011) found that employers expect soft skills from their new graduates as soon as they start employment, but that they are willing to wait for one year for the technical skills to develop. In contrast to our findings, Bender et al. (2014) and DuPre and Williams (2011) conclude that employers seek problem solving and analytical skills from new graduates, just as in the study by Nair et al. (2009) who found that employers view the capacity to analyze and solve problems to be an essential attribute of proficiency. Even though the prior literature includes conflicting views on the subject of problem-solving skills of new graduates, we argue that the main factor influencing our findings is that employers do not expect the new graduates to tackle problems as soon as they start working in IT companies; instead, they are expected to spend some time to adapt to their environment, provide support to their colleagues and follow the directions of their team leaders. ...
Article
Purpose In general, software development work environments involve many different tasks and have high demands on efficiency and quality of performance at both individual and team levels, which depend on the competencies of employees. However, the literature does not provide satisfactory evidence as for the characteristics and competencies of individuals. Especially, the employers’ expectations of new graduates have not been investigated in detail for different work environments.This study aims to examine employers’ expectancies regarding technical, personal and educational competencies among IT-graduated employees to provide a comparison between individual and team work settings. Design/methodology/approach A survey approach was used for this purpose and the research model was tested using multiple regression. Findings The results revealed that significant diversity exists in individual and team work settings regarding employers’ expectations for new graduates’ competencies in terms of adapting to new software development methods and approaches, using time effectively and experience gained in undergraduate projects. Originality/value The results of this study will yield insight to computer-related departments in curriculum development by providing a comparison between the varying competencies required in individual and teamwork settings from the employer’s perspective. In the long run, the aim is to meet employers’ demands of the new graduates’ competencies, resulting in better individual and team performances in IT companies, thereby leading to successful software development.
... Esta lista não existe diretamente nos modelos e guias de Engenharia de Software (SWECOM, 2015;SWEBOK, 2014;Ministério da Educação, 2012;IEEE Computer Society and ACM, 2004). Dois trabalhos sobre este tema foram encontrados, ambas são publicações desenvolvidas em um contexto externo, fora do Brasil, assim, as competências não técnicas que são apresentadas pelos autores possivelmente não representam em sua totalidade o perfil dos engenheiros de software brasileiros (Lacher, et al., 2015;Rivera-Ibarra, Rodríguez-Jacobo, & Serrano-Vargas, 2010). ...
... Uma das publicações apresenta uma lista de competências, comportamentos e atitudes que foi extraída e validada com rigor através de uma revisão sistemática (Lacher, et al., 2015). A outra, por sua vez, é um framework obtido por meio de estudos empíricos realizados pelos autores em um período de sete anos. ...
...  Validação das listas em consonância com Lacher et al (Lacher, et al., 2015) para a avaliação comportamental de profissionais de software. ...
Conference Paper
Resumo Non-technical competencies associate knowledge, attitudes and skills in distinct areas such as social, personal and cognitive. These skills are important for the success of any software project. Besides, regarding the development of educational software they are even more fundamental. Such competencies have not been clearly observed in Computer and Engineering graduates, which are primary source of software development professionals. In this sense, this paper explores whether the Software Engineering graduates, who engaged in the Ciência sem Fronteiras exchange program, are developing such skills in other conditions.
... It is, however, relatively less common for these students to be made aware of the everyday realities of business. This creates a 'chasm of preparedness' between the output from academia and the desired input to industry, and has in recent years been a perennial cause for concern [31] [32]. ...
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The agile methodologies have permeated software development-related initiatives of an increasing number of commercial organizations. It is understood that the profitability, sustainability, and reputability of any organization depend intrinsically on customer satisfaction. Therefore, customer concerns should be given a prominent role at the outset of an agile software project. In that regard, this paper proposes a set of conceptual models that form an input to a customer-centered, experience-based, market-oriented, user story engineering process aiming to provide a continual positive customer experience. In doing so, challenges posed by organizational constraints pertaining to economics of the user story engineering process, as well as those by negatives uses, specifically, due to violations of security, are considered. CCS Concepts • Software and its engineering➝Requirements analysis, Agile software development • Human-centered computing➝HCI design and evaluation methods.
... The development process for our behavioral marker system for software developers is detailed in our previous work [19]. As a first step, we performed a systematic literature review to develop NT skill inventory. ...
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Managers recognize that software development teams need to be developed. Although technical skills are necessary, non-technical (NT) skills are equally, if not more, necessary for project success. Currently, there are no proven tools to measure the NT skills of software developers or software development teams. Behavioral markers (observable behaviors that have positive or negative impacts on individual or team performance) are successfully used by airline and medical industries to measure NT skill performance. This research developed and validated a behavior marker system through an empirical study conducted at the Software Factory where users of the behavior marker tool rated video clips of software development teams. The initial results show that the behavior marker tool can be reliably used with minimal training.
... Agile software development is carried out through the collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. Thus, agile teams depend greatly on efficient communication, taking responsibility, initiative, time management, and leadership [5], examples of the above mentioned soft skills. As explained in [6], Scrum development efforts consist of one or more Scrum teams, each made up of three roles: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and the Development Team. ...
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Full-text available
Software development requires professionals with knowledge and experience on many different methodologies, tools, and techniques. However, the so-called soft skills, such as interpersonal skills, teamwork, problem solving and customer orientation to name just a few, are as important as, or even more important than, traditional qualifications and technical skills. Members of scrum teams, particularly the ones performing the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master, are not exempt of having these kind of skills because of the distinctive duties and responsibilities of these roles in a Scrum team. In this paper we report a field study in which we interviewed 25 experienced Scrum practitioners from software companies in Uruguay to know their points of view about what are the soft skills they consider the most valued to have by the Product Owner and the Scrum Master of a Scrum team. As a result, Communication skills, Customer orientation, and Teamwork appear as the most valued soft skills Product Owner should have, while Commitment, Communication skills, Interpersonal skills, Planning skills, and Teamwork are considered the most valued ones for the Scrum Master.