Daniel Russo

Daniel Russo
Aalborg University - Copenhagen · Computer Science

Doctor of Philosophy
Looking for a PhD or Postdoc position in Empirical Software Engineering in Copenhagen? Hit me up!

About

65
Publications
43,926
Reads
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1,146
Citations
Additional affiliations
December 2019 - present
Aalborg University
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
December 2018 - December 2019
University College Cork
Position
  • PostDoc Position
December 2018 - December 2019
University of Limerick
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
November 2015 - October 2018
University of Bologna
Field of study
  • Computer Science & Engineering
September 2012 - July 2014
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Field of study
  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship
September 2009 - October 2011
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Field of study
  • Economics

Publications

Publications (65)
Preprint
Full-text available
As a socio-technical activity, software development involves the close interconnection of people and technology. The integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into this process exemplifies the socio-technical nature of software development. Although LLMs influence the development process, software development remains fundamentally human-centric,...
Preprint
Full-text available
Creativity has always been considered a major differentiator to separate the good from the great, and we believe the importance of creativity for software development will only increase as GenAI becomes embedded in developer tool-chains and working practices. This paper uses the McLuhan tetrad alongside scenarios of how GenAI may disrupt software d...
Article
Full-text available
With the prevalent use of Agile methodologies, organizations are grappling with the challenge of scaling development across numerous teams. This has led to the emergence of diverse scaling strategies, from complex ones such as “SAFe", to more simplified methods e.g., “LeSS", with some organizations devising their unique approaches. While there have...
Article
Full-text available
This paper explores the adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools within the domain of software engineering, focusing on the influencing factors at the individual, technological, and social levels. We applied a convergent mixed-methods approach to offer a comprehensive understanding of AI adoption dynamics. We initially conducted a...
Article
The artifact accompanying the paper “Understanding Developers Well-Being and Productivity: a 2-year Longitudinal Analysis during the COVID-19 Pandemic” provides a comprehensive set of tools, data, and scripts that were utilized in the longitudinal study. Spanning 24 months, from April 2020 to April 2022, the study delves into the shifts in well-bei...
Article
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant and enduring shifts in various aspects of life, including increased flexibility in work arrangements. In a longitudinal study, spanning 24 months with six measurement points from April 2020 to April 2022, we explore changes in well-being, productivity, social contacts, and needs of software engineers du...
Preprint
Full-text available
In the era of Agile methodologies, organizations are exploring strategies to scale development across teams. Various scaling strategies have emerged, from "SAFe" to "LeSS", with some organizations creating their own methods. Despite numerous studies on organizational challenges with these approaches, none have empirically compared their impact on A...
Preprint
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an abrupt shift in the educational landscape, compelling universities to transition from in-person to online instruction. This sudden shift left many university instructors grappling with the intricacies of remote teaching. Now, with the pandemic behind us, we present a retrospective study aimed at understanding a...
Article
Full-text available
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, the daily lives of software engineers were heavily disrupted as they were abruptly forced to work remotely from home. To better understand and contrast typical working days in this new reality with work in pre-pandemic times, we conducted one exploratory (N = 192) and one confir...
Preprint
Full-text available
Team diversity can be seen as a double-edged sword. It brings additional cognitive resources to teams at the risk of increased conflict. Few studies have investigated how different types of diversity impact Agile software teams. This study views diversity through the lens of the categorization-elaboration model (CEM). We investigated how diversity...
Article
Full-text available
Team diversity can be seen as a double-edged sword. It brings additional cognitive resources to teams at the risk of increased conflict. Few studies have investigated how different types of diversity impact software teams. This study views diversity through the lens of the categorization-elaboration model (CEM). We investigated how diversity in gen...
Article
Full-text available
Scrum teams are at the heart of the Scrum framework. Nevertheless, an integrated and systemic theory that can explain what makes some Scrum teams more effective than others is still missing. To address this gap, we performed a seven-year-long mixed-method investigation composed of two main phases. First, we induced a theoretical model from thirteen...
Article
Full-text available
With the COVID-19 pandemic, Scrum teams had to switch abruptly from a traditional working setting into an enforced working from home one. This abrupt switch had an impact on software projects. Thus, it is necessary to understand how potential future disruptive events will impact Agile software teams’ ability to deliver successful projects while wor...
Article
Full-text available
There is considerable anecdotal evidence suggesting that software engineers enjoy engaging in solving puzzles and other cognitive efforts. A tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking is referred to as a person’s ‘need for cognition.’ In this article we study the relationship between software engineers’ personality traits and their need for...
Preprint
Full-text available
Recruiting participants for software engineering research has been a primary concern of the human factors community. This is particularly true for quantitative investigations that require a minimum sample size not to be statistically underpowered. Traditional data collection techniques, such as mailing lists, are highly doubtful due to self-selecti...
Article
Full-text available
Evermann and Rönkkö aim to present an overview of recent advances in PLS, and while some advances are described with several useful recommendations, we argue that their article does not fully deliver on its promise. In this response, we argue that their position presents an unbalanced view, ignores several methodological advances by IS scholars. We...
Article
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The better-than-expected forced working from home (WFH) experiences coupled with investments enabling remote work during the pandemic motivated many employees to continue WFH occasionally, often, or entirely. Many organizations adjust their policies to increase flexibility as reported in numerous news outlets, articles, blogs, and channels dedicate...
Preprint
Full-text available
There is considerable anecdotal evidence suggesting that software engineers enjoy engaging in solving puzzles and other cognitive efforts. A tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking is referred to as a person's 'need for cognition.' In this article we study the relationship between software engineers' personality traits and their need for...
Preprint
Full-text available
COVID-19 has likely been the most disruptive event at a global scale the world experienced since WWII. Our discipline never experienced such a phenomenon, whereby software engineers were forced to abruptly work from home. Nearly every developer started new working habits and organizational routines, while trying to stay mentally healthy and product...
Preprint
Full-text available
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, software engineers' daily life was disrupted and they were abruptly forced into working remotely from home. Across one exploratory and one confirmatory study (N = 482), we tested whether a typical working day is different to pre-pandemic times and whether specific tasks are asso...
Preprint
Full-text available
The number of companies opting for remote working has been increasing over the years, and Agile methodologies, such as Scrum, were adapted to mitigate the challenges caused by the distributed teams. However, the COVID-19 pandemic imposed a fully working from home context, which has never existed before. This paper investigation a two-phased Multi-M...
Article
Full-text available
Organizations are increasingly adopting Agile frameworks for their internal software development. Cost reduction, rapid deployment, requirements and mental model alignment are typical reasons for an Agile transformation. This article presents an in-depth field study of a large-scale Agile transformation in a mission-critical environment, where stak...
Preprint
Full-text available
Scrum teams are the most important drivers to lead an Agile project to its success. Nevertheless, a theory, which is able to explain its dynamics is still missing. Therefore, we performed a seven-year-long investigation where we first induced a theoretical model through thirteen field studies. Based on such a model, we developed a customized and va...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The uptake of artificial intelligence-based applications raises concerns about the fairness and transparency of AI behaviour. Consequently, the Computer Science community calls for the involvement of the general public in the design and evaluation of AI systems. Assessing the fairness of individual predictors is an essential step in the development...
Article
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments worldwide to impose movement restrictions on their citizens. Although critical to reducing the virus’ reproduction rate, these restrictions come with far-reaching social and economic consequences. In this paper, we investigate the impact of these restrictions on an individual level among software enginee...
Article
Full-text available
Software Engineering (SE) researchers are increasingly paying attention to organizational and human factors. Rather than focusing only on variables that can be directly measured, such as lines of code, SE research studies now also consider unobservable variables, such as organizational culture and trust. To measure such latent variables, SE scholar...
Preprint
Full-text available
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, software engineers' daily life was disrupted and abruptly forced into remote working from home. This change deeply impacted typical working routines, affecting both well-being and productivity. Moreover, this pandemic will have long-lasting effects in the software industry, with...
Chapter
Computational Thinking is a competence in computational problem solving. Cooperative Thinking (CooT) is an enhancement of Computational Thinking, supporting team-based computational problem solving. CooT is actually grounded on both Computational Thinking (CT) and Agile Values (AV) competencies, which focus respectively on the individual capability...
Preprint
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments worldwide to impose movement restrictions on their citizens. Although critical to reducing the virus' reproduction rate, these restrictions come with far-reaching social and economic consequences. In this paper, we investigate the impact of these restrictions on an individual level among software enginee...
Article
Full-text available
There is a growing body of gender studies in software engineering to understand diversity and inclusion issues, as diversity is recognized to be a key issue to healthy teams and communities. A second factor often linked to team performance is personality, which has received far more attention. Very few studies, however, have focused on the intersec...
Chapter
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Increasing development complexity in software applications raises major concerns about technical debt management, also in Open Source environments. A strategic management perspective provides organizations with an action map to pursue business’ targets with limited resources. This article presents the Strategic Technical Debt Management Model (STDM...
Chapter
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Tools are of paramount importance in automating software engineering tasks; although the Agile Manifesto prefers “individuals and their interactions over processes and tools”, some agile development activities make no exception and can be automated effectively and successfully. In process frameworks like Scrum or similar ones some activities are in...
Article
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Quality, architecture, and process are considered the keystones of software engineering. ISO defines them in three separate standards. However, their interaction has been scarcely studied, so far. The SQuAP model (Software Quality, Architecture, Process) describes twenty-eight main factors that impact on software quality in banking systems, and eac...
Chapter
Full-text available
Computational Thinking has been introduced as a fundamental skill to acquire, just like basic skills like reading, writing, and numeracy. The reason is that Computational Thinking is one of the most important skills for XXI century citizens, in particular for programmers and scientists at large. Currently, Computer Science teaching practices focus...
Preprint
Full-text available
Quality, architecture, and process are considered the keystones of software engineering. ISO defines them in three separate standards. However, their interaction has been scarcely studied, so far. The SQuAP model (Software Quality, Architecture, Process) describes twenty-eight main factors that impact on software quality in banking systems, and eac...
Chapter
Full-text available
Over the years, organizations acquired disparate software systems, each answering one specific need. Currently, the desirable outcomes of integrating these systems (higher degrees of automation and better system consistency) are often outbalanced by the complexity of mitigating their discrepancies. These problems are magnified in the decentralized...
Article
Full-text available
Information Systems Quality (ISQ) is a critical source of competitive advantages for organizations. In a scenario of increasing competition on digital services, ISQ is a competitive differentiation asset. In this regard, managing, maintaining, and evolving IT infrastructures have become a primary concern of organizations. Thus, a technical perspect...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter explains how a mission critical Knowledge-Based System (KBS) has been designed and implemented within a real case study of a governamental organization. Moreover, the KBS has been developed using a novel agile software development methodology. Due to fast changing operational scenarios and volatile requirements, traditional procedural...
Preprint
Full-text available
Information Systems Quality (ISQ) is a critical source of competitive advantages for organizations. In a scenario of increasing competition on digital services, ISQ is a competitive differentiation asset. In this regard, managing, maintaining, and evolving IT infrastructures has become a primary concern of organizations. Thus, a technical perspecti...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Training computer scientists to address wicked problems means to focus respectively on the individual capability to think in a computational-oriented way (i.e., Computational Thinking), and on the social dimension of coding (i.e., Agile Values). In this study we propose the conceptual model of Cooperative Thinking, a new education construct of team...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Although Agile is a well established software development paradigm, major concerns arise when it comes to contracting issues between a software consumer and a software producer. How to contractualize the Agile production of software, especially for security & mission critical organizations, which typically outsource software projects, has been a ma...
Article
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50 years need to be celebrated, especially for a truly disruptive technology: the World Wide Web. The celebration of 50 years of Turing Awards, held in San Francisco the 23-24 June 2017 was the occasion to remember the most significant achievements of Computer Science and its future challenges. This article draws the main considerations of a young...
Chapter
Full-text available
Even if Agile is a well established software development paradigm, major concerns rise when it comes to contracting issues. How to contractualize the Agile production of software, especially for security and mission critical public organizations, is a major concern. In literature, little has been done, from a foundational point of view regarding th...
Chapter
Full-text available
Complex and ephemeral software requirements, short time-to-market plans and fast changing information technologies have a deep impact on the design of software architectures, especially in Agile/DevOps projects where micro-services are integrated rapidly and incrementally. In this context, the ability to analyze new software requirements and unders...
Article
Full-text available
Antifragility is a rising issue in Software Engineering. Due to pervasiveness of software in a growing number of mission critical applications, traditional resilience and recovery systems may not be sufficient. Software has taken over many functionalities which are of vital interest in today and future world. We relay a lot on software applications...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Un esperimento su base nazionale mette a confronto due metodologie di sviluppo di programmi radicalmente opposte. La scelta influenza significativamente il prodotto degli studenti, favorendo aspetti funzionali nel caso di Scrum e quelli non funzionali nel caso Waterfall. Non traspare un decisivo vantaggio didattico a favore dell'uno o l'altro metod...
Article
Full-text available
The disruptive nature of the antifragile approach for open and complex systems is of greatest importance and needs to be systematized, especially for software systems. In fact, antifragile software design is becoming a research issue in the software engineering community. We got inspired by the Agile Manifesto which set an important reference point...
Article
Full-text available
The Agile paradigm, as intended in the 2001 “Agile Manifesto,” brought a disruptive software development methodology. However, with regard to mission- and security-critical organizations, traditional Agile methodologies are quite ineffective because they do not clearly address issues of (1) quality and (2) security. Within the Italian Army General...
Article
Full-text available
Un esperimento su base nazionale mette a confronto due metodologie di sviluppo di programmi radicalmente opposte. La scelta influenza significativamente il prodotto degli studenti, favorendo aspetti funzionali nel caso di Scrum e quelli non funzionali nel caso Waterfall. Non traspare un decisivo vantaggio didattico a favore dell’uno o l’altro metod...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Context: Empirical investigations regarding using Agile programming methodologies in high schools are scarce in the literature. Objective: This paper evaluates (i) the performance, (ii) the code quality, and (iii) the satisfaction of both students and teachers in using Agile practices in education. Method: this study includes an experiment, adminis...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Software Cloning is the typical example where an interdisciplinary approach may bring additional elements into the community's discussion. In fact, little research has been done in its analysis from an Intellectual Propriety Rights (IPRs) perspective, even if it is a widely studied aspect of software engineering. An interdisciplinary approach is cr...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Even if reverse engineering is a well known and deeply investigated activity in software engineering, little research has been performed from an Intellectual Propriety Rights (IPRs) perspective. In this paper, we analyze some cases of reverse engineering in a IPR perspective; in particular, we survey the behavior of the major European court about r...
Chapter
Full-text available
Even though the use of Open Source Software (OSS) might seem paradoxical in Defense environments, this has been proven to be wrong. The use of OSS does not harm security; on the contrary, it enhances it. Even with some drawbacks, OSS is highly reliable and maintained by a huge software community, thus decreasing implementation costs and increasing...

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