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Managing the social aspects of software development ecosystems: An industrial case study on personality
Abstract
The social aspects of software development encompass concerns such as motivating practitioners, building effective teams, and developing personal relations. Not surprisingly, perhaps, many software projects fail due to personality conflicts within team members. This study investigates the personality traits of 132 software practitioners by employing a tailored interactive assessment that was specifically developed for software development organizations. To assess the personality characteristics of the software teams as a whole, the results of 20 project teams were visualized by using personality–team radar charts. The validity part of the study was performed through validation interviews with experts from the field, discussing their experiences using the interactive assessment. The findings of this investigation complement those of earlier studies that suggest that productive team members who were working on social isolation showed higher introversion. In particular, this study strengthens the idea that agreeableness was observed in agile teams. Ultimately, the present data also highlight the existence of conscientiousness personalities in agile software development.
... Pirzadeh [45] descreve que fatores humanos podem ser na engenharia de software pode ser definidos em três categorias: (i) fatores individuais: relacionados às características humanas dos membros da equipe, como a personalidade; (ii) fatores interpessoais: relacionados aos fatores humanos entre os indivíduos que afetam ou são afetados pelo processo de engenharia ou desenvolvimento de software, como cooperação, aprendizagem em grupo e trabalho em equipe; e (iii) fatores organizacionais: relacionados a questões da empresa, como a tomada de decisões. Os fatores sociais abrangem preocupações com a relação entre os indivíduos (personalidade, motivação, emoções, comunicação, gênero, cultura e distribuição geográfica) [2,22,46]. Todos esses fatores são importantes para reconhecer os traços de personalidade dos profissionais que atuam durante os processos da engenharia de software [2,23]. ...
... Os fatores sociais abrangem preocupações com a relação entre os indivíduos (personalidade, motivação, emoções, comunicação, gênero, cultura e distribuição geográfica) [2,22,46]. Todos esses fatores são importantes para reconhecer os traços de personalidade dos profissionais que atuam durante os processos da engenharia de software [2,23]. ...
In software ecosystems (SECO), requirements engineering (RE) activities and process require the collaboration of several stakeholders such as requirements engineers, users, third-party developers, collaborators etc. Therefore, it is a highly human-dependent process. Identifying how human and social factors can influence RE-related activities and process would improve RE in SECO. In this context, this study aims to identify which human and social factors influence RE activities in SECO. To do, we conducted a rapid review, supplemented with the snowballing technique to retrieve published studies. A total of 673 studies were returned, of which 12 were included and analyzed from three research questions that provided us with an understanding of the human and social factors of RE in SECO. The results indicate that decision making, multiple actors , geographic distance/time, and negotiation skills are important human and social factors when involved in RE activities in SECO. Finally, the results of this study can help practitioners and researchers define mechanisms to enhance the positive and decrease the negative influence of these factors.
... Despite their importance, relatively few studies [e.g. [7][8][9][10][11][12] have investigated the significance of human factors in software engineering. The focus of these studies was mainly on just exploring the impact of team members' personalities on different aspects of software engineering e.g. ...
... Personality is one of the most important human factors and, therefore, greatly influences the team's performance [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. According to Pervin, personality can be defined as a person's enduring, idiosyncratic, and distinctive attributes that make a person different from others [14]. ...
Software industry is increasingly focusing on the improvement of software quality and team performance to survive in a competitive and rapidly growing environment. Previous studies reveal the importance of social and human factors in software engineering. Despite the importance of these personality factors, only a handful of empirical studies have quantitatively evaluated the impact of personality traits on software quality and effectiveness of software engineering teams. This study quantifies the abstract notion of trait-wise team homogeneity based on the Five-Factor Model (FFM). Additionally, this study also aims to measure its impact on team productivity and software quality. Trait-wise team homogeneity measures the Team Homogeneity Index (THI) for each of the five personality traits of FFM. Therefore, five new metrics i.e. Openness THI (O-THI), Conscientiousness THI (C-THI), Extraversion THI (E-THI), Agreeableness THI (A-THI), and Neuroticism THI (N-THI) are proposed. The utility of these five metrics is evaluated by conducting experiments in academic and industrial environments for three different phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) i.e. analysis and design, implementation, and testing. During the analysis and design phase, it was observed that teams (composed of either students or professionals) with greater values of C-THI and A-THI produced better quality design models and teams with greater values of C-THI were more productive. In the implementation phase, teams with higher values of O-THI, C-THI, and E-THI were noticeably more productive and produced better quality code. For the testing phase, teams with greater values of C-THI and A-THI produced better quality test cases and were more productive. Results obtained so far indicate that the newly proposed five metrics – O-THI, C-THI, E-THI, A-THI, and N-THI – appear to have the potential to aid managers and academics alike in building productive teams which can produce better quality software.
... Existing studies of software development and personality have either studied broad populations [19], examined particular application areas such as software testing [33], or looked at cultural differences [4,5], yet few studies explicitly examine personality traits for game developers, though some examine personality traits of players [44,46]. We aim to extend the existing body of knowledge for personality in software development by exploring the personality traits of workers in the games development industry. ...
... Extraversion was also relatively low. Meanwhile, in a Turkish sample, Extraversion was very low while Conscientiousness was high [4]. Cross-cultural factors may therefore influence personality in software development. ...
... Existing studies of software development and personality have either studied broad populations [19], examined particular application areas such as software testing [33], or looked at cultural differences [4,5], yet few studies explicitly examine personality traits for game developers, though some examine personality traits of players [44,46]. We aim to extend the existing body of knowledge for personality in software development by exploring the personality traits of workers in the games development industry. ...
... Extraversion was also relatively low. Meanwhile, in a Turkish sample, Extraversion was very low while Conscientiousness was high [4]. Cross-cultural factors may therefore influence personality in software development. ...
Existing work on personality traits in software development excludes game developers as a discrete group. Whilst games are software, game development has unique considerations, so game developers may exhibit different personality traits from other software professionals. We assessed responses from 123 game developers on an International Personality Item Pool Five Factor Model scale and demographic questionnaire using factor analysis. Programmers reported lower Extraversion than designers, artists and production team members; lower Openness than designers and production, and reported higher Neuroticism than production -- potentially linked to burnout and crunch time. Compared to published norms of software developers, game developers reported lower Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness, but higher Neuroticism. These personality differences have many practical implications: differences in Extraversion among roles may precipitate communication breakdowns; differences in Openness may induce conflict between programmers and designers. Understanding the relationship between personality traits and roles can help recruiters steer new employees into appropriate roles, and help managers apply appropriate stress management techniques. To realise these benefits, individuals must be distinguished from roles: just because an individual occupies a role does not mean they possess personality traits associated with that role.
... From this moment on, the execution of backlog activities begins with the team members, who have the autonomy to select the activity they will perform (Akarsu & Yilmaz, 2020). If the team member does not have the necessary competency to take the next activity (Barke & Prechelt, 2019), or if the activity is highly critical (Erdogan et al., 2018;Espinosa-Curiel et al., 2018), it is suggested that such an activity should be performed in collaboration with another more senior member in order to provide quality delivery and allow transfer of knowledge between team members (Luong et al., 2021). ...
The management of activities in an agile environment takes place in iterative and incremental processes, in which people from the development team and other project stakeholders effectively work together to understand a given problem, in addition to keeping priority to activities with the greatest business value for the client. This article aims to understand the competencies of an agile team for managing activities in an agile environment. The systematic literature review was performed by using the Web of Science and Scopus databases, in which 1035 articles were found after the application of filters and criteria for inclusion and exclusion. Next, 320 articles were left for full and in-depth reading, which resulted in 126 articles considered to be valid for research. The articles were categorized by using Excel spreadsheets in order to group the findings and allow the comparison of categories. The results demonstrated four categories regarding (1) competencies, (2) tools, (3) relationship with the activity, and (4) characteristics of the development team. It was also highlighted that the technical competencies of the development team must be used in new tools. As for iterations, it is also necessary to promote a process of managing interpersonal competencies to ensure engagement and the ability to communicate effectively with business people and project members. A model is presented that can be used as a tool to support the planning of activities in an agile environment. The development team must have competencies for using new tools during iteration, given the complexity existing in each activity and the critical relationship of each activity with the finalization phase of the iteration.
Context: Although software development is a human activity, Software Engineering (SE) research has focused mostly on processes and tools, making human factors underrepresented. This kind of research may be improved using knowledge from human-focused disciplines. An example of missed opportunities is how SE employs psychometric instruments. Objective: Provide an overview of psychometric instruments in SE research regarding personality and provide recommendations on when adopting them. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping to build a catalog of instruments used within SE for assessing personality and reviewed their use from a multidisciplinary perspective of SE and social science. Results: We contribute with an update of a secondary study covering fifty years of research (1970 to 2020). We observed remaining discrepancies between one of the most adopted instruments (MBTI) and existing recommendations in the literature. We also emphasize that several instruments refer to the Five-Factor Model, and specific advice on how to apply this model within the SE domain is still missing. Conclusion: The findings show that the adoption of psychometric instruments regarding personality in SE needs to be improved, ideally with the support of social sciences researchers. We believe that the review presented in this study can help to understand limitations and evolve in this direction.
The term “case study” is not used consistently when describing studies and, most importantly, is not used according to the established definitions. Given the misuse of the term “case study”, we critically analyse articles that cite case study guidelines and report case studies. We find that only about 50% of the studies labelled “case study” are correctly labelled, and about 40% of studies labelled “case study” are actually better understood as “small–scale evaluations”. Based on our experiences conducting the analysis, we formulate support for ensuring and assuring the correct labelling of case studies. We develop a checklist and a self–assessment scheme. The checklist is intended to complement existing definitions and to encourage researchers to use the term “case study” correctly. The self–assessment scheme is intended to help the researcher identify when their empirical study is a “small-scale evaluation” and, again, encourages researchers to label their studies correctly. Finally, we develop and evaluate a smell indicator to automatically suggest when a reported case study may not actually be a case study. These three instruments have been developed to help ensure and assure that only those studies that are actually case studies are labelled as “case study”.
Background
Assessing a software engineer’s ability to solve algorithmic programming tasks has been an essential part of technical interviews at some of the most successful technology companies for several years now. We do not know to what extent individual characteristics, such as personality or programming experience, predict the performance in such tasks. Decision makers’ unawareness of possible predictor variables has the potential to bias hiring decisions which can result in expensive false negatives as well as in the unintended exclusion of software engineers with actually desirable characteristics.
Methods
We conducted an exploratory quantitative study with 32 software engineering students to develop an empirical theory on which individual characteristics predict the performance in solving coding challenges. We developed our theory based on an established taxonomy framework by Gregor (2006).
Results
Our findings show that the better coding challenge solvers also have better exam grades and more programming experience. Furthermore, conscientious as well as sad software engineers performed worse in our study. We make the theory available in this paper for empirical testing.
Discussion
The theory raises awareness to the influence of individual characteristics on the outcome of technical interviews. Should the theory find empirical support in future studies, hiring costs could be reduced by selecting appropriate criteria for preselecting candidates for on-site interviews and potential bias in hiring decisions could be reduced by taking suitable measures.
Refined recommendations on intensive regimens for differential substitution of basal and prandial insulin.
Review of the role of new insulin analogs, biosimilars and devices for insulin therapy in pediatric diabetology are included.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The Agile Manifesto is a philosophical touchpoint for all agile software development (ASD) methods. We examine the manifesto and certain agile methods in an effort to identify the major impacts of ASD. We have encountered some difficulty in delineating agile and non-agile software processes, which is partially the result of terminological confusion. It is clear from the volume of published research that ASD has made a significant contribution, and we have identified two lasting impacts: a reduction in iteration durations and a push for reduced levels of documentation. We find that the contemporary use of tooling to automate processes may not be wholly congruent with the manifesto and that many organisations may still rely on business contracts despite calls in the manifesto for greater levels of informal customer collaboration.
Context: Research has shown that a significant number of software projects fail due to social issues such as team or personality conflicts. However, only a limited number of empirical studies have been undertaken to understand the impact of individuals' personalities on software team configurations. These studies suffer from an important limitation as they lack a systematic and rigorous method to relate personality traits of software practitioners and software team structures. Objective: Based on an interactive personality profiling approach, the goal of this study is to reveal the personality traits of software practitioners with an aim to explore effective software team structures. Method: To explore the importance of individuals' personalities on software teams, we employed a two-step empirical approach. Firstly, to assess the personality traits of software practitioners, we developed a context-specific survey instrument, which was conducted on 216 participants from a middle-sized software company. Secondly, we propose a novel team personality illustration method to visualize team structures. Results: Study results indicated that effective team structures support teams with higher emotional stability, agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness personality traits. Conclusion: Furthermore, empirical results of the current study show that extroversion trait was more predominant than previously suggested in the literature, which was especially more observable among agile software development teams.
ocial aspects of software development are gaining increasing attention among the research community. Recently, a number of researchers have conducted studies to explore the social structure of software development activities that may potentially affect the health of a software project. Games are special kind of social activities, which can easily highlight the social interactions or engagements that lead to a variety of measurable societal outcomes. Over the last decade, due to the digital era, social games have reshaped the methods of communication by the help of a variety of social media tools. These implicit social activities have gained popularity also among software development teams who have started to redefine the notion of games in non- gamming contexts. Consequently, the term gamification (i.e. the use of game elements in non-gaming practices) becomes an emerging subject for improving the software development processes. Not only has it a great potential to align individuals’ motivations with software development tasks, but is also helpful to address a variety of information technology related issues.
Thus, we conducted the first gamification workshop at the 22th EuroAsiaSPI Conference, which was held in Ankara University, Turkey on September 30, 2015. This activity brought the opportunity for participants to exchange information by discussing potential usage of game elements in software business context. This special issue of Journal of Universal Computer Science includes selected papers from this workshop event which were extended with additional details to include original, pertinent and relevant contributions to cover gamification practices for related approaches, in particular, the use of game elements in software process improvement and software development.
Here, we summarize the main themes of the papers that have been selected for inclusion in this Special Issue. In the first selected paper entitled Agile Retrospective Games for Different Team Development Phases, Milos Jovanović, Antoni-Lluís Mesquida, Nikola Radaković and Antonia Mas have gathered games used in agile retrospectives and created a new classification based on Tuckman model. We believe that such an effort to collect these games provides a high value for both practitioners and academicians who can count on a classified repertory of social games to be included explicitly in their software development process.
In the second paper entitled Towards a gamification framework for Software Process Improvement initiatives: Construction and Validation, by Eduardo Herranz, Ricardo Colomo-Palacios, Antonio de Amescua Seco and Mary-Luz Sánchez-Gordón present a gamification methodological framework proposed for software process improvement initiatives. As one of the pioneer works in the field of gamification in software development, they have taken into account specific features of organization, processes and personnel, and ultimately had their research rigorously assessed by experts from the industry.
In the third paper with the title Examining the Relationship between Socialization and Improved Software Development Skills in the Scratch Code Learning Environment Jesús Moreno-León, Gregorio Robles and Marcos Román-González examine the relationship between socialization and improved software development skills in the Scratch code learning environment. Recently, it has been revealed that there are emerging difficulties for teaching how to program, therefore, their work seems to be interesting both for academics and enterprises.
Finally, in the last fourth paper entitled Software Engineering Education and Games: A Systematic Literature Review, Mehmet Kosa, Murat Yilmaz, Rory V. O’Connor and Paul M. Clarke present the results of a systematic review regarding the use of games in software engineering education. This work assessed the current literature for games that were used to teach software engineering through a variety of resources. Despite its exploratory nature, this study offers initial valuable insights into the use of games in software engineering education from a different perspective. Many studies suggest that students might likely benefit from developing non-digital games for improving their understanding of the notion of gaming. Considerably more work will need to be done to investigate game-like environments.
We would like to thank Mrs. Dana Kaiser (Editorial Team Lead) from the Journal of Universal Computer Science for her support. We express also our gratitude to the reviewers for reviewing the manuscripts and giving detailed and professional feedback. Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the authors for contributing their excellent research. We expect that this collection will incite new research in the future and be a valuable resource to the community interested in social games for improving software processes.
Agile development requires a highly iterative and collaborative design process, which relies on the successful interpretation of software development activities amongst team members throughout the overall process. However, contemporary methods and tools that support agile efforts provide little help in addressing context-specific tacit knowledge, which is difficult to externalize without a shared method of interpretation. Without a continuously updated interpretation of the project vision, it is difficult to claim a shared mental model, while this is actually vital for the success of an agile process. In this paper, we address this issue and seek guidance in an approach that is commonly used in film storycraft. Film production has ample experience with externalizing experiences with the help of visual planning tools and related techniques to orchestrate the creative efforts of vast interdisciplinary production teams. We therefore propose that methods and tools from visual storycrafting can be adapted to assist software developers, not only with externalizing and discussing context-specific tacit knowledge but also to keep them creatively engaged in the development process.
The research literature informs us that a software development process should be appropriate to its software development context but there is an absence of explicit guidance on how to achieve the harmonization of a development process with the corresponding situational context. Whilst this notion of harmonization may be intuitively appealing, in this paper we argue that interaction between a software development process and its situational context is an instance of a complex system. In Complexity Theory, complex systems consist of multiple agents that interact in a multitude of diverse ways, with system outcomes being non-deterministic. Complex systems are therefore noted to be difficult to control, such as is the case with many software development endeavors. If the interaction of software processes with situational contexts is representative of a complex system, then we should not be surprised that the task of software development has proven so resistant to attempts to produce generalized software processes. We should also seek to ameliorate the software development challenge through the adoption of techniques recommended for use in managing complex systems, not as a replacement for the many software process approaches presently in use, but as complement that can aid the task of process definition and evolution.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in tailoring agile development methodologies by combining different agile practices. The adoption of such a balancing approach requires a systematic customization of best practices among agile methodologies. This paper presents an empirical case study for adopting a hybrid Scrumban methodology with an integrated gamification approach, which was conducted in the context of a small-medium enterprise (SME). First, we conducted a focus group to better understand the potential inquiries that might have been useful to improve the development process. Secondly, we employed a cross-sectional survey approach to explore the company personnel’s opinions regarding the changes in the process. The survey data was collected from 30 practitioners who were working for the same project in a software development organization in a technology research centre. The descriptive statistics were calculated with paired sample t-tests being used to compare for integration process that contains three stages (i) initial stage, (ii) Scrumban stage, (iii) Scrumban with integrated Gamification stage. The preliminary results of this research support the idea that a set of game elements can be integrated with a hybrid software development methodology to enhance individual and organizational productivity.
Much of contemporary scientific discussion regarding factors that influence software development productivity is undertaken in various domains where there is an insufficient empirical basis for exploring socio-technical factors of productivity that are specific to a software development organization. The purpose of the study is to characterize the multidimensional nature of software development productivity and its social aspects as a set of latent constructs (i.e. variables that are not directly observed) for a medium-sized software company. To this end, we designed an exploratory in-depth field study based on the hypothesized productivity constructs, which were modeled by a set of factors identified from literature reviews, and later refined by industrial focus groups. In order to demonstrate the applicability of our approach, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis with the data attained from a questionnaire with 216 participants. To investigate factors of influence further, we analyzed the impact of selected team-based variables over the latent constructs of productivity. Taken together, our findings confirm that such an approach can be used to explore the quantifiable influence of socio-technical factors that would affect productivity of a particular software development organization. Ultimately, the resulting model provides guidance to explore the comparative importance of a set of firm-specific factors that may help to improve the productivity of the organization.
This study examined the incremental validity of proactive personality for predicting overall job performance over the Big Five in the context of an innovative software engineering job. Proactive personality and the Big Five were measured in a sample of 243 engineers and overall job performance was assessed through supervisor ratings in a sub-sample of 95 of these engineers. Results showed that even
though proactive personality represents a valid and important predictor of performance it does not show a relevant increment on the prediction yielded by extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and organizational tenure. Implications for the relevancy and practical value of proactive personality for personnel selection are discussed.
This study explores the personality traits of software development practitioners by using a classification schema based on the personality traits extended on the Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI). To extract the information necessary for understanding and classification of software development personnel, we developed a card game playable with either single or multiple participants. The game consists of seventy cards, which have a keyword and a picture on one side and a hypothetical situation typically encountered in software development landscapes with two different selectable options on the other side. The game master (GM) reads a situation by showing the pictures to participants and elicits the most suitable answer in between two selections. Ultimately, the outcome of the game reveals the personality traits of individuals on a compatible scale with the MBTI. To evaluate our game-based personality identification method, we conduct a case study with sixteen individuals at a university environment in seven group sessions. In light of the experience gained, secondly we refine the questions and test the game on sixty software development personnel selected from a set of team-based pairings at a middle size software company. Our preliminary results indicate that there are more individuals in software teams, who may perceive to be extroverted not only in a classroom environment but also in an industrial setting. Moreover, the initial results suggest that our method can be a viable to the classical paper based MBTI tests particularly for managing the workforce in software development projects.
This study continued past research on the relationship between personality composition in teams and social cohesion and team performance (Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998). Results from the Barrick et al. sample (N = 50) were compared with data from two new samples, one comprising drilling teams in the US (N = 24), and the other comprising student teams in The Netherlands (N = 25). Furthermore, this study examined the relationship between personality composition and task cohesion, usually considered to be a stronger predictor of team performance than social cohesion. Results partly confirmed the relationships between personality composition, cohesion, and team performance that were found previously. Minimum levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness contributed positively to both task cohesion and team performance. High mean levels of extraversion and emotional stability contributed positively to social cohesion. Some results differed across the three samples, stressing the importance of task characteristics as a factor influencing relationships between team personality, team processes, and team performance. Although significant relationships were found between social cohesion, task cohesion, and performance, cohesion measures did not mediate relationships between personality composition and team performance. [
Accumulated empirical evidence, some telling criticisms, and even the most cursory glance at the business press compel us to rethink the defining character of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It no longer seems fruitful to regard OCB as extra-role, beyond the job, or unrewarded by the formal system. A more tenable position is one that defines OCB much along the lines of what Borman and Motowidlo (1993) called contextual performance. Some preliminary suggestions are offered for the repositioning and articulation of the OCB construct as redefined; due attention is given to the problems that nonetheless remain, and will occupy us for some time to come as we reckon with root changes in the very character of organizations.
Evidence from our systematic literature review revealed numerous inconsistencies
in findings from the Pair Programming (PP) literature regarding the effects of personality on
PP’s effectiveness as a pedagogical tool. In particular: i) the effect of differing personality
traits of pairs on the successful implementation of pair-programming (PP) within a higher
education setting is still unclear, and ii) the personality instrument most often used had been
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), despite being an indicator criticized by personality
psychologists as unreliable in measuring an individual’s personality traits. These issues
motivated the research described in this paper. We conducted a series of five formal experiments
(one of which was a replicated experiment), between 2009 and 2010, at the University
of Auckland, to investigate the effects of personality composition on PP’s effectiveness.
Each experiment looked at a particular personality trait of the Five-Factor personality
framework. This framework comprises five broad traits (Openness to experience,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), and our experiments
focused on three of these - Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. A total of 594
undergraduate students participated as subjects. Overall, our findings for all five experiments,
including the replication, showed that Conscientiousness and Neuroticism did not present a statistically significant effect upon paired students’ academic performance.
However, Openness played a significant role in differentiating paired students’ academic
performance. Participants’ survey results also indicated that PP not only caused an increase
in satisfaction and confidence levels but also brought enjoyment to the tutorial classes and
enhanced students’ motivation.
This study attempts to refine the construct of contextual performance by dividing it into 2 narrower constructs, interpersonal facilitation and job dedication. Supervisors rated 975 U.S. Air Force mechanics on at least 1 of 4 aspects of job performance (different supervisors rated each aspect of performance), and 515 of these mechanics also completed self-report individual difference measures. Correlations between performance ratings and individual difference variables support distinguishing task performance from interpersonal facilitation but not from job dedication. Thus this study suggests the need to redefine task performance to include motivational elements of job dedication. Then task performance would include task proficiency and motivation to perform one's own tasks effectively, and contextual performance would include interpersonal skills, the motivation to maintain good working relationships and help others perform their tasks.
Six hundred fifty-two employees composing 51 work teams participated in a study examining relationships among team composition (ability and personality), team process (social cohesion), and team outcomes (team viability and team performance). Mean, variance, minimum, and maximum were 4 scoring methods used to operationalize the team composition variables to capture the team members' characteristics. With respect to composition variables, teams higher in general mental ability (GMA), conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team performance. Teams higher in GMA, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team viability. Results also show that extraversion and emotional stability were associated with team viability through social cohesion. Implications and future research needs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Personality tests in various guises are commonly used in recruitment and career counseling industries. Such tests have also been considered as instruments for predicting the job performance of software professionals both individually and in teams. However, research suggests that other human-related factors such as motivation, general mental ability, expertise, and task complexity also affect the performance in general. This paper reports on a study of the impact of the Big Five personality traits on the performance of pair programmers together with the impact of expertise and task complexity. The study involved 196 software professionals in three countries forming 98 pairs. The analysis consisted of a confirmatory part and an exploratory part. The results show that: (1) Our data do not confirm a meta-analysis-based model of the impact of certain personality traits on performance and (2) personality traits, in general, have modest predictive value on pair programming performance compared with expertise, task complexity, and country. We conclude that more effort should be spent on investigating other performance-related predictors such as expertise, and task complexity, as well as other promising predictors, such as programming skill and learning. We also conclude that effort should be spent on elaborating on the effects of personality on various measures of collaboration, which, in turn, may be used to predict and influence performance. Insights into such malleable, rather than static, factors may then be used to improve pair programming performance.
This paper presents an approach in analyzing personality types, temperament and team diversity to determine software engineering (SE) teams performance. The benefits of understanding personality types and its relationships amongst team members are crucial for project success. Rough set analysis was used to analyze Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality types, Keirsey temperament, team diversity, and team performance. The result shows positive relationships between these attributes.
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform used to review students' knowledge, for formative assessment or as a break from traditional classroom activities. It is among the most popular game-based learning platforms, with 70 million monthly active unique users and used by 50% of US K-12 students. Since the platform was released in 2013, many studies have been published on the effect of using Kahoot! in the classroom, but so far, no systematic analysis of the results. This article presents the results of a literature review on the effect of using Kahoot! for learning and, more specifically, on how Kahoot! affects learning performance, classroom dynamics, students' and teachers' attitudes and perceptions, and students' anxiety. The literature review includes 93 studies, and the main conclusion is that Kahoot! can have a positive effect on learning performance, classroom dynamics, students' and teachers' attitudes, and students’ anxiety. However, there are also studies where Kahoot! has little or no effect. The main challenges mentioned by students include technical problems such as unreliable internet connections, hard to read questions and answers on a projected screen, not being able to change answer after submission, stressful time-pressure for giving answers, not enough time to answer, afraid of losing, and hard to catch up if an incorrect answer had been given. Further, the main challenges mentioned by teachers include getting the difficulty level of questions and answers right, problems related to network connectivity, scoring based on how quickly the students answer reducing student reflection and cause some students to guess without thinking, that some students can have a problem with failing a quiz, and some teachers find it challenging to use the technology.
Software development methodologies become increasingly more people and team-oriented. However, many software projects fail due to conflicts of team members. Formation of an effective software development team may be particularly challenging given the differences inherent across an individual’s personality. This paper explores personality traits of agile software development teams by using a context-specific interactive assessment. Concerning the assessment, we have conducted a questionnaire with 110 participants from a large-scale software development company. We have visualized personality traits with team radar charts showing the personality traits of 18 project teams and analyzed the results by validation interviews. Our preliminary results indicate that higher introversion is observed most commonly in isolated teams that has less contact with customers. Moreover, high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits are observed in most of the agile software development teams.
Context: Over the past 50 years 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.
Now in its third edition, this dynamic textbook analyses the traits fundamental to human personality: what they are, why they matter, their biological and social foundations, how they play out in human life and their consequences for cognition, stress and physical and mental health. The text also considers the applications of personality assessment in clinical, educational and occupational settings, providing the reader with a detailed understanding of the whole field of personality traits. This edition, now in 2-colour with improved student features, includes the latest research from behavioural genetics, neuroscience, social psychology and cognitive science, assesses the impact of new research techniques like brain imagery, and provides additional content on positive aspects of traits and practical uses of personality assessment. This is an essential textbook for students taking courses in personality and individual differences and also provides researchers and practitioners with a coherent, up-to-date survey of this significant area © Cambridge University Press 1998 and 2003 and Gerald Matthews, Ian J. Deary and Martha C. Whiteman 2009.
The aim of this investigation was to establish the personality profile of
Brazilian software engineering students according to the MBTI. This study also
shows that the software engineering field attracts students of some types more
than other types, for instance: Is, Ps, IPs, TPs, and INs are significantly
represented in that group as opposed to E, Js, EJs, TJs, ENs.
Six hundred fifty-two employees composing 51 work teams participated in a study examining relationships among team composition (ability and personality), team process (social cohesion), and team outcomes (team viability and team performance). Mean, variance, minimum, and maximum were 4 scoring methods used to operationalize the team composition variables to capture the team members' characteristics. With respect to composition variables, teams higher in general mental ability (GMA), conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team performance. Teams higher in GMA, extraversion, and emotional stability received higher supervisor ratings for team viability. Results also show that extraversion and emotional stability were associated with team viability through social cohesion. Implications and future research needs are discussed.
In this article, we present a systematic mapping study of research on personality in software engineering. The goal is to plot the landscape of current published empirical and theoretical studies that deal with the role of personality in software engineering. We applied the systematic review method to search and select published articles, and to extract and synthesize data from the selected articles that reported studies about personality. Our search retrieved more than 19,000 articles, from which we selected 90 articles published between 1970 and 2010. Nearly 72% of the studies were published after 2002 and 83% of the studies reported empirical research findings. Data extracted from the 90 studies showed that education and pair programming were the most recurring research topics, and that MBTI was the most used test. Research related to pair programming, education, team effectiveness, software process allocation, software engineer personality characteristics, and individual performance concentrated over 88% of the studies, while team process, behavior and preferences, and leadership performance were the topics with the smallest number of studies. We conclude that the number of articles has grown in the last few years, but contradictory evidence was found that might have been caused by differences in context, research method, and versions of the tests used in the studies. While this raises a warning for practitioners that wish to use personality tests in practice, it shows several opportunities for the research community to improve and extend findings in this field.
Background The influence of individual personalities on individual tasks and team work has been a concern in software engineering over the past 50 years. However, how to use personality analysis and what it can offer for the practice of software engineering is still subject to debate among researchers. Aim The goal of this work is to identify the methods used, topics addressed, personality tests applied, and the main findings produced in the research about personality in software engineering. Method We performed a systematic literature review of peer reviewed studies published between 1970 and 2010. Results Data extracted from 42 studies shows that pair programming and team building are the most recurring research topics and MBTI is the most used test. Conclusions Contradicting evidences were found that may have been caused by differences in context, research method, and versions of the tests used in the studies. While this raises a warning for practitioners that wish to use of personality tests in practice, it shows several opportunities for researchers.
Group decision making is frequently adopted in entrepreneurial activities. This study explores the influence of entrepreneurial team members' MBTI personality types upon group opportunity perception, risk perception and risk propensity. Through the empirical investigation of 46 entrepreneurial teams of university students, it is discovered that when controlling the influence of team members' involvement, the group with more intuition type members is more likely to make optimistic estimates of entrepreneurial opportunity than the group with more sensing type members; the group with more perceiving type members is likely to detect more entrepreneurial opportunities, lower risks and possess higher risk propensity than the group with more judging type members; the group with more extroverted members perceives lower entrepreneurial risks than the group with more introverted members. This study's results can help the entrepreneurial teams to improve their rationality in the course of decision making based on the full recognition of the members' personality types.
The ability to estimate the personnel time and costs required for the completion of programming and systems projects is an important managerial tool for the information systems department. This article presents a survey of the estimation techniques found in the literature by describing each technique and discussing its strengths and weaknesses. Some empirical evidenc3e on how the various program and programmer/analyst characteristics affect project time and cost are also reported.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has been applied to several studies that explore various dimensions of human factors in software engineering. Accordingly, this work reviews the results of these studies to explore existing trends. In order to attain a greater understanding of human resources in the software industry, we have reviewed sixteen studies that had been performed between 1985 and 2011. This review concludes that the changes in the complexity of software processes and products have created new roles and demanded new skills for software engineers.
This review examines the role of groups in the organization. Recent literature is discussed through a heuristic model of group behavior. Group structure, strategies, leadership, and reward allocation to members are viewed as inputs to the model. Outcomes are defined as group performance, quality of work lifefor group members, and ability to work independently in the future. A number of group process variables are seen as significant in this model. Implications of the current literature are offeredfor practitioners and researchers.
Develops a model of the theoretical impact of individual personality differences on the productivity of information systems (IS) development teams, then illustrates that impact by presenting a case example. Following a discussion of team composition and MBTI personality types, analyses the attributes of two IS development teams based on age, intelligence, problem-solving ability, task responsibility, and personality-type composition. In this case there were no significant differences in the two teams other than the differences in personality-type composition. Determines that the differences in team performance were primarily caused by differences in the personality-type composition of the two teams.
argues that developments in personality psychology over the past 20 years suggest that people can be characterized in terms of their enduring dispositional qualities and that applied psychologists can take advantage of this information in ways that have significant consequences for employee development and organizational effectiveness / a measured appreciation of modern personality psychology should be useful for many industrial and organizational practitioners
the chapter is organized in six sections, beginning with some definitions to ensure a common understanding of terms for the rest of the discussion, followed by a brief review of the recurring criticisms of personality psychology / suggest ways in which these criticisms miss the mark / [discusses] personality from the observer's perspective—type and trait theory / discusses major views of personality from the actor's perspective [i.e., social perception] / [examines] personality measurement as applied to personnel selection / discusses future trends in personality research and their implications for industrial and organizational psychology (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Results of this field study of 597 employees demonstrate the importance of extra-role behavior in explaining employee performance over a six-month period. Supervisors, peers, and employees differentiated in-role from extra-role behavior. They also differentiated two related forms of promotive extra-role behavior: helping and voice. We cross-validate our results and conclude by discussing future research implications.
The effects of cognitive-based group composition on decision-making process (problem formulation, ideation) and outcome (performance, time-to-decision) were investigated. Two types of composition based on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator were compared – a uni-temperament group composition (all sensing-judgers), common among supervisors and managers, and a multi-temperament composition (a sensing-judger, a sensing-perceiver, an intuitive-thinker, and an intuitive-feeler). While significant relationships were found between the process and outcome stages, cognitive-based group composition generally did not predict the decision-making process or outcome variables. A significant interaction between group composition and problem formulation, however, suggests that a multi-temperament (heterogeneous) composition can moderate the effect of problem formulation on performance. The implications of these findings for cognitive-based group composition and decision making are discussed, along with suggestions for future research
This project is designed to build on theories of team composition and proposes an innovative way of assigning students to teams. Currently, professors are using a variety of team assignment techniques to form software engineering teams. This research believes that a contributing factor to the undesired outcomes (i.e., low performing teams and high levels of conflict) of software engineering teams is that the teams were not formed using ldquorelevant and salientrdquo criteria. To address the relevance issue, we test the impact of problem solving preferences (a sub-set of the MBTI scale) on group conflict and performance. We then test the extent to which the numerical dominance (i.e., salience) of problem solving styles influences conflict and performance. It was found that dominance of problem solving styles is related to negative team outcomes. We conclude by discussing ways in which instructors and team members may minimize negative team outcomes when there is no choice other than forming a team with one dominant problem solving preference.
This article analyses the relationships between personality, team processes, task characteristics, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams. The data analysed here were gathered from a sample of 35 teams of students (105 participants). These teams applied an adaptation of an agile methodology, eXtreme Programming (XP), to develop a software product. We found that the teams with the highest job satisfaction are precisely the ones whose members score highest for the personality factors agreeableness and conscientiousness. The satisfaction levels are also higher when the members can decide how to develop and organize their work. On the other hand, the level of satisfaction and cohesion drops the more conflict there is between the team members. Finally, the teams exhibit a significant positive correlation between the personality factor extraversion and software product quality.
In the pursuit of faster product development, product design teams are a growing phenomenon in many organizations. In order to be successful, these teams must be composed of people who work well together. However, despite the benefit of selecting the optimal combination of team members, this topic has received little attention. Personality has been identified as a potentially helpful selection variable in the determination of optimal team composition. This study examines the relationships between the ‘Big Five’ personality factors (Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience) and objective team performance for three-member product design teams. In addition to this, the potential incremental contribution of personality to the variance in team performance over that accounted for by established selection measures such as general cognitive ability was investigated. In the short duration of the study, it became apparent that some teams were capable of success, and some were not. Successful teams were characterized by higher levels of general cognitive ability, higher extraversion, higher agreeableness, and lower neuroticism than their unsuccessful counterparts. In successful teams, the heterogeneity of conscientiousness was negatively related to increments in product performance. Implications for the selection of product design teams and future directions for research are discussed.
Software engineering is forecast to be among the fastest growing employment field in the next decades. The purpose of this investigation is two-fold: Firstly, empirical studies on the personality types of software professionals are reviewed. Secondly, this work provides an up-to-date personality profile of software engineers according to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator.
Context:Successful software development and management depends not only on the technologies, methods and processes employed but also on the judgments and decisions of the humans involved. These, in turn, are affected by the basic views and attitudes of the individual engineers.Objective:The objective of this paper is to establish if these views and attitudes can be linked to the personalities of software engineers.Methods:We summarize the literature on personality and software engineering and then describe an empirical study on 47 professional engineers in ten different Swedish software development companies. The study evaluated the personalities of these engineers via the IPIP 50-item five-factor personality test and prompted them on their attitudes towards and basic views on their professional activities.Results:We present extensive statistical analyses of their responses to show that there are multiple, significant associations between personality factors and software engineering attitudes. The tested individuals are more homogeneous in personality than a larger sample of individuals from the general population.Conclusion:Taken together, the methodology and personality test we propose and the associated statistical analyses can help find and quantify relations between complex factors in software engineering projects in both research and practice.
This paper describes ethnographic observations and analysis of the performance of student teams working on year-long software projects (2004-2005 UK academic year) for industrial clients. Personality types were measured using an online version of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), as a basis for studying how individuals interacted within the teams, and the effects of disruptive issues on the quality of work produced by the team. The behavior of the observed teams is analyzed and the results compared with those from the previous year's (2003-2004) research, also carried out on student teams. A significant finding in 2003-2004 was that issues which teams did not discuss adequately caused more problems for the quality of work than issues which produced actual disruption within the team; the results from 2004-2005 differ in that actual disruptions proved most damaging to the teams involved.