short-paper

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Software Developers' Perceptions of Task Switching and Task Interruption

Authors:

Zahra Shakeri Hossein Abad,

Mohammad Noaeen,

Behrouz H. Far,

Ken BarkerAuthors Info & Claims

EASE '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

Pages 175 - 180

https://doi.org/10.1145/3210459.3214170

Published: 28 June 2018 Publication History

Abstract

In the constantly evolving world of software development, switching back and forth between tasks has become the norm. While task switching often allows developers to perform tasks effectively and may increase creativity via the flexible pathway, there are also consequences to frequent task-switching. For high-momentum tasks like software development, "flow", the highly productive state of concentration, is paramount. Each switch distracts the developers' flow, requiring them to switch mental state and an additional immersion period to get back into the flow. However, the wasted time due to time fragmentation caused by task switching is largely invisible and unnoticed by developers and managers. We conducted a survey with 141 software developers to investigate their perceptions of differences between task switching and task interruption and to explore whether they perceive task switchings as disruptive as interruptions. We found that practitioners perceive considerable similarities between the disruptiveness of task switching (either planned or unplanned) and random interruptions. The high level of cognitive cost and low performance are the main consequences of task switching articulated by our respondents. Our findings broaden the understanding of flow change among software practitioners in terms of the characteristics and categories of disruptive switches as well as the consequences of interruptions caused by daily meetings.

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Digital Library

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Cited By

Kreamer LRogelberg S(2024)Starting Your Day with Dread or Excitement? The Effects of Meeting Scheduling Cadences on Anticipated Daily OutcomesGroup & Organization Management10.1177/10596011231223263Online publication date: 7-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011231223263
Levy ERafaeli SAriel Y(2024)The effects of online interruption pace and richness on task performanceAtlantic Journal of Communication10.1080/15456870.2024.2317434(1-15)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2024.2317434
Ritonummi SSiitonen VSalo MPirkkalainen HSivunen AChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)Flow Experience in Software EngineeringProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616263(618-630)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611643.3616263
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cover image ACM Other conferences

EASE '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

June 2018

223 pages

ISBN:9781450364034

DOI:10.1145/3210459

General Chair:
Austen Rainer,
Program Chairs:
Stephen G. MacDonell,
Jacky Keung

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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The University of Canterbury

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 June 2018

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Short-paper
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EASE'18

EASE'18: 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 2018

June 28 - 29, 2018

Christchurch, New Zealand

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Overall Acceptance Rate 71 of 232 submissions, 31%

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Cited By

Kreamer LRogelberg S(2024)Starting Your Day with Dread or Excitement? The Effects of Meeting Scheduling Cadences on Anticipated Daily OutcomesGroup & Organization Management10.1177/10596011231223263Online publication date: 7-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011231223263
Levy ERafaeli SAriel Y(2024)The effects of online interruption pace and richness on task performanceAtlantic Journal of Communication10.1080/15456870.2024.2317434(1-15)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2024.2317434
Ritonummi SSiitonen VSalo MPirkkalainen HSivunen AChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)Flow Experience in Software EngineeringProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616263(618-630)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611643.3616263
Lunesu MTonelli RMarchesi LMarchesi M(2021)Assessing the Risk of Software Development in Agile Methodologies Using SimulationIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2021.31159419(134240-134258)Online publication date: 2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3115941
Abad ZGervasi VZowghi DFar BAtlee JBultan TWhittle J(2019)Supporting analysts by dynamic extraction and classification of requirements-related knowledgeProceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE.2019.00057(442-453)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE.2019.00057
Abad ZKarras OSchneider KBarker KBauer MRainer AMacDonell SKeung J(2018)Task Interruption in Software Development ProjectsProceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering 201810.1145/3210459.3210471(122-132)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3210459.3210471

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