research-article

A social network based study of software team dynamics

Authors:

Subhajit Datta,

Vikrant Kaulgud,

Vibhu Saujanya Sharma,

Nishant KumarAuthors Info & Claims

ISEC '10: Proceedings of the 3rd India software engineering conference

Pages 33 - 42

https://doi.org/10.1145/1730874.1730883

Published: 25 February 2010 Publication History

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Abstract

Members of software project teams have specific roles and responsibilities which are formally defined during project inception or at the start of a life cycle activity. Often, the team structure undergoes spontaneous changes as delivery deadlines draw near and critical tasks have to be completed. Some members -- depending on their skill or seniority -- need to take on more responsibilities, while others end up being peripheral to the project's execution. We posit that this kind of ad hoc reorganization of a team's structure can be discerned from the project's bug tracker. In this paper, we extract a social network from the bug log of a real life software system and apply ideas from social network analysis to understand how the positions of individual team members in the network relate to their organizational seniority, project roles, and geographic locations that define the formal team structure. In addition to providing insights on individual team members for the system studied, our approach can serve as a framework for analyzing team dynamics of software projects.

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Cited By

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Abdelrahman Aljemabi MWang ZSaleh M(2021)Mining social collaboration patterns in developer social networksIET Software10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0316Online publication date: 13-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0316
Mehra RSharma VKaulgud VPodder S(2019)Fostering positive affects in software development environments using extended realityProceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Emotion Awareness in Software Engineering10.1109/SEmotion.2019.00016(42-45)Online publication date: 28-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SEmotion.2019.00016
Sharma VMehra RKaulgud VPodder SShihab EWagner S(2019)A smart advisor for software deliveryProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering10.1109/BotSE.2019.00014(22-23)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/BotSE.2019.00014
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Index Terms

A social network based study of software team dynamics
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
    1. Sociology
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Collaboration in software development
      1. Programming teams

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Reviews

Reviewer: Ernest L Hughes

Do you know where your knowledge is__?__ In many sectors, including software and information technology (IT), project management is considered to be mature [1], with well-defined processes and practices [2]. Nevertheless, now and then, something novel comes along that is obviously of interest and value. Datta et al. provide useful and practical knowledge for software and IT project managers (PMs) to better understand and manage their teams during the course of a project. The authors contend and demonstrate-by using social network analysis from bug tracking information-that during the course of a project, omniscient and omnipresent people emerge-what the authors call "omnis." Omnis are critical to the development of a project team's congruence and, therefore, the project's success, and they are often not who you think they would be. It is not clear from this research how these insights will scale on big projects or how cultural factors might limit their adoption [3], but PMs now have a little more knowledge for understanding and managing project and team dynamics. Software and IT PMs should read this paper and prepare their project and staffing plans accordingly. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Published In

ISEC '10: Proceedings of the 3rd India software engineering conference

February 2010

194 pages

ISBN:9781605589220

DOI:10.1145/1730874

General Chair:
Srinivas Padmanabhuni
SETLabs, Infosys Bangalore, India
,
Program Chairs:
Sanjeev K. Aggarwal
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
,
Umesh Bellur
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

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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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 25 February 2010

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ISEC '10: India Software Engineering Conference

February 25 - 27, 2010

Mysore, India

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Overall Acceptance Rate 76 of 315 submissions, 24%

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Abdelrahman Aljemabi MWang ZSaleh M(2021)Mining social collaboration patterns in developer social networksIET Software10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0316Online publication date: 13-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2019.0316
Mehra RSharma VKaulgud VPodder S(2019)Fostering positive affects in software development environments using extended realityProceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Emotion Awareness in Software Engineering10.1109/SEmotion.2019.00016(42-45)Online publication date: 28-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SEmotion.2019.00016
Sharma VMehra RKaulgud VPodder SShihab EWagner S(2019)A smart advisor for software deliveryProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering10.1109/BotSE.2019.00014(22-23)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/BotSE.2019.00014
Espinosa‐Curiel IRodríguez‐Jacobo JVázquez‐Alfaro EFernández‐Zepeda JFajardo‐Delgado D(2018)Analysis of the changes in communication and social interactions during the transformation of a traditional team into an agile teamJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.194630:9Online publication date: 17-Sep-2018
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Zhu YZhang XHu Y(2016)Cluster analysis of participants of open source design community2016 IEEE 20th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD)10.1109/CSCWD.2016.7565965(68-73)Online publication date: May-2016
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Licorish SMacDonell S(2015)Communication and personality profiles of global software developersInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2015.02.00464:C(113-131)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2015
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Licorish SMacDonell S(2014)Understanding the attitudes, knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance of core developers: A longitudinal studyInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2014.02.00456:12(1578-1596)Online publication date: Dec-2014
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Zhang WNie LJiang HChen ZLiu J(2014)Developer social networks in software engineering: construction, analysis, and applications软件工程开发者社交网络: 构建、分析及应用Science China Information Sciences10.1007/s11432-014-5221-657:12(1-23)Online publication date: 30-Oct-2014
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Recruitment Graph Model for Hiring Unique Competencies using Social Media Mining

The Social Network Ties of Group Leaders: Implications for Group Performance and Leader Reputation

Evaluating Effective Use of Social Networks for Recruitment

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