Are team personality and climate related to satisfaction and software quality? Aggregating results from a twice replicated experiment

Research into software engineering teams focuses on human and social team factors. Social psychology deals with the study of team formation and has found that personality factors and group processes such as team climate are related to team effectiveness. However, there are only a handful of empirical studies dealing with personality and team climate and their relationship to software development team effectiveness. Objective We present aggregate results of a twice replicated quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationships between personality, team climate, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams. Method Our experimental study measures the personalities of team members based on the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and team climate factors (participative safety, support for innovation, team vision and task orientation) preferences and perceptions. We aggregate the results of the three studies through a meta-analysis of correlations. The study was conducted with students. Results The aggregation of results from the baseline experiment and two replications corroborates the following findings. There is a positive relationship between all four climate factors and satisfaction in software development teams. Teams whose members score highest for the agreeableness personality factor have the highest satisfaction levels. The results unveil a significant positive correlation between the extraversion personality factor and software product quality. High participative safety and task orientation climate perceptions are significantly related to quality. Conclusions First, more efficient software development teams can be formed heeding personality factors like agreeableness and extraversion. Second, the team climate generated in software development teams should be monitored for team member satisfaction. Finally, aspects like people feeling safe giving their opinions or encouraging team members to work hard at their job can have an impact on software quality. Software project managers can take advantage of these factors to promote developer satisfaction and improve the resulting product

Are team personality and climate related to satisfaction and software quality? Aggregating results from a twice replicated experiment

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Information and Software Technology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Information and Software Technology, [VOL 57, (2015)] DOI 10.1016/j.infsof.2014.09.002Context Research into software engineering teams focuses on human and social team factors. Social psychology deals with the study of team formation and has found that personality factors and group processes such as team climate are related to team effectiveness. However, there are only a handful of empirical studies dealing with personality and team climate and their relationship to software development team effectiveness. Objective We present aggregate results of a twice replicated quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationships between personality, team climate, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams. Method Our experimental study measures the personalities of team members based on the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and team climate factors (participative safety, support for innovation, team vision and task orientation) preferences and perceptions. We aggregate the results of the three studies through a meta-analysis of correlations. The study was conducted with students. Results The aggregation of results from the baseline experiment and two replications corroborates the following findings. There is a positive relationship between all four climate factors and satisfaction in software development teams. Teams whose members score highest for the agreeableness personality factor have the highest satisfaction levels. The results unveil a significant positive correlation between the extraversion personality factor and software product quality. High participative safety and task orientation climate perceptions are significantly related to quality. Conclusions First, more efficient software development teams can be formed heeding personality factors like agreeableness and extraversion. Second, the team climate generated in software development teams should be monitored for team member satisfaction. Finally, aspects like people feeling safe giving their opinions or encouraging team members to work hard at their job can have an impact on software quality. Software project managers can take advantage of these factors to promote developer satisfaction and improve the resulting product.This research has been funded by the following projects: Experiment Replication and Synthesis Technologies in SE (MICINN TIN2011-23216) and Go Lite (MICINN TIN2011-24139)

How personality traits are interrelated with team climate and team performance in software engineering?: a preliminary study

Personality and its impacts on team processes in the domain of software engineering have been an area of investigation for many researchers since the last many years. However, personality traits and its effects on team climate and team performance were not being focused as area of research. In our previous research, we had performed a systematic literature review on team climate and team productivity. In progression of our earlier work in this paper, we have extended the work and take personality traits as an independent variable over team climate and performance. This paper reports the results of preliminary data survey, which has been conducted to measure the effects of personality on team climate and team performance. Results show the strong and positive correlation among personality factor Extraversion, team climate and team performance variables

Soft Sides of Software

Software is a field of rapid changes: the best technology today becomes obsolete in the near future. If we review the graduate attributes of any of the software engineering programs across the world, life-long learning is one of them. The social and psychological aspects of professional development is linked with rewards. In organizations, where people are provided with learning opportunities and there is a culture that rewards learning, people embrace changes easily. However, the software industry tends to be short-sighted and its primary focus is more on current project success; it usually ignores the capacity building of the individual or team. It is hoped that our software engineering colleagues will be motivated to conduct more research into the area of software psychology so as to understand more completely the possibilities for increased effectiveness and personal fulfillment among software engineers working alone and in teams

Assessing personality types preferences amongst software developers: A case of Malaysia

This paper aims to present personality types preferences among software developers in Northern region of Malaysia.Knowledge in human factor personality types is significant in order to assist project manager for making decision on the right personality types that suit into job tasks assigned to software developers.In addition, there is growing awareness on applying agile methodology during software development.This software methodology claimed to be acknowledged human weaknesses and strengths and thus, has great potential in improving software development effectiveness.Therefore, this study also seeks to compare personality type’s preferences amongst agile and non-agile software developers.A questionnaire that includes personality test questions was distributed amongst 81 software developers that working in the software industry. Results demonstrated that the software developers are mostly Introvert (I) personality types. Furthermore, the dimensions of Intuitive (N), Thinking (T), and Judging (J) are dominant personality types among software developers regardless of software methodology used. This study provides an insight into personality type’s preferences that can guide human resource manager to select the suitable candidate for specific tasks in order to improve team performance.Future studies will be carried out to collect more empirical data and to build software team personality types composition model

Towards understanding the influence of personality and team behaviors on requirements engineering activities

Requirements engineers play an important role in the development of software products and services. The nature of requirements engineering (RE) is multifaceted and influences the quality, success, or failure of software products. In gathering software requirements, engineers commonly work in a team, particularly when dealing with the customers or modeling the requirements, hence the team behavior may influence the RE activities. The investigation of requirements engineers’ personality and their team behavior associated with RE activities is still an open area in which research is still developing. This study aims to investigate the personality and team behavior of requirements engineers involved in RE activities using a systematic literature review approach. We included 64 primary studies that addressed the association between personality and team behavior of requirements engineers on the effectiveness of RE activities. The result shows that among personality dimensions, extraversion and conscientiousness were found to be the predominant personality traits that positively affect RE activities. Furthermore, team behavior of requirements engineers such as flexibility, collaboration, creativity, innovation, and norms were discovered as factors that influence the RE process, performance, and success. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge and practice of RE by providing empirical evidence on the influence of requirements engineers’ personality and team behavior on the effectiveness of RE activities

Towards understanding the influence of personality and team behaviors on requirements engineering activities

Requirements engineers play an important role in the development of software products and services. The nature of requirements engineering (RE) is multifaceted and influences the quality, success, or failure of software products. In gathering software requirements, engineers commonly work in a team, particularly when dealing with the customers or modeling the requirements, hence the team behavior may influence the RE activities. The investigation of requirements engineers’ personality and their team behavior associated with RE activities is still an open area in which research is still developing. This study aims to investigate the personality and team behavior of requirements engineers involved in RE activities using a systematic literature review approach. We included 64 primary studies that addressed the association between personality and team behavior of requirements engineers on the effectiveness of RE activities. The result shows that among personality dimensions, extraversion and conscientiousness were found to be the predominant personality traits that positively affect RE activities. Furthermore, team behavior of requirements engineers such as flexibility, collaboration, creativity, innovation, and norms were discovered as factors that influence the RE process, performance, and success. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge and practice of RE by providing empirical evidence on the influence of requirements engineers’ personality and team behavior on the effectiveness of RE activities

Software Quality and Standards on a Global Scale: Trends in the Literature from Scientific and Sectoral Perspective

The digital transformation requires software in many components of business and daily life. As the product variety and competition increase in this field, the quality and standards which are leading the sector are also on the agenda. In this context , the aim of this study is to present the current state of software quality and standards in terms of both sectoral and scientific publications. In the scope of the study, the related studies in this field are summarized, and then the findings are presented which are obtained through the scientometric analyses of the published research articles in the journals indexed by Web of Science Core Database. The Findings emphasize the trends in keywords over the years as well as the most active universities, authors, countries, institutional information, and the journals that are preferred by authors. Furthermore, the number and the quality of articles with respect to the country dimension are also discussed to determine the current situation in Turkey