Culture dimensions in software development industry: The effects of mentoring

Software development is a human centric and sociotechnical activity and like all human activities is influenced by cultural factors. However, software engineering is being further affected because of the globalization in software development. As a result, cultural diversity is influencing software development and its outcomes. The software engineering industry, a very intensive industry regarding human capital, is facing a new era in which software development personnel must adapt to multicultural work environments. Today, many organizations present a multicultural workforce which needs to be managed. This paper analyzes the influence of culture on mentoring relationships within the software engineering industry. Two interesting findings can be concluded from our study: (1) cultural differences affect both formal and informal mentoring, and (2) technical competences are not improved when implementing mentoring relationships

Requirements Engineering During Global Software Development: Some Impediments to the Requirements Engineering Process - A Case Study

Requirements engineering is not straightforward for any software development team. Developing software when team members are located in widely distributed geographic locations poses many challenges for developers, particularly during the requirements engineering phase. This paper reports on a case study concerning a large software development project that was completed in just seven months between users located in the UK and software developers from an international software house based in New Zealand. The case indicates that while “true” global requirements engineering may be desirable in achieving economy of resources, a “hybrid” structure of requirements engineering processes is more realistic so that lasting relationships with clients may be formed, and requirements engineering activities achieved. The main impediment to the process of requirements engineering during global software development, as recounted by the team members in this case, is communication. Communication issues may be further described in terms of four categories: distribution of the clients and the development team, distribution of the development team, cultural differences between the clients and the development team and cultural differences among the development tea

Cultural Influences on Collaborative Work in Software Engineering Teams

International business activities increasingly lead to the formation of multicultural teams that work together as project teams, for a certain time both at a site as well as in virtual teams. Despite the modern conception of many companies that multicultural composite teams are more productive due to various perspectives and work styles, the ignorance and disrespect of these differences in work styles and perspectives can lead to misunderstanding and loss of productivity. In this paper, we report our findings from a systematic literature review that analyzes previous research on cross-cultural software engineering, to identify potential impacts of national cultural factors on collaborative approaches and behavior in software engineering teams. We discuss the current emerging state of knowledge and point out directions for advancing the understanding of cultural influences in this domain to lay the foundation for better collaboration design for cross-cultural software engineering teams

Gender-Based Perspectives of eLearning Systems: An Empirical Study of Social Sustainability

Digital technologies have an increasing impact on our everyday life. A large impact of software engineering on society also means that socio-cultural factors are becoming crucial for software systems. The gender and cultural diversity have significant impact not only on the software development process but also on the overall sustainability of the software as well as on the society where the software is used. Thus, these diversity aspects should be analysed while developing a software system. This paper presents an empirical study that investigates the gender and cultural differences in needs and usage of system features. Our focus is on eLearning systems used in Australia and Saudi Arabia, but the results of the study might be expanded to other application domains. To explore the differences, we applied a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods on the data collected from 177 participants. The results demonstrated the cultural and gender diversity may have a significant impact on user needs and preferences

Human factors and cultural influences in implementing agile philosophy and agility in global software development

As software becomes increasingly important to all aspects of industry, developers should be encouraged to adopt best practice and hence improve the quality of the processes used, and achieve targets relating to time, budget and quality. In the software industry, several software methodologies have been used to address software development problems; however some of these processes may be too bureaucratic. The Agile Alliance formed in 2001, sought to address this problem; accordingly, they developed a manifesto and twelve principles, to which all agile software methods adhere. The purpose of the manifesto and its principles is to uncover better ways of developing software. Agile software development methods seem to address the software development industry’s need for more agile processes that are responsive to changes during software development. Agile values and principles require a major cultural change for software managers, e.g. collective team responsibility and self-organisation, especially in large organisations with a strong culture of planning and centralised power. In large global organisations, this issue is likely to be exacerbated by cultural diversity. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the possibility, of using agile methods or practices in different cultures, and study what changes are required, to adapt agile approaches to different global application development issues. The study found that certain agile practices can be useful in different cultures and some practices required major cultural adaptation. A study of suitable practices for different cultures such as Australia, India and the United Kingdom and the associated suggested changes required are the main areas of study. Human factors have been identified by researchers and practitioners to impact on software development projects. Similarly, cultural differences may also be influential in a global market. The principles of agile software development focus on iterative adaptation and improvement of the activities of individual software development teams to increase effectiveness. This research programme focused specifically on national culture based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Hall’s cultural dimensions and the relationships between different aspects of national culture and the implementation of agile methods. To investigate this aspect of software development, a set of cultural dimensions and consolidated cultural agile attributes were developed, that are considered necessary for implementing agile methods. Based on relevancy, cultural dimensions such as Individualism/Collectivism, Power distance index, Uncertainty avoidance index, Time and Context were selected and studied. Some of cultural agile attributes studied include Transparency, Dedicated team, Decision making, Tolerance for change, Time keeping and Authoritative. This set was identified from a literature review on culture for agile methods, a detailed analysis of relevant commonly used agile methods and from feedback from agile experts. This thesis involves qualitative interviews conducted in Australia, India, and the UK using an interpretive paradigm and aims to identify cultural dimensions to implement agile methods in the software engineering community. The results of this research programme provide an analytical comparative framework for implementing agile methods in different cultures, and insight into how cultural differences may affect a software project and how these challenges can be addressed through agile principles