The Mirroring Hypothesis: Theory, Evidence and Exceptions

The mirroring hypothesis predicts that the organizational patterns of a development project (e.g. communication links, geographic collocation, team and firm co-membership) will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the system under development. Scholars in a range of disciplines have argued that mirroring is either necessary or a highly desirable feature of development projects, but evidence pertaining to the hypothesis is widely scattered across fields, research sites, and methodologies. In this paper, we formally define the mirroring hypothesis and review 102 empirical studies spanning three levels of organization: within a single firm, across firms, and in open community-based development projects. The hypothesis was supported in 69% of the cases. Support for the hypothesis was strongest in the within-firm sample, less strong in the across-firm sample, and relatively weak in the open collaborative sample. Based on a detailed analysis of the cases in which the mirroring hypothesis was not supported, we introduce the concept of actionable transparency as a means of achieving coordination without mirroring. We present examples from practice and describe the more complex organizational patterns that emerge when actionable transparency allows designers to 'break the mirror.'Modularity, innovation, product and process development, organization design, design structure, organizational structure, organizational ties

Detecting Coordination Problems in Collaborative Software Development Environments

Software development is rarely an individual effort and generally involves teams of developers collaborating to generate good reliable code. Among the software code there exist technical dependencies that arise from software components using services from other components. The different ways of assigning the design, development, and testing of these software modules to people can cause various coordination problems among them. We claim\ud that the collaboration of the developers, designers and testers must be related to and governed by the technical task structure. These collaboration practices are handled in what we call Socio-Technical Patterns.\ud The TESNA project (Technical Social Network Analysis) we report on in this paper addresses this issue. We propose a method and a tool that a project manager can use in order to detect the socio-technical coordination problems. We test the method and tool in a case study of a small and innovative software product company

Haydn Symposium, January 21, 2009

This is the concert program of the Haydn Symposium performance on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 3:00 p.m., at the Boston University Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. Works performed were by Franz Joseph Haydn. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Center for the Humanities Library Endowed Fund

The BU Kenti Wala African Ensemble, November 30, 2010

This is the concert program of The BU Kenti Wala African Ensemble performance on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 8:00 p.m., at the Boston University Concert Hall, 855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. Works performed were Kuku from Guinea, Tokoe from Ghana, and Drum and dance selections from Senegal. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Center for the Humanities Library Endowed Fund

Boston University Symphony Orchestra, December 11, 2001

This is the concert program of the Boston University Symphony Orchestra performance on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 at 8:00 p.m., at the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Avenue. Works performed were "Seven Visions in the Shades of Azure" by Alexandros Kalogeras, "Serenade" after Plato's "Symposium" by Leonard Bernstein, and "Francesca da Rimini," Op. 32 by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowed Fund

A Historical Perspective on Runtime Assertion Checking in Software Development

This report presents initial results in the area of software testing and analysis produced as part of the Software Engineering Impact Project. The report describes the historical development of runtime assertion checking, including a description of the origins of and significant features associated with assertion checking mechanisms, and initial findings about current industrial use. A future report will provide a more comprehensive assessment of development practice, for which we invite readers of this report to contribute information

SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems

The project to automate the management of software production systems is described. The SAGA system is a software environment that is designed to support most of the software development activities that occur in a software lifecycle. The system can be configured to support specific software development applications using given programming languages, tools, and methodologies. Meta-tools are provided to ease configuration. Several major components of the SAGA system are completed to prototype form. The construction methods are described

Artificial intelligence applications in space and SDI: A survey

The purpose of this paper is to survey existing and planned Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications to show that they are sufficiently advanced for 32 percent of all space applications and SDI (Space Defense Initiative) software to be AI-based software. To best define the needs that AI can fill in space and SDI programs, this paper enumerates primary areas of research and lists generic application areas. Current and planned NASA and military space projects in AI will be reviewed. This review will be largely in the selected area of expert systems. Finally, direct applications of AI to SDI will be treated. The conclusion covers the importance of AI to space and SDI applications, and conversely, their importance to AI