Assessing Personality Profiles of Software Developers in Agile Development Teams

Agile methodologies are changing the way we develop software. Their emphasis on team-oriented development, joint code ownership, and reliance on people rather than predefined processes to guide activities, is transforming software development into a socio-technical process. As methodologies become increasingly more people and team-oriented, there is an urgent need to investigate the personality profiles of software developers and their likely impact on the productivity of the development team. A review of the IS research literature on personality studies found Jungian typology operationalized as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to be the most popular approach for assessing personality profiles. We compared the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, which is currently gaining popularity among personality psychologists, with MBTI. Our analysis, based on extant research literature in personality psychology and group behavior, suggests that FFM not only provides better measures for all factors that are measured by MBTI, but it also allows us to assess Neuroticism, an important personality trait that is of interest to researchers studying work groups, such as the agile development team. Our finding has important implications for researchers studying the agile development process. It is also highly relevant to studies investigating the personality profiles of IS professionals. Thus, our study attempts to bring in fresh insights from Personality Psychology, our reference discipline, to enrich IS research

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Exploratory Comparison of Expert and Novice Pair Programmers

We conducted quasi-experiment comparing novice pair programmers to expert pair programmers. The expert pairs wrote tests with a higher instruction, line, and method coverage than the novice pairs and changed the given program skeleton to a larger extent. However, the expert pairs were also slower than the novice pairs. The pairs within both groups switched keyboard and mouse possession frequently. Furthermore, most pairs did not share the input devices equally but rather had one partner who is more active than the other

Understanding Agile Software Development Assimilation Beyond Acceptance

Agile software development methods represent a departure from the heavily regimented and document-driven procedures of traditional, waterfall approaches. Despite the highly touted benefits of employing agile ISD methods and the growth of agile adoption rates over the past two decades, it is not clear why some organizations fail to routinize agile methods, while others do so and realize their promised benefits. Motivated by the need to understand the factors that influence agile routinization, this study empirically examines the deep contextual factors that impact the extent to which agile methods are proliferated throughout an organization. Findings indicate that project success from initial agile use does not translate to routine agile use. Instead, findings from the study suggest that organizational factors of organizational culture and structure play a pivotal role in the routinization of agile methods

The effect of software engineers\u27 personality traits on team climate and performance: a systematic literature review

Context Over the past 50 years numerous studies have investigated the possible effect that software engineers\u27 personalities may have upon their individual tasks and teamwork. These have led to an improved understanding of that relationship; however, the analysis of personality traits and their impact on the software development process is still an area under investigation and debate. Further, other than personality traits, "team climate" is also another factor that has also been investigated given its relationship with software teams\u27 performance. Objective The aim of this paper is to investigate how software professionals\u27 personality is associated with team climate and team performance. Method In this paper we detail a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of the effect of software engineers\u27 personality traits and team climate on software team performance. Results Our main findings include 35 primary studies that have addressed the relationship between personality and team performance without considering team climate. The findings showed that team climate comprises a wide range of factors that fall within the fields of management and behavioral sciences. Most of the studies used undergraduate students as subjects and as surrogates of software professionals. Conclusions The findings from this SLR would be beneficial for understanding the personality assessment of software development team members by revealing the traits of personality taxonomy, along with the measurement of the software development team working environment. These measurements would be useful in examining the success and failure possibilities of software projects in development processes. General terms Human factors, performance