Misaligned Values in Software Engineering Organizations

The values of software organizations are crucial for achieving high performance; in particular, agile development approaches emphasize their importance. Researchers have thus far often assumed that a specific set of values, compatible with the development methodologies, must be adopted homogeneously throughout the company. It is not clear, however, to what extent such assumptions are accurate. Preliminary findings have highlighted the misalignment of values between groups as a source of problems when engineers discuss their challenges. Therefore, in this study, we examine how discrepancies in values between groups affect software companies' performance. To meet our objectives, we chose a mixed method research design. First, we collected qualitative data by interviewing fourteen (\textit{N} = 14) employees working in four different organizations and processed it using thematic analysis. We then surveyed seven organizations (\textit{N} = 184). Our analysis indicated that value misalignment between groups is related to organizational performance. The aligned companies were more effective, more satisfied, had higher trust, and fewer conflicts. Our efforts provide encouraging findings in a critical software engineering research area. They can help to explain why some companies are more efficient than others and, thus, point the way to interventions to address organizational challenges.Comment: accepted for publication in Journal of Software: Evolution and Proces

Behavioral Software Engineering - Organizational Change Refocused

Background The development of software is not only a technical endeavor; it is significantly affected by the behaviors of the people involved. Since social scientists have been studying humans for over a century, it is likely that insights they have developed could be used to increase software development effectiveness. There are, nevertheless, indications that software engineering researchers seldom use theories developed and proven within the social sciences. Overall, software engineering research that emphasizes human aspects is still limited compared to studies with technology or process focus.Objective Given the importance of human aspects in software development, we argue that knowledge from the social sciences should be used more extensively to improve software engineering research. Therefore, the primary objective of our research was to advance software engineering by more profoundly considering humans and their behavior. For in-depth insights into such interdisciplinary research efforts, we chose to explore a specific phenomenon: organizational change. Our secondary objective was thus to create understanding to help improve software companies’ organizational change efforts.Method To address our research objectives, we used a variety of research designs and data collection methods, including literature reviews, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and quantitative analysis of project data. This diversity allowed us to examine phenomena from different perspectives.Results We provide directions for future research on behavioral aspects of software engineering by outlining the behavioral software engineering (BSE) research area, reviewing contemporary research, and identifying industrial needs. Moreover, our findings suggest that software engineers form their attitudes toward change collectively and according to their teams’ social norms, which are governed by their distinct professional identity. Our results also indicate that misalignment of organizational values between groups adversely affects change efforts and overall performance.Conclusions Our research concludes that in order to effectively manage organizational change efforts, software companies must strengthen their organizational identity and reduce misalignment of organizational values. By providing such concrete advice on how to improve organizational change, our research confirms the usefulness of and need for additional BSE research to create novel and in-depth insights into software engineering phenomena

Fit to Context Matters – Selecting and Using Information Systems Development Methods to Develop Business in Digitalization Contexts

We ponder the relations of software, information systems (IS) and business development methods in the development of digital businesses and in the digitalization of extant businesses. We present our published IS development method (ISDM) framework and its development. The framework is used as the background to reason the relations between the three development layers of digitalization: software, IS and business. We then propose six highly potential areas of future research. In addition, we answer to two research questions also paving the way to future research: is the matching of IS and business development a reasonable proposition, and is the finding of extant literature true, according to which ISDMs are used limitedly in IS development work. We organized two workshops with 21 (14+7) participants to answer these questions. We detected yes and mixed answers. We contribute to research with the empirical findings and the proposed research areas

Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2021

We ponder the relations of software, information systems (IS) and business development methods in the development of digital businesses and in the digitalization of extant businesses. We present our published IS development method (ISDM) framework and its development. The framework is used as the background to reason the relations between the three development layers of digitalization: software, IS and business. We then propose six highly potential areas of future research. In addition, we answer to two research questions also paving the way to future research: is the matching of IS and business development context a reasonable proposition, and is the finding of extant literature true, according to which ISDMs are used limitedly in IS development work. We organized two workshops with 21 (14+7) participants to answer these questions. We detected yes and mixed answers. We contribute to research with the empirical findings and the proposed research areas.</p

Evaluación del desempeño en entornos de trabajo ágiles y sostenibles : una revisión de literatura

Propósito. Resumir los hallazgos de investigaciones previas en el ámbito de las evaluaciones de desempeño de los entornos ágiles y su impacto en la sostenibilidad. Diseño, metodología y aproximación. La investigación se llevó a cabo mediante la revisión sistemática de literatura especializada en una muestra de 442 artículos que cumplieron el criterio de búsqueda. Con filtros se llegó a 54 artículos escritos entre 2015 y enero de 2021 y se analizó su contenido con el fin de identificar las fuentes, autores, metodologías y oportunidades de investigación futura. Hallazgos. Existe un creciente interés en medir el desempeño sostenible en entornos ágiles. La agilidad que el entorno empresarial requiere para el desarrollo de productos y servicios con un tiempo de comercialización menor que el de la competencia despierta el interés de organizaciones de contemplar su migración a dicho tipo de metodologías. El agilismo está trascendiendo a otros ámbitos e, incluso, a organizaciones completas. Hay poca evidencia de estudios que se enfoquen en el clima laboral en equipos ágiles y la evidencia sugiere que deben considerarse factores con múltiples variables . Los gerentes deben tomar en cuenta la sostenibilidad social, incluso en sus equipos. Implicaciones prácticas. El agilismo evidencia positivas mejoras en el desempeño de las métricas asociadas con el desarrollo de software que pueden extrapolarse a ámbitos organizacionales completos; deben tenerse en cuenta formas de medición que permitan evaluar sus aportes en los aspectos sostenibles que la industria 4.0 propone. Implicaciones sociales. Factores como la medición de la productividad y gestión de los desafíos que se presentan en los equipos deben monitorearse para mejorar el clima laboral en los que practiquen metodologías ágiles. No hay indicios de estudios enfocados hacia los beneficios económicos, sociales o ambientales que deja la implementación de metodologías ágiles. Originalidad y valor. Fuera de la respuesta de la investigación, se identificaron posibilidades de futuros estudios para cuantificar el aporte e impacto del agilismo la sostenibilidad, medir impactos en las relaciones humanas, los perfiles, la psicología, la atención a las necesidades y la diversidad de personas y analizar nuevas variables multidimensionales relacionadas con el agilismo organizacional . Palabras clave: agilismo, sostenibilidad, marcos de trabajo, evaluación de desempeño, sostenibilidad, desarrollo de software, empresas ágiles Tipo de artículo. Revisión sistemática de literatura

Misaligned values in software engineering organizations

The values of software organizations are crucial for achieving high performance; in particular, agile development approaches emphasize their importance. Researchers have thus far often assumed that a specific set of values, compatible with the development methodologies, must be adopted homogeneously throughout the company. It is not clear, however, to what extent such assumptions are accurate. Preliminary findings have highlighted the misalignment of values between groups as a source of problems when engineers discuss their challenges. Therefore, in this study, we examine how discrepancies in values between groups affect software companies\u27 performance. To meet our objectives, we chose a mixed method research design. First, we collected qualitative data by interviewing fourteen (N = 14) employees working in four different organizations and processed it using thematic analysis. We then surveyed seven organizations (N = 184). Our analysis indicated that value misalignment between groups is related to organizational performance. The aligned companies were more effective, more satisfied, had higher trust, and fewer conflicts. Our efforts provide encouraging findings in a critical software engineering research area. They can help to explain why some companies are more efficient than others and, thus, point the way to interventions to address organizational challenges