An exploration of individual personality types in software development

Previous research - using conventional psychometric questionnaires - has highlighted the importance of aligning compatible personality types in software development teams. However, there does not exist a dedicated, robust questionnaire instrument for revealing the pertinent personality types for software development practitioners. This study analyzes the validity and reliability of a 70-item (context dependent) personality-profiling questionnaire particularly developed to assess personality types of software practitioners. A systematic process of validation, using an iterative approach to questionnaire development, was employed. The questions were developed both with a qualitative analysis of interview data, and based on the opinions of expert reviewers who revised the items through a set of examination. To investigate how stable the questions and reproducible the results, we measured test-retest reliability of the instrument, yielding satisfactory results. The present study provided evidence for the construct validity of the instrument. Ultimately, an initial comparison of the results delivered by the instrument demonstrated positive correlations with the findings acquired with well- known personality assessment instrument, i.e. the big five personality questionnaire

The use of MBTI in software engineering

In this paper we evaluate the use of Carl Jungs theories of Psychological Type assessed using the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator in the Software Engineering field. The current level of implementation and its quality is established and the results discussed to provide insight into what we currently know, and suggestions on what could be important to investigate for the future. Upon gathering MBTI data from a range of sources it is apparent that there is agreement on the types of personalities often discovered inside software engineering. Thinking and judging personality preferences are commonly found, while feeling and perceiving is far less common. This differs substantially from results representative of the American population, and supports the belief that software engineers are more commonly represented by specific types of people. However, there is discrepancy between four of the 16 types identified in the MBTI, suggesting that there is still some understanding to be gained about personality in software engineering, and we do not by any means know the exact breakdown of types present within the industry

Gestión del conocimiento para la elaboración de un modelo formal de asignación de personal a equipos de proyectos de software.

La formación de los equipos de proyectos de software se realiza, por lo general, de forma empírica. Sin embargo, en este proceso se deben considerar múltiples factores. En la literatura resultan escasos los trabajos donde se modele este proceso. La mayor parte de ellos constituyen propuestas que no consideran ningún aspecto vinculado a la formación del equipo como un todo. En este trabajo se describen los principales resultados del proceso de gestión de conocimientos realizado para obtener los elementos considerados en un modelo formal para la asignación de personal a equipos en proyectos de software. Estos elementos fueron identificados mediante el uso del método Delphi y la aplicación de tests.The formation of software project teams is carried out, in general, in an empiric manner. However, in this process should consider multiple factors. In literature the works where this process is modeled are scarce, and most of them do not consider any aspect linked to the formation of the team as a whole. In this work, the main results of the process of knowledge management carried out to obtain the elements considered in a formal model for the assignment people to teams in software projects is described. These elements were identified through the use of the Delphi method, and of the application of psychological tests

Sunderland Software City: The Impact of a Collaborative Project to Develop the Software Industry Within the North East of England

This paper uses a case study approach to evaluate theimpact of a collaborative initiative within the North East ofEngland which sets out to grow and sustain a software industry,based on the strengths of regional players. The projectSunderland Software City has the ambitious aim of developingthe people, the infrastructure and the business and enterpriseculture to create and sustain a software industry. This paperfocuses upon the impact of the project, and presents some lessonslearned to date

Software quality model based on development team characteristics

Many factors have a significant impact on producing high-quality software products. Development team members are among the most important factors. Paying attention to the quality from this perspective will be a good innovation in the software development industry. Given that team members play a very important role in software products, this study tries to focus specifically on team characteristics in software product quality and provide a qualitative model based on this. The required data were collected through observations and interviews with project managers and development team members in several companies under study. Then, data were analyzed through hierarchical analysis. According to the results, the use of this model led to the improvement of the software development process so that the team members were satisfied with it. Also, time management was improved, and the customer expressed his satisfaction with the use of this model. Finally, data analysis showed that this model may lead to faster product delivery

Agile Ways of Working: A Team Maturity Perspective

With the agile approach to managing software development projects comes an increased dependability on well functioning teams, since many of the practices are built on teamwork. The objective of this study was to investigate if, and how, team development from a group psychological perspective is related to some work practices of agile teams. Data were collected from 34 agile teams (200 individuals) from six software development organizations and one university in both Brazil and Sweden using the Group Development Questionnaire (Scale IV) and the Perceptive Agile Measurement (PAM). The result indicates a strong correlation between levels of group maturity and the two agile practices \emph{iterative development} and \emph{retrospectives}. We, therefore, conclude that agile teams at different group development stages adopt parts of team agility differently, thus confirming previous studies but with more data and by investigating concrete and applied agile practices. We thereby add evidence to the hypothesis that an agile implementation and management of agile projects need to be adapted to the group maturity levels of the agile teams

An artificial intelligence tool for heterogeneous team formation in the classroom

Nowadays, there is increasing interest in the development of teamwork skills in the educational context. This growing interest is motivated by its pedagogical effectiveness and the fact that, in labour contexts, enterprises organize their employees in teams to carry out complex projects. Despite its crucial importance in the classroom and industry, there is a lack of support for the team formation process. Not only do many factors influence team performance, but the problem becomes exponentially costly if teams are to be optimized. In this article, we propose a tool whose aim it is to cover such a gap. It combines artificial intelligence techniques such as coalition structure generation, Bayesian learning, and Belbin's role theory to facilitate the generation of working groups in an educational context. This tool improves current state of the art proposals in three ways: i) it takes into account the feedback of other teammates in order to establish the most predominant role of a student instead of self-perception questionnaires; ii) it handles uncertainty with regard to each student's predominant team role; iii) it is iterative since it considers information from several interactions in order to improve the estimation of role assignments. We tested the performance of the proposed tool in an experiment involving students that took part in three different team activities. The experiments suggest that the proposed tool is able to improve different teamwork aspects such as team dynamics and student satisfaction

Psychometrics in Behavioral Software Engineering: A Methodological Introduction with Guidelines

A meaningful and deep understanding of the human aspects of software engineering (SE) requires psychological constructs to be considered. Psychology theory can facilitate the systematic and sound development as well as the adoption of instruments (e.g., psychological tests, questionnaires) to assess these constructs. In particular, to ensure high quality, the psychometric properties of instruments need evaluation. In this paper, we provide an introduction to psychometric theory for the evaluation of measurement instruments for SE researchers. We present guidelines that enable using existing instruments and developing new ones adequately. We conducted a comprehensive review of the psychology literature framed by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We detail activities used when operationalizing new psychological constructs, such as item pooling, item review, pilot testing, item analysis, factor analysis, statistical property of items, reliability, validity, and fairness in testing and test bias. We provide an openly available example of a psychometric evaluation based on our guideline. We hope to encourage a culture change in SE research towards the adoption of established methods from psychology. To improve the quality of behavioral research in SE, studies focusing on introducing, validating, and then using psychometric instruments need to be more common.Comment: 56 pages (pp. 1-36 for the main paper, pp. 37-56 working example in the appendix), 8 figures in the main paper. Accepted for publication at ACM TOSE