Comparing Offshore Outsourcing and the Internal Offshoring of Software Development: A Qualitative Study

Distributed Software Development involves a number of different business models. Most of the companies, when searching for external solutions in other countries (offshoring), usually have two main options: offshore outsourcing (contracting services with an external organization) and internal offshoring (contracting with a wholly owned subsidiary). Both models have been studied for a long time, and indicate the need for a great collaboration among the stakeholders to succeed in distributed development. For this reason, in this paper we compare offshore outsourcing and internal offshoring from the viewpoint of three management levels: strategic, tactical and operational. We present findings from a case study conducted in five multinational companies. The findings are presented in terms of aspects identified to improve the performance in offshore software development, and were analyzed based on two dimensions – challenges and patterns of evolution

Interdisciplinaridade na Engenharia de Software

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in the filed of software engineering. We present the concepts involved and illustrate them with two practical examples related to distributed software development and software process improvement programs.Keywords: Software Engineering, multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity.O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a importância de pesquisas multidisciplinar, interdisciplinar e transdisciplinar na Engenharia de Software. São apresentados os diversos conceitos envolvidos, ilustrados com dois exemplos práticos relacionados ao desenvolvimento distribuído de software e programas de melhoria de processo de software.Palavras-chave: Engenharia de Software, multidisciplinaridade, interdisciplinaridade, transdisciplinaridade

Adapting Software Teams to the New Normal: An Early Case Study of Transitioning to Hybrid Work Under COVID-19

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies have begun to address what some refer to as the "new normal," comprising hybrid arrangements of employees working from home and working at the office with varying schedule arrangements. While many of the studies to date addressed how employees coped with work-from-home, we sought to investigate how employees dealt with a transition to the new normal of hybrid arrangements. To shed light on this topic, we conducted a survey-based case study at one office location of a large, multinational software corporation. The site sought to transition employees fully working from home to working two days remotely and three predefined days in their shared workspace. Our survey results indicated a substantial decline in work satisfaction since the beginning of this transition, which can be explained by diverse work preferences. Furthermore, some software developers felt frustrated during this transition time; they described challenges they underwent and proposed potential solutions. In this paper, we present our lessons learned in this case study and describe some actionable recommendations for practitioners facing such transitions

Towards a model of software development process for a physically distributed environment

The goal of this article is to present the first results of a study looking forward to propose a model of software development for a physically distributed environment (United States and Brazil). Thus, the objective is to combine empirical and theoretical knowledge in the software development area, aiming to minimize communication problems found in this specific environment. As result, the article proposes the addition of two new phases in the software development process, planning and evaluation, based on Unified Process and the UML language. The purpose is to demonstrate through illustrations and discussions, how these two phases are engaged in the process as a whole and what they represent. Some points open to discussion, which are themes for future researches, are identified, aiming to propose a model of software development for a physically distributed environment. The empirical basis of the study involves the EBusiness Research Center, a partnership of Dell Computers with PUCRS.Eje: Ingeniería de softwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Um Olhar Sociotécnico sobre a Engenharia de Software

As novas tecnologias modificam a forma e a substância do controle, da participação e da coesão social. Porém, ao fazê-lo, são também modificadas pela experiência social, de sorte que o técnico e o social constituem um movimento de "co-modificação", somente percebido por uma aproximação concomitantemente social e técnica, por um olhar sociotécnico. O artigo pretende apresentar algumas das principais características deste olhar, bem como discutir os desafios que coloca para a engenharia de software.New technologies modify the form and the substance of social control, participation and cohesion. However, as they modify, they are also modified by social practices in such a way it is possible to argue that social and technical dimensions constitute a process of mutual construction, only apprehended through an approach simultaneously social and technical, trough a sociotechnical frame. This article presents some of this frame’s main features, as well as its challenges to software engineering

On the Role of Information Technology Systems Architects

Information Systems in large organizations are seldom built from scratch. They have to be built taking into account different existing aspects like customers, organization’s business, and its current Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, among others. IT architects are the professionals who take all these aspects into account when designing an information system. Despite their importance, the work of these professionals is barely understood. This research aims to fill this gap by describing a qualitative study we conducted with IT architects. We use semi-structured interviews for data collection and analyzed our data using grounded theory methods. Our results suggest that there are different IT architect roles in every company and that the activities performed by them are highly interconnected and these interconnections are fundamental for the information diffusion and collaboration in projects

Exploration of technical debt in start-ups

Context: Software start-ups are young companies aiming to build and market software-intensive products fast with little resources. Aiming to accelerate time-to-market, start-ups often opt for ad-hoc engineering practices, make shortcuts in product engineering, and accumulate technical debt. Objective: In this paper we explore to what extent precedents, dimensions and outcomes associated with technical debt are prevalent in start-ups. Method: We apply a case survey method to identify aspects of technical debt and contextual information characterizing the engineering context in start-ups. Results: By analyzing responses from 86 start-up cases we found that start-ups accumulate most technical debt in the testing dimension, despite attempts to automate testing. Furthermore, we found that start-up team size and experience is a leading precedent for accumulating technical debt: larger teams face more challenges in keeping the debt under control. Conclusions: This study highlights the necessity to monitor levels of technical debt and to preemptively introduce practices to keep the debt under control. Adding more people to an already difficult to maintain product could amplify other precedents, such as resource shortages, communication issues and negatively affect decisions pertaining to the use of good engineering practices.Comment: ICSE-SEIP '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practic

Towards Successful Software Process Improvement Initiatives: Experiences from the Battlefield

Over the past years Brazil has done significant investments in software process improvement. Among them, the long term MPS.BR program focuses on improving the software process quality of Brazilian companies. This paper describes the successful software process improvement (SPI) initiative that is being developed in Brazil, called the MPS.BR program, including its software process improvement reference model (MR-MPS-SW) and the most important results accomplished to date. Our results include the analysis of the iMPS family of surveys, and lessons learned that are valuable to the SPI community. The results and benefits presented can be useful to researchers, practitioners and decision makers in Government, University, and Industry interested in SPI and software industry competitiveness. Moreover, the benefits presented can motivate organizations to engage on MPS model SPI initiatives as a mean to improve the quality of their software