Cécile Péraire

Software development waste

Context: Since software development is a complex socio-technical activity that involves coordinating different disciplines and skill sets, it provides ample opportunities for waste to emerge. Waste is any activity that produces no value for the customer or user. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe different types of waste in software development. Method: Following Constructivist Grounded Theory, we conducted a two-year five-month participant-observation study of eight software development projects at Pivotal, a software development consultancy. We also interviewed 33 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers, and analyzed one year of retrospection topics. We iterated between analysis and theoretical sampling until achieving theoretical saturation. Results: This paper introduces the first empirical waste taxonomy. It identifies nine wastes and explores their causes, underlying tensions, and overall relationship to the waste taxonomy found in Lean Software Development. Limitations: Grounded Theory does not support statistical generalization. While the proposed taxonomy appears widely applicable, organizations with different software development cultures may experience different waste types. Conclusion: Software development projects manifest nine types of waste: building the wrong feature or product, mismanaging the backlog, rework, unnecessarily complex solutions, extraneous cognitive load, psychological distress, waiting/multitasking, knowledge loss, and ineffective communication.

State-based monitoring and goal-driven project steering: field study of the SEMAT essence framework

At Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley, the graduate master program ends with a practicum project during which students serve as software engineering consultants for an industry client. In this context, students are challenged to demonstrate their ability to work on self-managing and self-organizing teams. This paper presents a field study of the Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMAT) Essence framework. The objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Essence’s novel state-based monitoring and goal-driven steering approach provided by the Essence kernel alphas and their states. The researchers conducted the study on seven graduate master student teams applying the approach throughout their practicum projects. The research methodology involves weekly observation and recording of each team’s state progression and collecting students’ reflection on the application of the approach. The main result validates that the approach provides student teams with a holistic, lightweight, non-prescriptive and method-agnostic way to monitor progress and steer projects, as well as an effective structure for team reflection and risk management. The paper also validates that the Essence kernel provides an effective mechanism for monitoring and steering work common to most student software projects. This includes the work done during project initiation as well as the work done at the project or release level. Support for technical work should come from additional practices added on top of the kernel, or by extending or altering the kernel definition. The conclusion is that the approach enables students to learn to steer projects effectively by addressing the various dimensions of software engineering. Hence the approach could be leveraged in software engineering education.

Essence reflection meetings: field study

This paper presents an empirical evaluation of the team reflection support provided by the Software Engineering Method and Theory (SEMAT) Essence framework, and compares Essence reflection meetings to other types of team reflection meetings. The researchers conducted a field study involving seven graduate master student teams running Essence reflection meetings throughout their practicum projects aiming at delivering a working product for an industry client. The main result validates that Essence meetings generate reflective team discussions through a thinking framework that is holistic, state-based, goal-driven, and method-agnostic. Student teams benefit from stepping back and assessing the project holistically throughout its lifecycle. The goals set by the frameworks checklists lead the teams to address critical aspects of the project that have not been considered. All team members are encouraged to express their views and influence the various project dimensions. Essence reflection meetings are comparable and complementary to Agile retrospectives, and project teams might want to leverage both techniques. The value added by Essence reflections is to surface unknown issues, help monitor progress, steer the project to a higher state, and prevent retrospectives from being repetitive by varying styles.

Practice and perception of team code ownership

Context: Team code ownership is a software development practice where any team member can modify any part of the teams code. However, many factors beyond official policy affect a developers sense of ownership. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors that affect a teams sense of code ownership. Method: Following Constructivist Grounded Theory, the first author conducted participant-observation of several software development projects, and interviewed 21 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers. Iterating between theoretical sampling and analysis continued until achieving theoretical saturation. Results: Team code ownership is a feeling. Developers feel team code ownership more when they understand the system context, have contributed to the code in question, perceive code quality as high, believe the product will satisfy the user needs, and perceive high team cohesion. Limitations: Outcomes of grounded theory research are not statistically generalizable to defined populations, and may not apply to organizations with different software development cultures. Conclusion: Team code ownership is rooted in numerous cognitive, emotional, contextual and technical factors and cannot be achieved simply by policy.

Sustainable Software Development through Overlapping Pair Rotation

Context: Conventional wisdom says that team disruptions (like team churn) should be avoided. However, we have observed software development projects that succeed despite high disruption. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to understand how to develop software effectively, even in the face of team disruption. Method: We followed Constructivist Grounded Theory. The primary researcher conducted participant-observation of several projects at Pivotal (a software development company), and interviewed 21 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers. The researcher iteratively sampled and analyzed the collected data until achieving theoretical saturation. Results: This paper introduces a descriptive theory of Sustainable Software Development. The theory encompasses principles, policies, and practices aiming at removing knowledge silos and improving code quality (including discoverability and readability), hence leading to development sustainability. Limitations: While the results are highly relevant to the observed projects at Pivotal, the outcomes may not be transferable to other software development organizations with different software development cultures. Conclusion: The theory refines and extends the understanding of Extreme Programming by adding a few principles, policies, and practices (like the unique Overlapping Pair Rotation practice) and aligning these principles, policies, and practices towards the business goal of sustainability.

Green-Lighting Proposals for Software Engineering Team-Based Project Courses

Many software engineering curriculum conclude with a practicum or capstone project course. For courses involving external clients, the course owner typically follows a Request for Proposal process to vet (or green-light) qualified clients and projects. Even though green-lighting projects does not guarantee project success, the goal is to reduce risks by systematically examining each proposal to identify potential problems that the instructor could solve, mitigate against, or simply decide not to deal with by rejecting the proposal. We propose and evaluate a Green-Lighting Approach based on the SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory) Essence framework. Our objective is to identify if such a framework could improve the Request for Proposal process at Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley and other universities. We conducted a case study by observing and interviewing the course owner, examining a group of proposals, and identifying issues with the current proposal process and practicum projects. We proposed a green-lighting project state that, based upon Essence Alphas, describes the minimal and ideal states that a project proposal should achieve to be accepted. The Green-Lighting Approach generated conversations among the faculty that clarified the guidelines for accepting and prioritizing proposals and identified deficiencies in our Request for Proposal. Additional work is required to refine the proposed Green-Lighting Approach based on current findings and further validate the approach. Using Essence for green-lighting practicum projects in academia presents some limitations. The framework does not explicitly factor in business forces that affect proposal selection, might be overly complex for the task, and might require modification with partial Alpha states. However, Essence provides a systematic approach for evaluating proposals based on various project dimensions. This approach could be used as an inspiration for deriving simpler custom green-lighting checklists.

Flipping a graduate-level software engineering foundations course

Creating a graduate-level software engineering breadth course is challenging. The scope is wide. Students prefer hands-on work over theory. Industry increasingly values soft skills. Changing software technology requires the syllabus to be technology-agnostic, yet abstracting away technology compromises realism. Instructors must balance scope with depth of learning. At Carnegie Mellon University, we designed a flipped-classroom course that tackles these tradeoffs. The course has been offered since Fall 2014 in the Silicon Valley campus. In this paper, we describe the courses key features and summarize our experiences and lessons learned while designing, teaching, and maintaining it. We found that the pure flipped-classroom format was not optimal in ensuring sufficient transfer of knowledge, especially in remote settings. We initially underestimated teaching assistantship resources. We gradually complemented video lectures and hands-on live sessions with additional live components: easily replaceable recitations that focus on current technology and mini lectures that address application of theory and common wisdom. We also provided the students with more opportunities to share their successes and experiments with their peers. We achieved scalability by increasing the number of teaching assistants, paying attention to teaching assistant recruitment, and fostering a culture of mentoring among the teaching team.

Lessons learned from an extended participant observation grounded theory study

Context: Conducting a Grounded Theory study is rigorous, demanding, and challenging. Misperceptions exist within the software engineering community. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to describe one extended participant observation Grounded Theory study for aiding new empirical researchers wanting to run similar research studies. Method: Following Constructivist Grounded Theory, we conducted a two-year five-month participant-observation of eight software development projects at Pivotal, a software development organization, interviewed 33 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers, and analyzed one year of retrospection topics. We iterated between analysis and theoretical sampling until achieving theoretical saturation, publishing papers on team code ownership, sustainable software development through overlapping code ownership, and software development waste. Results: This paper describes the missteps, challenges, and unique insights that occurred while conducting a Grounded Theory study. Limitations: While the results are highly relevant to the researcher, the outcomes might not apply to other researchers. Conclusion: Conducting my own Grounded Theory research study, attending Glasers Seminar, and reading and rereading Charmazs and Glasers books helped the researcher overcome misperceptions about Grounded Theory research.

SECM 2017 Workshop Summary

Summary form only given. The 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials (SECM 2017) aims at bringing students, educators, and prospective employees together, to discuss the demands and challenges of software engineering education for Millennials, in both higher education and professional settings. Millennials are defined as the demographic cohort following Generation X, born between early 1980s and early 2000s. Millennials have been dominating the higher education programs for some time. This cohort has unique needs, learning styles, and skills. They are diverse, collaborative, creative, tech-savvy, and keenly interested in emerging technologies. They drive the growth of the software industry, which itself is in a constant state of flux, with new technologies, techniques, paradigms, and application domains popping up with increasing frequency. Companies quickly adjust to this shifting landscape while trying to cater to the needs of their new hires. What about educators? How should software engineering curricula and educators’ teaching styles adapt to these changes? Perspectives of students, educators, and prospective employees should be heard. Our goal is to bring them together to discuss these challenges in the context of a highly interactive workshop.

Using Essence Reflection Meetings in Team-based Project Courses

Background Many software engineering curriculum contain a team-based project course. This is the case of Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valleys masters of science in software engineering. In this context, we have been using Essence Reflection Meetings for five semesters with 17 teams and approximately 70 students. During these meetings, the teams reflect on various projects dimensions based on a systems thinking framework. The positive results have been published in research papers. Activity and Discussions Participants will learn about Essence Reflection Meetings for team-based project courses by practicing in a classroom environment. They will discuss challenges and solutions for team-based project courses, and how the proposed approach could potentially be leveraged in their own teaching environment. Organization We will start the tutorial with a discussion revealing the participants positive and negative experiences with team-based projects. After briefly introducing the Essences systems thinking framework and our research results, we will use hands-on training exercises to demonstrate how to use the approach. This will be followed with guided debriefing. Finally, we will go deeper into the Essence framework, and discuss our research results and their applicability in various teaching environments. Learning Objectives By the end of the tutorial, participants will be familiar with a systems thinking framework that they can leverage to coach their students teams and monitor their progress. They will be able to articulate the pros and cons of applying the approach in their own teaching environment.