ebook img

Finding out what goes on in a software development organization PDF

52 Pages·1993·1.4 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Finding out what goes on in a software development organization

Ot:M^ty T55.4 .W2 '?3 Finding Out What Goes On in a Software Development Organization I Dewayne E. Perryi Nancy A. Staudenmayer^ Lawrence G. Votta, Jr.i WP November 1993 # 99-93 INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON THE MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY S^E%^ Massachusetts Institute of Technology <^lngn Qrhnnl nf ^^gnanQmQnt The International Center for Research on the Management of Technology Finding Out What Goes On in a Software Development Organization Dewayne E. Perry^ Nancy A. Staudenmayer^ Lawrence G. Votta, Jr.^ WP November 1993 # 99-93 AT&T 1. Bell Laboratories 2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology WP# Sloan 3626-93 © 1993 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology 38 Memorial Drive, E56-390 MA Cambridge, 02139-4307 M.l.T. LIBRARIES JAN 5 1994 RECEIVED Acknowledgement We would like to recognize the extremely hard work ofour collaborators who made edl these experimentspossible: M.G. Bradac, D.O. Knudson, and D. Loge. ProfessorTomAllenat MITbrought us together, while Peter Weinberger, Eric Sumner and Gerry Ramage provided the financial support for this work. Professor Marcie Tyre of MIT was particularly helpful, providing extensive input along the way and pointing us in the direction of relevant organizational theory literature. W.J. Infosino's early suggestions regardingexperimental design issues and A. Caso'seditingofthe paperarealso much appreciated. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the cooperation, work and honesty ofthe study subjects and theircolleagues and management for supportingourwork withtheirparticipation. ABSTRACT Time and motion studiesconstitute aproven approach to understanding and improving anyengineering enterprise. We believe software processes are no different in this respect; hou'ever, the fact that software development yields a collaborative intellectual, as opposed to physical, output Ccills for careful and creative measurement techniques. In attempting to answer the question 'where does time go in software development?' we have been experimenting with two relatively uncommon forms of data collection in the software development field: time diaries and direct observation. This paper describes the latter in which we drew upon experimental techniques from the behavioral sciences to observe engineers developing software in a large organization. We have found that both methods of research are feasible and yield useful information about time utilization. The major source ofdiscrepancy is granulcirity: most software developers are not capable of retrospectively reporting the large number of unplanned interruptions and transitory events that typically characterize their working day. We were able to quantify the effect of such social processes using the observational data.

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.