Research Article
An Exploratory Study on Open Conversation Spaces in Software Engineering
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.collaboratecom.2011.247098, author={Kevin Dulllemond and Ben van Gameren and Rini van Solingen}, title={An Exploratory Study on Open Conversation Spaces in Software Engineering}, proceedings={7th International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing}, publisher={IEEE}, proceedings_a={COLLABORATECOM}, year={2012}, month={4}, keywords={conversations overhearing open conversation space collaborative software engineering case study focus group survey questionnaire}, doi={10.4108/icst.collaboratecom.2011.247098} }- Kevin Dulllemond
Ben van Gameren
Rini van Solingen
Year: 2012
An Exploratory Study on Open Conversation Spaces in Software Engineering
COLLABORATECOM
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/icst.collaboratecom.2011.247098
Abstract
Software engineering is by nature a highly collaborative activity and being able to collaborate effectively is a key factor for project success. However, collaborating effectively in Global Software Engineering, in which team members are geographically, temporally and socio-culturally separated from each other, is an important challenge. In a traditional co-located Software Engineering setting, one of the most important communication patterns is a conversation. Technological support to have conversations in a distributed setting is commonly used, however overhearing conversations of your colleagues is mostly not feasible with these tools. To explore the importance of overhearing conversations we conducted a focus group and a questionnaire in a large international software development company. In this paper we report on the qualitative data from the focus group and the quantification of this data researched with the questionnaire. Based on these findings we will make recommendations on how to support overhearing conversations in Global Software Engineering.