Colloquium Details
Studying Coordination In Software Teams Using a Model of Socio-technical Congruence
| Author: | Irwin Kwan Oregon State University |
|---|---|
| Date: | May 10, 2012 |
| Time: | 15:30 |
| Location: | 220 Deschutes |
| Host: | Stuart Faulk |
Abstract
Coordination in software development is necessary because a software team cannot perform unless its members communicate and maintain awareness of each other's activities. Recently, the concept of socio-technical congruence has emerged: this technique measures socio-technical coordination by calculating the alignment between technical relationships and social relationships.
In this talk, I propose a socio-technical congruence model that refines conceptualizations of technical and social relationships in socio-technical coordination. I first develop the model based on related work, then conduct two empirical investigations of coordination: The first study examines awareness in a small global team using observational studies and the second study examines email archives to identify important communicators and people who emerge in coordination. I then apply the model to a third empirical investigation of a large global team to study the relationship between socio-technical congruence and team performance. The improved socio-technical congruence model sheds light on the relationship between software engineering coordination and project performance and quality.
Biography
Irwin Kwan is a post-doctorate scholar at Oregon State University with Dr. Margaret Burnett where he is now focusing on how human-computer interaction concepts come together with software development efforts by end-user programmers as well as by professional developers. He received his PhD degree in 2011 at the University of Victoria with the Software Engineering Global interAction Lab (SEGAL) working in the area of global software engineering. He also has a Master's of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and a Baccalaureate of Applied Science degree in software engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada. His interests includes empirical software engineering, collaborative software development and information-seeking practices within software-development organizations.