Identifying Coordination Problems in Software Development: Finding Mismatches between Software and Project Team Structures
This addresses project management challenges in distributed software development by providing a tool for detecting coordination issues, though it is incremental as it builds on existing pattern theory and network analysis methods.
The paper tackles the problem of identifying coordination mismatches in software development by analyzing social and technical network structures, finding multiple instances of Socio-Technical Structure Clashes (STSCs) such as Conway's Law, Code Ownership, and Project Coordination in ongoing projects.
Today's dynamic and iterative development environment brings significant challenges for software project management. In distributed project settings, "management by walking around" is no longer an option and project managers may miss out on key project insights. The TESNA (TEchnical Social Network Analysis) method and tool aims to provide project managers both a method and a tool for gaining insights and taking corrective action. TESNA achieves this by analysing a project's evolving social and technical network structures using data from multiple sources, including CVS, email and chat repositories. Using pattern theory, TESNA helps to identify areas where the current state of the project's social and technical networks conflicts with what patterns suggest. We refer to such a conflict as a Socio-Technical Structure Clash (STSC). In this paper we report on our experience of using TESNA to identify STSCs in a corporate environment through the mining of software repositories. We find multiple instances of three STSCs (Conway's Law, Code Ownership and Project Coordination) in many of the on-going development projects, thereby validating the method and tool that we have developed.