As software systems continue to grow in complexity, testing has become a fundamental part of ensuring the quality and reliability of software products. Yet, software testing is still often perceived, both in industry and academia, as a repetitive, low-skill activity. This perception fails to recognize the creativity, problem-solving, and adaptability required in testing work. Tasks such as designing complex test cases, automating testing processes, and handling shifting requirements illustrate the challenges testing professionals regularly face. To better understand these experiences, we conducted a study with software testing professionals to explore the nature of challenging tasks in software testing and how they affect these professionals. Our findings show that tasks involving creativity, ongoing learning, and time pressure are often seen as motivating and rewarding. On the other hand, a lack of challenge or overwhelming demands can lead to frustration and disengagement. These findings demonstrate the importance of balancing task complexity to sustain motivation and present software testing as a dynamic and intellectually engaging field.

CONTEXT: Self-efficacy is a concept researched in various areas of knowledge that impacts various factors such as performance, satisfaction, and motivation. In Software Engineering, it has mainly been studied in the academic context, presenting results similar to other areas of knowledge. However, it is also important to understand its impact in the industrial context. OBJECTIVE: Therefore, this study aims to understand the impact on the software development context with a focus on understanding the behavioral signs of self-efficacy in software engineers and how self-efficacy can impact the work-day of software engineers. METHOD: A qualitative research was conducted using semi-structured questionnaires with 31 interviewees from a software development company located in Brazil. The interviewees participated in a Bootcamp and were later assigned to software development teams. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: In the perception of the interviewees, 21 signs were found that are related to people with high and low self-efficacy. These signs were divided into two dimensions: social and cognitive. Also, 18 situations were found that can lead to an increase or decrease of self-efficacy of software engineers. Finally, 12 factors were mentioned that can impact software development teams. CONCLUSION: This work evidences a set of behavioral signs that can help team leaders to better perceive the self-efficacy of their members. It also presents a set of situations that both leaders and individuals can use to improve their self-efficacy in the development context, and finally, factors that can be impacted by self-efficacy in the software development context are also presented. Finally, this work emphasizes the importance of understanding self-efficacy in the industrial context.

Nowadays, software testing professionals are commonly required to develop coding skills to work on test automation. One essential skill required from those who code is the ability to implement code refactoring, a valued quality aspect of software development; however, software developers usually encounter obstacles in successfully applying this practice. In this scenario, the present study aims to explore how software testing professionals (e.g., software testers, test engineers, test analysts, and software QAs) deal with code refactoring to understand the benefits and limitations of this practice in the context of software testing. We followed the guidelines to conduct surveys in software engineering and applied three sampling techniques, namely convenience sampling, purposive sampling, and snowballing sampling, to collect data from testing professionals. We received answers from 80 individuals reporting their experience refactoring the code of automated tests. We concluded that in the context of software testing, refactoring offers several benefits, such as supporting the maintenance of automated tests and improving the performance of the testing team. However, practitioners might encounter barriers in effectively implementing this practice, in particular, the lack of interest from managers and leaders. Our study raises discussions on the importance of having testing professionals implement refactoring in the code of automated tests, allowing them to improve their coding abilities.

Context: The proper management of people can help software organisations to achieve higher levels of success. However, the limited attention paid to the appropriate use of theories to underpin the research in this area leaves it unclear how to deal with human aspects of software engineers, such as motivation and satisfaction. Objectives: This article aims to expose what drives the motivation and satisfaction of software engineers at work. Methods: A multiple case study was conducted at four software organisations in Brazil. For 11 months, data was collected using semi-structured interviews, diary studies, and document analyses. Results: The Theory of Motivation and Satisfaction of Software Engineers (TMS-SE), presented in this article, combines elements from well established theories with new findings, and translates them into the software engineering context. Conclusion: The TMS-SE advances the understanding of people management in the software engineering field and presents a strong conceptual framework for future investigations in this area.

The motivation of software engineers has been a recurring object of study with the aim of seeking a greater and healthier performance in software development teams. Although few studies associate the use of agile methods with motivation, they have not been able to explain the reasons beyond this connection. Oriented by a theory of work motivation of software engineers, this paper aims to investigate how agile practices are related to the motivation of these individuals. A research questionnaire was designed to evaluate the correlation between the use of agile attributes and job characteristics associated to work motivation. A total of 90 software engineers in 12 Brazilian states and 48 different companies participated in the survey, and results indicate that 24 of 25 of the agile attributes have significant correlations with at least one of the characteristics of the work that ignites motivation. Following agile requirements management process and Delivering valuable functionalities earlier are among the most impacting practices.

Background: In Software Engineering (SE) the term maturity is often linked to the work process and product quality. In many cases, team maturity is seen as a backdrop to the process of SE, and sometimes as something that is known to exist, but which cannot be understood, neither measured accurately nor even dimension its value. Aim: In this article, we seek to understand the concept of mature teams in the context of SE, from the perspective of the software engineers themselves. Methods: We performed an exploratory qualitative research, collecting data from 26 practitioners, from 6 companies in 4 cities in Brazil. Data was analyzed using coding techniques from qualitative research. Results: Our findings pointed out three major dimensions of the concept of Team Maturity - Learning, Relationship and Technical Maturity - which, when kept in balance, can enhance the collective productivity, product quality and also the customer satisfaction. Conclusions: These results extend our current understanding of maturity of SE teams, shedding light on aspects that have been little explored so far in this field. The proposed model can serve as a guide for teams to enhance their approach of teamwork and for future research in this area.

Context - Software companies should track innovation as rigorously as core business operations. For that, the assessment of innovation projects is a critical process, in particular to make their innovation initiatives funded. Objective - In this article, we aim to evaluate the need for more practical measurement tools, by checking the agreement of very experienced analysts, from the industry, about the innovation degree of four actual software projects. Method - We conducted a survey with eight business analysts, using a combination of the Three Horizons Model and the Gartner's Hyper Cycle for emerging technologies as a frame of reference. Results - In general, the level of agreement about the innovation degree in the projects was very low. Looking at the cases in isolation, it is possible to suggest reasons for the low level of agreement between the evaluators. Conclusions - Our data support the fact that innovation is an activity difficult to characterize and even more difficult to measure, and the need for practices to achieve better intersubjective agreement for innovation assessment became evident in this work.

Context: The code ownership has influence on various aspects of software development, such as code quality, cooperation and team knowledge. However, there are few studies from the point of view of developers that seek to understand the advantages and disadvantages of code ownership. Goals: to investigate what are the advantages and disadvantages of practicing shared code ownership from the perspective of the software developers. Methodology: A qualitative study was conducted using a semi-structured interviews in three technology companies with different profiles. We conducted 19 interviews, that were audio recorded and then transcribed. We coded the data using qualitative coding techniques. Results: Considering companies' context, we have found six advantages and six disadvantages of using shared code ownership. Five proposition were presented. Conclusion: It is noted that the practice of shared code ownership, as described in theory, is more suitable for a more experienced programmers teams, who are able to understand codes without assistance. However, the adaptation of the practice, in which the author is consulted before any change is done, it is necessary for less experienced teams, who feel unsecure to modify the code cause other errors for the project.

Context: Work Design refers to the different ways in which a given work or task can be designed and performed. The study of work design is important because every decision related to how the work is performed can affect the outcomes of individuals and the effectiveness of teamwork. Goal: To investigate work design characteristics of software engineering work and identify areas for future research. Method: We performed a survey with professional software engineers working in different commercial software companies in Brazil. We sent invitations to just over 150 professionals and received 77 valid answers from participants working in 35 distinct software companies. We measured 21 work design constructs, as well as job burnout, role conflict, role ambiguity, and two constructs related to job rotation. Results: Comparisons of our sample with other sample consisting of a diversity of professions showed that software engineering work has distinct characteristics, but some results require further investigation. Conclusion: We identified relevant characteristics of software engineering work and areas for further research. In particular, longitudinal studies are needed to address the temporal variations impossible to identify in cross sectional studies.

Context -- Motivation and job satisfaction are not the same thing, and although business organization research recognized this a long time ago, in Software Engineering research, we have not. As a result, thirty years of research on motivation in software engineering has produced knowledge on what makes software engineers generally happier, but not about how to increase their motivation. Goal -- In this article, we aim to identify visible signs of a software engineer who is motivated to work. Method -- We describe a field study in which 62 practitioners in Brazil reported their view of "motivation" in the context of their practical work. Data was collected by means of audio-recorded semi-structured interviews, and a thematic analysis was applied to identify the most relevant descriptors of motivation. Results -- Our data reveal that (1) motivated Software Engineers are engaged, focused, and collaborative; and (2) the term "motivation" is used as an umbrella term to cover several distinct organizational behaviours that are not necessarily related to the individual's desire to work. Conclusions -- Without a clear picture of the difference between these two concepts, work-based motivation programs may not be designed effectively to address either turnover or performance issues. Overall, this work indicates the need for a more effective conceptual system to investigate and encourage both job satisfaction and work motivation in software engineering research and practice.

Context- A common problem in Systematic Reviews in software engineering is that they provide very limited syntheses. Goal- In the search for alternatives of effective methods for synthesizing empirical evidence, in this paper, we explore the use of the Qualitative Metasummary method, which is a quantitatively oriented aggregation of mixed research findings. Method - We describe the use of qualitative metasummary through an example using 15 studies addressing antecedents of performance of software development teams. Qualitative metasummary includes extraction and grouping of findings, and calculation of frequency and intensity effect sizes. Results -- The instance described in this paper produced a 10-factor model that effectively summarizes the current empirical knowledge on performance of software development teams. Then, we assessed the method in terms of ease of use, usefulness and reliability of results. Conclusion -- The Qualitative Metasummary method offers rich indexes of experiences and events under investigation, focusing on the effects of a variable over other, which is consistent with the central interest of systematic reviews. However, its main limitations are (i) challenging comparability/integratability between primary studies, (ii) loss of detailed contextual information, (iii) and the great deal of effort demanded to synthesize larger sets of papers.

Background - The research about motivation in software engineering has provided important insights in characterizing what are the factors and outcomes related to motivation. However, the complex relationships among these factors, including the moderating and mediating effects of organizational and individual characteristics, still require deeper explanatory investigation. Aim - Our general goal is to build explanatory theories of motivation in software organizations. In this article, we describe the construction of a grounded theory of motivation in the context of a government software development organization. Method - We performed a case study of a government software organization, focusing on the software engineers as the unit of analysis. For eight months, we conducted semi structured interviews, diary studies, and documental analyses, and analyzed the collected data using grounded theory procedures. Results - We extracted contextual factors that affect the motivation of software engineers and the outcomes associated with motivated behavior. Relationships among factors and outcomes were used to construct propositions that explain motivated behavior. Finally, the factors and propositions with higher explanatory power were used to create the central story of motivation in the organization. Conclusions - The balance between Job Stability and Growth Needs emerged as the core factors related to the motivation in the organization. Unclear growth perspectives combined with priorities based on political instead of technical aspects directly affected the intention to leave the organization.

ABSTRACT Distributed software development (DSD) has intensified over the past few years, and DSD project management is more complex than collocated project management. However, no systematic research effort has focused on aggregating evidence from the scientific literature to build models to support project management on DSD context. For these reasons, the goal of this paper is to build an evidence‐based model of DSD project management from the research findings about challenges of DSD and the practices, models and tools proposed and used to overcome these challenges. We based the construction of this model on the evidence collected and synthesized by a comprehensive systematic mapping study of 70 research papers published between 1997 and 2009. We believe that our results can help practitioners and researchers to better understand the challenges and implement more effective solutions to improve project management within distributed project management teams. These results also provide a mapping of the research about DSD project management, identifying areas where further research is needed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Background/Aim - Given the relevance and importance that the understanding of motivation has gained in the field of software engineering, this work was carried out in order to update the results of a literature review carried out in 2006 on motivation in software engineering. Method - Based on guidelines for this specific type of study, we replicated the original study protocol. Results - The combination of manual and automatic searches retrieved 6,534 papers, of which 53 relevant papers were selected for data extraction and analysis. Conclusions - Studies address motivation using several viewpoints and approaches and, even though the number of researches increased in this area, the overall understanding of what actually motivates software engineers does not seem to have significantly advanced in the last five years.

The goal of this article is to identify criteria used in industrial practice to select members of a software project team, and to look for relationships between these criteria and project success. Initially, using semi-structured interviews for data collection and qualitative methods for data analysis and synthesis, a set of team building criteria was identified from project managers in industry. Then, using this set of criteria and a method to evaluate software project success, a survey questionnaire was created to investigate the relationship between the consistent use or application of the criteria and project success. A cross-sectional survey collected data from 48 projects in 24 software companies and the data was analyzed for internal reliability using statistical methods. The findings show that the consistent use of the set of criteria correlated significantly with project success, and the criteria related to human factors present the strongest correlations.

In this article, factors considered critical for the success of projects managed using Scrum are correlated to the results of software projects in industry. Using a set of 25 factors compiled in by other researchers, a cross section survey was conducted to evaluate the presence or application of these factors in 11 software projects that used Scrum in 9 different software companies located in Recife-PE, Brazil. The questionnaire was applied to 65 developers and Scrum Masters, representing 75% (65/86) of the professionals that have participated in the projects. The result was correlated with the level of success achieved by the projects, measured by the subjective perception of the project participant, using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The main finding is that only 32% (8/25) of the factors correlated positively with project success, raising the question of whether the factors hypothesized in the literature as being critical to the success of agile software projects indeed have an effect on project success. Given the limitations regarding the generalization of this result, other forms of empirical results, in particular case-studies, are needed to test this question.

After a seminal article introducing-evidence based software engineering in 2004, systematic reviews (SR) have been increasingly used as a method for conducting secondary studies in software engineering. Our goal is to critically appraise the use of SR in software engineering with respect to the research questions asked and the ways the questions were used in the reviews. We analyzed 53 literature reviews that had been collected in two published tertiary studies. We found that over 65% of the research questions asked in the reviews were exploratory and only 15% investigated causality questions. We concluded that there is a need for a consistent use of terminology to classify secondary studies and that reports of literature reviews should follow reporting guidelines to support assessment and comparison.

This paper presents a systematic literature review of the challenges, best practices, models, and tools in Distributed Software Development (DSD) Project Management. The objective is to collect and systematize reported knowledge in terms of what are the difficulties in managing DSD projects, what are the best practices to overcome these difficulties, and how existing models and tools support these practices. We found 54 works related to DSD project management, published between 1998 and 2009. Using the data systematically extracted from these works, we propose an evidence-based DSD project management improvement model. Our contention is that this model can support practitioners and researchers to better understand the landscape of DSD project challenges and devise more effective solutions to improve project management in a distributed setting.

This article describes a survey which aims to identify the relative importance of a set of factors that affect the motivation of software engineers at work. The conceptual underpinnings of human motivation used in the research are the expectancy theory and the motivation-hygiene theory. In the study, a survey was conducted involving 176 software engineers from the State of Pernambuco, Brazil. Data collected with the survey received statistical treatment to test correlation among the motivational factors, and the existing correlations were used to create a partial order relation that reflects relative importance, or systemic influence, among motivational factors. This is an important result for the definition of motivational programs in software organizations. The findings of this study contribute to the construction of empirically based methods for building and developing effective software engineering teams.