Context: Task interdependence is a work design factor that expresses the mutual dependency between tasks that compose a whole work. In software development, task interdependencies are created by the technical dependencies between the components of the software system and by how the development tasks are allocated to individuals in a teamwork context. Despite its importance for individual and team effectiveness, we still do not have studies about how software engineers perceive task interdependence in practice. Goal: To understand the perceptions of software engineers about the interdependence in their work and how these perceptions interact with other human and technical factors in the development process. Method: We performed an exploratory qualitative case study of a single software development team in a Brazilian software company that developed solutions for the financial market. We interviewed all 10 team members and used standard coding techniques from qualitative research to code, categorize, and synthesize data. Results: Individuals are consistent in their understanding of task interdependence and how it happens in practice. However, there are asymmetries between the individual perceptions in an interdependence relationship, which seem to exacerbate expressed feelings of anxiety and dissatisfaction. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the perception of task interdependence in software development is often not symmetrical with potential negative effects on emotional states that are related to motivation and satisfaction in the workplace.

Human behaviour is a dense longitudinal multi-featured measure that directly impacts the health of individuals in the short and long terms. Therefore, issues usually emerge from the insistence on performing risky behaviours, such as smoking or eating fast foods, which continuously increase the gap between current and beneficial health states. This paper introduces the term "health debt" as an economic metaphor to represent the quantification of this gap in domains such as sleep, contributing to physical and mental health states. Then, we present a theoretical framework that relies on behaviour change recommendations to quantify this debt. The practical instantiation of this framework relies on passively assessed sleep related data via personal wearable devices, and uses of an attention-based predictive model as the fitness function of a genetic algorithm that acts as a recommender. We evaluate this proposal by means of a case example aimed at improving the sleep duration of individuals. Results show, for example, that the use of individual rather than generic datasets produces more accurate models. At the same time, the use of constraints on the variability of behaviours features generates more feasible recommendations. These foundations open new research opportunities to support the adoption of preventive medicine based on longitudinal wearable passive data analysis.

Background: Teamwork is central component of any software development organization. Therefore, the assessment of teamwork quality is important for team management in practice. TWQ (Teamwork Quality) is a measure of the quality of intra-team interactions developed specifically for software development teams. Aims: To perform a differentiated replication of previous studies on TWQ to expand the contexts in which TWQ has been applied, to refine the measurement instrument, increasing its reliability and validity, and to identify possibilities for future research on software teams. Method: We performed a cross-sectional survey collecting data from all 18 teams in one single software organization and from all members of each team, totaling 123 participants. Results: First, we refined the measurement instrument, achieving a more reliable and parsimonious instrument. Second, our results confirmed findings from previous studies when individual level data was used, but almost no confirmation was found when data was aggregated at team level. Conclusions: Our results partially supported previous studies but raised questions about the validity of the aggregation of individual data to team level measures of the studied constructs.

Background. Testing is an essential activity in the software development life cycle. Nowadays, testing activities are widely spread along the software development process, since software products are continuously tested to meet the user's expectations and to compete in global markets. In this context, internationalization testing is defined as the practice focused on determining that a software works properly in a specific language and in a particular region. Aims. This study aims to explore the particularities of internationalization testing in the software industry and discuss the importance of this practice from the point of view of professionals working in this context. Method. We developed an exploratory qualitative study and conducted interviews with professionals from an international software company, in order to understand three aspects of internationalization testing: general characteristics and importance of this practice, particularities of the process, and the role of test automation in this context. Results. An amount of 13 professionals participated in this study. Results demonstrated that internationalization testing is mostly related to aspects of graphical user interfaces. In this context, truncation and mistranslations are the main faults observed, and test automation might be difficult to implement and maintain due to amount validations that are human-dependent. Conclusion. Internationalization testing is an important practice to guarantee the quality of software products developed for global markets. However, this aspect of software testing remains unpopular or unfamiliar among professionals. This study is a step forward in the process of informing and enlightening academic researchers and practitioners in industry about this theme.

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.

Context. Over the last several decades, computer games started to have a significant impact on society. However, although a computer game is a type of software, the process to conceptualize, produce and deliver a game could involve unusual features. In software testing, for instance, studies demonstrated the hesitance of professionals to use automated testing techniques with games, due to the constant changes in requirements and design, and pointed out the need for creating testing tools that take into account the flexibility required for the game development process. Goal. This study aims to improve the current body of knowledge regarding these theme and point out the existing particularities observed in software testing considering the development of a computer game. Method. A mixed-method approach based on a case study and a survey was applied to collect quantitative and qualitative data from practitioners regarding the particularities of software testing in game development. Results. We analyzed over 70 messages posted on three well-established network of question-and-answer communities and received answers of 38 practitioners, and identified important aspects to be observed in the process of planning, performing and reporting tests games. Conclusion. Considering computer games, software testing must focus not only on the common aspects of a general software, but also, track and investigate issues that could be related to game balance, game physics and entertainment related-aspects to guarantee the quality of computer games and a successful testing process.

Context: In organizational psychology literature, Task Variety and Skill Variety are considered different aspects of work design. Albeit related to different aspects of the work, it is common to find strong correlations between these constructs. After applying the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) on a sample of 102 software professional, we found the similar correlations and conjectured that they were partly due to a misunderstanding about what a task is, what a skill is, and what could be considered a variety of those concepts in the practice of software development. Goal: Our goal in this study was to investigate the actual existence and the possible sources of such misunderstanding. Method: We performed semi-structured interviews with software professionals that had previously participated in the application of the WDQ and analyzed the results using qualitative research techniques. We selected four software professionals among those with higher experience in software development. Results: Qualitative data revealed insights regarding the reasons why the correlation identified in the quantitative results could have arisen in our sample. Conclusions: Our findings pointed out that the misunderstanding of such concepts might affect the results of the application of quantitative questionnaires that measure these constructs.

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. Considering the importance of software testing to the development of high quality and reliable software systems, this paper aims to investigate how can work-related factors influence the motivation of software testers. Method. We applied a questionnaire that was developed using a previous theory of motivation and satisfaction of software engineers to conduct a survey-based study to explore and understand how professional software testers perceive and value work-related factors that could influence their motivation at work. Results. With a sample of 80 software testers we observed that software testers are strongly motivated by variety of work, creative tasks, recognition for their work, and activities that allow them to acquire new knowledge, but in general the social impact of this activity has low influence on their motivation. Conclusion. This study discusses the difference of opinions among software testers, regarding work-related factors that could impact their motivation, which can be relevant for managers and leaders in software engineering practice.

Context. Member checking can be defined as a research phase performed during a qualitative research in which the researcher compares her interpretations and understanding obtained from the data analysis with the view-points of participants to increase accuracy and consistency of results. This is an important step for any qualitative research. However, considering a sample of 66 case studies developed and published in the context of software engineering, only 10 studies briefly described the use of this technique. Method. In this article, we present a set of lessons learned obtained from planning and performing member checking to validate the results of an industrial case study performed in a large software company. Results. Member checking was effective to validate the findings obtained from the qualitative case study and was also useful to reveal important information not observed in the data analysis process. It has also shown to be effective to observe divergences among different groups of participants. Conclusion. We described how the member checking can be performed, and discussed seven lessons learned in this process. We expect that our experience can be useful to software engineering researchers while performing this research phase in case studies.

Context: Software development process is executed by professionals with different roles, who are responsible for distinct activities. These roles can have different degrees of autonomy depending on some factors, such as the adopted process and hierarchy. Goal: This study aims to identify what factors can impact autonomy and also investigate how autonomy is given to an employee based on two main factors: education level and professional experience. Methodology: Initially, a survey was carried out to understand how autonomy is perceived by 102 software engineers, as well as by 83 professionals from other areas. The next step was applying semi-structured interviews with software engineers to find a better understanding of the quantitative findings. Results: In general, education level and professional experience do not have an impact on autonomy. Only when autonomy is evaluated from the education level perspective, there is a significant difference among the respondents. During the interviews, we also could identify some topics that respondents mentioned which were related to autonomy. For example, the experience that software engineer has in a current project and the development process adopted by the company influence how autonomy is perceived. Conclusion: While professional qualification and experience are not directly related to autonomy, the lack of process and the amount of work experience on specific projects seem to be relevant factors to be aware of.

Questions and Answers (Q&A) websites maintain a long history of needs, problems, and challenges that software developers face. In contrast to Q&A websites, which are strongly tied to practitioners' needs, there are systematic reviews (SRs), which, according to recent studies, lack a connection with software engineering practice. In this paper, we investigate this claim by assessing to what extent systematic reviews help to solve questions posted on Q&A websites. To achieve this goal, we propose and evaluate a coverage method. We applied this method to a set of more than 600 questions related to agile software development. Results suggest that 12% of the related questions were covered. When considering specific agile methods, the majority of them have coverage below 50% or were not covered at all. We also identified 27 recurrent questions.

Context. Job Rotation is an organizational practice whereby individuals are regularly moved among jobs or projects in the same organization. Goal: To identify and discuss evidence about job rotation, in order to understand the use, the benefits, and the limitations of this practice in software organizations. Method: A systematic literature review protocol was used to identify and select empirical studies previously published in the software engineering literature, and then coding techniques were used to analyse and synthesize their findings. Results: This review identified 18 empirical papers presenting evidence of 17 distinct studies about job rotation in software engineering. These studies revealed that in software organizations job rotation has been used to enhance communication, organizational understanding, knowledge exchange, and task variety. However, its use also requires extra effort and sometimes complex planning. Conclusion: The research about job rotation in software engineering is restricted, with only one study focusing on this topic and 16 presenting non-intentional evidence about the theme. Our review synthesized evidence that could inform research and practice. However, due to the specific nature of software development tasks and jobs, empirical evidence is still needed to guide the effective application of job rotation in practice.

Context: In software project management, the decision-making process is a complex set of tasks largely based on human relations and individual knowledge and cultural background. The factors that affect the decisions of the software project managers (SPMs) as well as their potential consequences require attention because project delays and failures might be related to a series of poor decisions. Goals: To understand how SPMs make decisions based on how they interpret their experiences in the workplace. Further, to identify antecedents and consequences of those decisions in order to increase the effectiveness of project management. We also aim to refine the research design for future investigations. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with SPMs within a Brazilian large governmental organization and a Brazilian large private organization. Results: We found that decision-making in software project management is based on knowledge sharing in which the SPM acts as a facilitator. This phenomenon is influenced by individual factors, such as experience, knowledge, personality, organizational ability, communication, negotiation, interpersonal relationship and systemic vision of the project and by situational factors such as the autonomy of the SPM, constant feedback and team members' technical competence. Conclusions: Due to the uncertainty and dynamism inherent to software projects, the SPMs focus on making, monitoring and adjusting decisions in an argument-driven way. From the initial relationships among the identified factors, the research design was refined.

Context: In the workplace, some individuals engage in the voluntary and intentional generation, promotion, and realization of new ideas for the benefit of individual performance, group effectiveness, or the organization. The literature classifies this phenomenon as innovative behaviour. Despite its importance to the development of innovation, innovative behaviour has not been fully investigated in software engineering. Objective: To understand the factors that support or inhibit innovative behaviour in software engineering practice. Method: We conducted a pilot case study in a Canadian software company using interviews and observations as data collection techniques. Using qualitative analysis, we identified relevant factors and relationships not addressed by studies from other areas. Results: Individual innovative behaviour is influenced by individual attitudes and also by situational factors such as relationships in the workplace, organizational characteristics, and project type. We built a model to express the interacting effects of these factors. Conclusions: Innovative behaviour is dependent on individual and contextual factors. Our results contribute to relevant impacts on research and practice, and to topics that deserve further study.

Context: A case study is a powerful research strategy for investigating complex social-technical and managerial phenomena in real life settings. However, when the phenomenon has not been fully discovered or understood, pilot case studies are important to refine the research problem, the research variables, and the case study design before launching a full-scale investigation. The role of pilot case studies has not been fully addressed in empirical software engineering research literature. Objective: To explore the use of pilot case studies in the design of full-scale case studies, and to report the main lessons learned from an industrial pilot study. Method: We designed and conducted an exploratory case study to identify new relevant research variables that influence the innovative behaviour of software engineers in the industrial setting and to refine the full-scale case study design for the next phase of our research. Results: The use of a pilot case study identified several important research variables that were missing in the initial framework. The pilot study also supported a more sophisticated case study design, which was used to guide a full-scale study. Conclusions: When a research topic is has not been fully discovered or understood, it is difficult to create a case study design that covers the relevant research variables and their potential relationships. Conducting a full-scale case study using an untested case design can lead to waste of resources and time if the design has to be reworked during the study. In these situations, the use of pilot case studies can significantly improve the case study design.

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.

Job Rotation is an organizational practice in which individuals are frequently moved from a job (or project) to another in the same organization. Studies in other areas have found that this practice has both negative and positive effects on individuals' work. However, there are only few studies addressing this issue in software engineering so far. The goal of our study is to investigate the effects of job rotation on work related factors in software engineering by performing a qualitative case study on a large software organization that uses job rotation as an organizational practice. We interviewed senior managers, project managers, and software engineers that had experienced this practice. Altogether, 48 participants were involved in all phases of this research. Collected data was analyzed using qualitative coding techniques and the results were checked and validated with participants through member checking. Our findings suggest that it is necessary to find balance between the positive effects on work variety and learning opportunities, and negative effects on cognitive workload and performance. Further, the lack of feedback resulting from constant movement among projects and teams may have a negative impact on performance feedback. We conclude that job rotation is an important organizational practice with important positive results. However, managers must be aware of potential negative effects and deploy tactics to balance them. We discuss such tactics in this article.

Differently of the Web Accessibility Guidelines, which are already consolidated as a reference, the initiatives to develop guidelines for accessible mobile applications are recent and several approaches present only suggestions rather than a concrete list of functional requirements. This work analyzed 247 scientific articles to identify requirements that are being considered to different types of impairments. The collected information was consolidated and classified according to groups of impairments. As result, this paper presents the main points of a checklist proposal for functional requirements, which should be considered by mobile applications to ensure accessibility with usability.

Context: Current empirical research highlight the need for replications of empirical studies because replications plays an important role in the construction of scientific knowledge. Objective: Considering the importance of replications in the consolidation of the knowledge produced in the software engineering research, this study aims to update and extend the results produced in a previous mapping study seeking to discuss the current state of the replication work of empirical studies performed in software engineering research between 2011 and 2012. Method: We applied the systematic review method to search and select published papers, to extract, and synthesize data from reported replications. Results: This study analyzed more than 7,000 articles, from which 39 articles that published replications between 2011 and 2012 were selected. Data extracted from these studies were used to update the information about the replications work in software engineering. Conclusion: The number of replications increased significantly in the period, when compared to the previous mapping study. In particular, the percentage of external replications also increased, with respect to internal ones. However, several other limitations identified in the previous mapping studies are still observed in this new set of replications.

When multimedia applications intend to support accessibility, aspects of usability must be reviewed to adapt or extend common functional requirements that are implemented to ensure an easy use of applications. Furthermore, these requirements must be identified and analyzed in a contextualized way, since different types of impairments require different types of requirements. This work analyzed 247 scientific and technological articles to identify requirements that are being considered to different types of impairments. The collected information was consolidated and classified according to groups of impairments. As result, this paper brings a checklist proposal focused on requirements for vision impaired users that should be considered by mobile multimedia applications to ensure accessibility with usability.

Context. A recent mapping study intended to verify the current state of replication of empirical studies in Software Engineering (SE) identified two sets of studies: the empirical studies reporting actually replications and a second group of studies that were concerned with concepts, classifications, guidelines, and other themes about replication. Objective. The purpose of this research is to analyze and discuss the content of the second set of studies about replications published between 1996 and 2013. Method. This is a mapping study, in which the primary studies were collected by two previous mapping studies covering the period 1996-2012 complemented by a non-systematic search that collected some articles published in 2013. Results. We analyzed 36 papers reporting empirical and non-empirical studies about replications in SE published in the last 17 years. These papers explored different topics related to concepts and classifications, presented guidelines, and discussed theoretical issues that are relevant for our understanding of replication in our field.

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.

Context. A decade ago, Kitchenham, Dybå and Jørgensen argued that software engineering could benefit from an evidence-based research approach similar that that used in medicine, introducing the basis for Evidence Based Software Engineering (EBSE). Objective. Our main goal is to understand the evolution of the use of systematic reviews as the main research method in EBSE, as proposed by Kitchenham et al., by investigating primary and tertiary studies that explore any aspect, theory, or concept around the use of systematic reviews in software engineering. Method. A systematic mapping study protocol was used to find and selected studies about EBSE and systematic reviews in SE, published between 2004 and 2013. Results. We selected 52 unique papers classified as non-empirical studies (12), empirical studies (31), and tertiary studies (9). Conclusion. SLR has become an important component of software engineering research with nearly 200 unique reviews catalogued by the tertiary studies. Most important limitations are related to the industrial relevance and application of the results of reviews and the poor use of synthesis method to aggregate evidence

Context: Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a particular type of secondary study used as the main research method in evidence based research and practice. The starting point of a SLR should be a problem from the practice and the results should, somehow, have an impact on improving practice. Objective: To investigate the motivation of software engineering researchers to conduct a SLR and how the results of their reviews are potentially impacting the software engineering practice. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional survey with authors of 120 SLRs published between 2004 and 2010 identified by three tertiary studies previously published. Results: Forty-four authors of SLR participate in the survey. The motivation behind the vast majority of the SLRs was to gather knowledge about a particular field of study. However, only six participants affirmed that their reviews actually had a direct impact in industrial practice. Conclusions: The use of SLR has increased over the years but they were mostly focused on academic problems and had very little impact on industrial practice. Therefore, the full potential benefits of evidence-based software engineering are not being achieved.

Context: The increase in the number of qualitative and mixed-methods research published in software engineering has created an opportunity for further knowledge generation through the synthesis of studies with similar aims. This is particularly true in the research on human aspects because the phenomena of interest are often better understood using qualitative research. However, the use of qualitative synthesis methods is not widespread and worked examples of their consistent application in software engineering are needed. Objective: To explore the use of meta-ethnography in the synthesis of empirical studies in software engineering through an example using studies about the relations between personality and software team processes. Methods: We applied the seven phases of meta-ethnography on a set of articles selected from a previously developed systematic review, to assess the appropriateness of meta-ethnography in this domain with respect to ease of use, and usefulness and reliability of results. Results: Common concepts were identified through reading and interpreting the studies. Then, second order translations were built and used to synthesize a model of the relationships between personality and software team processes. Conclusions: Meta-ethnography is adequate in the synthesis of empirical studies even in the context of mixed-methods studies. However, we believe that the method should not be used to synthesize studies that are too disparate to avoid the development of gross generalizations, which tend to be fruitless and are contrary to the central tenets of interpretive research.

From September 2011 to May 2012, Microsoft delivered three pre-releases of Windows 8. Its principal goal was to present the features of this operating system (OS) and motivate the development of new applications to this platform. However, as any pre-release version, several parts of the code and related documentations were incomplete. Furthermore, its APIs were very prone to be changed until the final release. Even considering such risks, the company X decided to face these challenges and create an application to be embedded into Windows 8 tablets as soon as this OS was released. This paper discusses interesting aspects of this adventure and some lessons that may be important to development teams that intend to trail this kind of project. Metrics are also used to better characterize some of these aspects.

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.

The Technical Debt (TD) metaphor has been used as a way to manage and communicate long-term consequences that some decisions may cause. However the state of the art in TD has not culminated yet in rigorous analysis models for large-scale projects. This work analyses an industrial project, from the perspective of its decisions and related events, so that we can better characterize the existence of TD and show the evolution of its parameters. The project in study had a life cycle of six years (2005-2011) and its data for analysis was collected from emails, documents, CVS logs, code files and interviews with developers and project managers. From this analysis, we identified the factors that had influence on the project decisions and their impact on the system along the time. Furthermore, we were able to extract a set of lessons associated with the characterization of TD in projects of this port.

Nowadays, there is a growing concern about the energy consumption of the ICT industry. This fact has given rise to a lot of energy saving research activities, which mainly focus on the hardware side of computational systems. However, it is tempting to suppose that only hardware dissipates power, not software. This paper discusses several software methods, which could be explored to develop energy-efficient mobile techniques. We argue that the development of applications that consider the energy saving, as one of their requirements, can result in a significant final energy saving because solutions will be part of the own software and they do not depend of external resources to obtain a lower consumption.

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 The influence of individual personalities on individual tasks and team work has been a concern in software engineering over the past 50 years. However, how to use personality analysis and what it can offer for the practice of software engineering is still subject to debate among researchers. Aim The goal of this work is to identify the methods used, topics addressed, personality tests applied, and the main findings produced in the research about personality in software engineering. Method We performed a systematic literature review of peer reviewed studies published between 1970 and 2010. Results Data extracted from 42 studies shows that pair programming and team building are the most recurring research topics and MBTI is the most used test. Conclusions Contradicting evidences were found that may have been caused by differences in context, research method, and versions of the tests used in the studies. While this raises a warning for practitioners that wish to use of personality tests in practice, it shows several opportunities for researchers.

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.

The technical debt metaphor is increasingly being used to describe the effect of delaying certain software maintenance tasks on software projects. Practitioners understand intuitively how technical debt can turn into a serious problem if it is left unattended. However, it remains unknown how serious the problem is and whether explicit measurement and management of technical debt is useful. In this paper, we explore the effect of technical debt by tracking a single delayed maintenance task in a real software project throughout its lifecycle and simulate how explicit technical debt management might have changed project outcomes. The results from this study demonstrate how and to what extent technical debt affects software projects. The study also sheds light on the research methodologies that can be used to investigate the technical debt management problem.

Recent advances in computing and communication technology have led to increased use of mobile devices. A trend in this area is the integration of different applications in a single general-purpose device, often resulting in much higher energy consumption and consequently much reduced battery life. This higher consumption brings up problems for the mobile evolution, once developers cannot use all the potential of the current technology. Furthermore, a higher consumption is also against the current trend of green computing, which tries to create more energy saving and eco-friendly computational systems. This paper discusses our efforts in creating techniques to optimize the energy consumption of mobiles and also creating a certification program that can verify if a mobile could be considered “green”. Results and details about our literature review, laboratory setup, experiments, list of good practices and others are given along this paper.

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.

The wireless network evolution has allowed that the handset technology provides a broad and new set of resources and facilities to their users. However, this evolution is also increasing the number and complexity of testing prior to handsets deployment, so that there is a need to apply methodologies to ensure the quality of the test process while it evolves. This paper relates how the DMAIC framework could be used as an option to ensure and improve the quality of handsets network test processes. DMAIC is a six sigma framework based on measures and statistical analysis, which has commonly been applied during several stages of software development. Our focus, in this paper, is on the definition of the DMAIC phases and how this framework could be useful to stress problems and lead the effort of tests corrections and improvements.