An Uneasy Truce: Navigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration in the Software Industry

Abstract

Over the past few decades, much has been written about the ways in which project teams bring technologies to market.  In this context, social scientists typically partner with specialized designers to bring their research and new concepts to life in a way that is consumable by a variety of team members, including engineers and data scientists.  This paper explores one such collaboration, and describes the challenging conditions that team members face — both in their work context and with their peers — in imagining and building a commercially viable software product.